Should the Bible be taken as 100% true?

[fallingblood]

WE, (meaning everyone), does no such thing. You're right, because even I will not debate with a hardhead. And elephants never had tails like a cedar ---- Hebrew not withstanding.

We does not always necessarily mean everyone. It is much easier to use it as a generalization than going into detail about exactly who in every case. Very seldom though does it really mean everyone.

In this case though, we is used correctly because we are all given the same information, or at least are able to achieve said information. Some simply just choose to ignore it.

Also, calling me a hardhead is simply untrue and unsupported. It is a logical fallacy, which proves nothing except that you won't debate. The only people who accept that Dinosaurs existed in Biblical times is a minority who simply refused to submit to logic and reasoning. One can only ignore the facts for so long. Also, if they did exist, wouldn't we have fossils of their bodies? And wouldn't Noah also have included them on the Ark? And if they existed after that time, then what happened to all of them? There is no evidence anywhere else that would suggest the survival of dinosaurs. Was it simply something special for the Hebrews?

Finally, the explanation that I gave for that verse is actually commonly accepted by a majority of Christians and scholars. Most will say that it was probably an elephant of a hippo (I don't really understand the latter per se, but in the actual Hebrew, it would have been possible). Also, an elephant may not have a tail that large, but the trunk certainly is (well, not exactly the size, but it would be logical to assume it was an exaggeration based on the context).

As for Sodom and Gomorrah, there are candidates to the two cities, but the Biblical story does not hold up to the archeology that has been done there.

I might reiterate this though since you never answered before. Revelations states that a seven headed beast will rise out of the sea. Is that also suppose to be literal?

 

[AxisMundi]

A FLOOD where the god's flood the entire earth except for one family and a boat full of animals not a local flood story...

...is absolutely impossible.

1. Not enough water on the planet.

2. No, and I mean NO, evidence for said WWF. No marine fossils on top of mountains that where not once inland sea bottoms, no thick layer of calcium and fossil remains showing a complete and instantanious die-out of everything on the planet, etc ad nasuem.

3. Millions of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, plus their feed for over a year (including raw meat), are NOT going to fit aboard ANY craft.

4. The millions of tons of seed to reforest the planet isn't going to fit aboard ANY craft either.

5. The Minimum Viable Population factor, which also incidentally dismantles the Adam and Eve myth, would also see not only the human race dead in a few generations, but every other species as well.

So, what evidence can you offer for a WWF?

 

[AxisMundi]

With GOD all things are possible. For thousands of detailed fossils to exist for 300 million years is highly suspect to my way of thinking. Sodom and Gomorrah were overturned. They have found grave sites and what appear to be several reservoirs. And honestly, what one should be looking for is ZOAR ---- it was the only city of the plain spared for Lot's sake...

Sorry, but "Goddunnit" isn't a viable option, and niether is your lame apologetics.

 

[TheKnight]

That depends on how you choose to employ the term "false," and I'm not at all interested in playing silly word games with you. But, for a start, read ...

​

and get back to me ...

I am actually currently deeply involved in a study of the Guide.

Please realize, I did not say that the Torah is 100% literal, but that it was 100% true. There is a difference between the two.

 

[JustWondering2]

Ok folks. All you out there who cling to the young Earth side of things and say that sciences use of radiometric dating and such are flawed.....etc, etc. Oh and to lesser extent those that deny glodal climate change (note I didn't say that dirty "warming" word). You need to check out some science that hopfully anyone with a high school education and a normal amount of gray matter between their ears and the ability to use said gray matter can understand. To understand what they say you don't need a degree in physics or an understanding of the atom. It's only takes plain common sense. It's a readable visual record (ice cores) from Antartica and other sites. The oldest of which is said to go back 800,000 years! Forget about what their data says about what the ice contains or a least take it with a grain of salt since some of the data is a bit subjective. They don't claim precision down to the a few years or even 10's of years. But clearly what they do show is a history of ice existing on Earth for several HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of years! Not 6 or 8 or even 10 thousand. Oh and a side note the cores do not show ANY evidence of a WWF, period! Oh and note the altitude of the station where the cores were taken about 3000 meters above sea level. For those metric chalange folks, that's about 9,000 feet or about 1/3 of Mount Everest at 29,000.
This is a very interesting read for anyone who is interested in the history of the Earth. Oh sure I know what your saying "they could be off in their dating", but by a factor of 100,000? Come on, open your eyes and your mind to the facts.

I hope this makes more sense to you folks who cling to the YE thinking. To those who were taught as children to believe the Bible as 100% true (literally) and esspectially the fundamentalist Christian. I bet you thought (because of your parents) Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy were real as well! All these were tools used to keep you in line and incourage you to mind your parents, just as the early church used OT stories (quilt) their partioners into keeping their pews full an the money and power coming in. As adults do you believe in Santa anymore? If you how these old myths to be true you might have seen the Flintsones as a documentary! Gee I thought it was true when I was a kid too, but I grew up and stopped believing in fairy tales and opened my mind to different points of view.
OK I'll step down off my soapbox now and give you the link. Sorry for the rant, but some things can be so obvious if you look at them with an open mind and with out prejudice!
Alan
OK looks like I need to post more because I'm not allowed to post links yet.
So go to Wikipedia and search for European Project for Ice Coring in Antartica

 

[JustWondering2]

Or even better than Wiki is a site called talkorigins.org

 

[berrychrisc]

The Bible, or any other sacred text, should not be taken literally. The point of sacred texts is to help us in our quest for a personal relationship with God. Whenever these texts have been brought out of the spiritual realm and applied to the physical world, much suffering has resulted.

 

[logician]

The Bible, or any other sacred text, should not be taken literally. The point of sacred texts is to help us in our quest for a personal relationship with God. Whenever these texts have been brought out of the spiritual realm and applied to the physical world, much suffering has resulted.

I think most Christiasns believe Jesus was a "literal" person and in general beleive that the Apostles's creed is true. Do you disagree with them?

 

[berrychrisc]

I think most Christiasns believe Jesus was a "literal" person and in general beleive that the Apostles's creed is true. Do you disagree with them?

I believe there was an actual person named Jesus that was a teacher and healer, and embodied God in some special way. That is quite different from believing that the Bible is 100% true, as the original post asked. The message of Jesus was very simple: love God and other people. The Bible was written by other men many years after Jesus died, and is only a small remnant of the writings that once existed about him.

 

[Agnostic75]

Well, what is the Bible? No originals are available. Even if some of the originals were available, how could we know that they were originals and not copies?

Constantine and Eusebius had a lot to say regarding what was and was not Scripture, and who was and was not orthodox.

 

[Agnostic75]

I do not take the contradictory stories of the death of Judas literally. In addition, I do not take Ezekiel's claim that God would give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as a compensation for his failure to defeat Tyre literally because it did not happen.

If global warming ends up destroying the human race, so much for Bible prophecy, but believe it or not, I read at the Internet recently that at least one Christian said that the Bible predicts global warming.

 

[LittleNipper]

I do not take the contradictory stories of the death of Judas literally. In addition, I do not take Ezekiel's claim that God would give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as a compensation for his failure to defeat Tyre literally because it did not happen.

If global warming ends up destroying the human race, so much for Bible prophecy, but believe it or not, I read at the Internet recently that at least one Christian said that the Bible predicts global warming.

Unfortunately, the history of these events is a bit hazy, so it possible that Nebuchadnezzar achieved some great victory over Egypt that we don't know about.

 

[Agnostic75]

There is an easy explanation. The Old Testament is not followed literally as the New Testament supersedes it. Matthew gives the best example of this belief. Basically, Jesus becomes the new Moses and redefines the laws, making the old ones obsolete.

The problem comes when one realizes though that the Bible is not meant to be taken literally, and never was intended as such.

Are you saying that the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not want their readers to believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead?

 

[Agnostic75]

Unfortunately, the history of these events is a bit hazy, so it possible that Nebuchadnezzar achieved some great victory over Egypt that we don't know about.

If Nebuchadnezzar achieved a great victory over Egypt, I believe that some historical records would show that. The same goes even moreso regarding the Ten Plagues in Egypt. 0

At any rate, it is a virtual certainty that a global flood did not occur.

Advocates of a localized flood have a problem. If God was only angry with people who lived in a localized area, surely some people who lived in that area would have been outside of the area for various reasons, and would have survived the flood.

 

[LittleNipper]

If Nebuchadnezzar achieved a great victory over Egypt, I believe that some historical records would show that. The same goes even moreso regarding the Ten Plagues in Egypt. 0

At any rate, it is a virtual certainty that a global flood did not occur.

Advocates of a localized flood have a problem. If God was only angry with people who lived in a localized area, surely some people who lived in that area would have been outside of the area for various reasons, and would have survived the flood.

The Egyptians were NEVER noted for their honest presentation of history. They expunged entire reigns if it suited making the new ruler appear more of a god they presented themselves to be. PS> God's are not plagued and defeated by other gods...

 

[Agnostic75]

The Egyptians were NEVER noted for their honest presentation of history. They expunged entire reigns if it suited making the new ruler appear more of a god they presented themselves to be.

But that does not account for the lack of historical records from other sources. If the Ten Plagues occured, they would have been unprecedented news events in human history, and news about them would have spread all over the Middle East and beyond. In addition, Egypt would have ceased to be a major world power, and history would have showed that that happened.

Do you believe that a global flood occured, and that the earth is young, and that theistic evolution is false?

 

[berrychrisc]

Are you saying that the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not want their readers to believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead?

Any textual criticism that I've read about the gospels highly doubts that the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ever knew Jesus, and the authors were almost certainly not the people whose names appear on the gospels. I'm sure that the authors of the gospels wanted their readers to believe in the resurrection (at least Matthew, Luke and John - the earliest versions of Mark do not depict a risen Jesus - only an empty tomb and bewildered apostles). But at that point we are seeing the rise of a religion and the beginning of a disconnect between what the religion was teaching and what Jesus actually said and did.

 

[challupa]

Any textual criticism that I've read about the gospels highly doubts that the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ever knew Jesus, and the authors were almost certainly not the people whose names appear on the gospels. I'm sure that the authors of the gospels wanted their readers to believe in the resurrection (at least Matthew, Luke and John - the earliest versions of Mark do not depict a risen Jesus - only an empty tomb and bewildered apostles). But at that point we are seeing the rise of a religion and the beginning of a disconnect between what the religion was teaching and what Jesus actually said and did.

Yes, all that is pretty well accepted by most biblical scholars now. The rising of Christ was added to Mark well after the first part was written.

Another interesting thing I have learned is that the 2nd chapter of Genesis was actually written before the 1st chapter. Scholars also believe that the Psalms are the oldest writings and Yahweh is not creating anything in them. In fact, he is shown to sit down with a council of gods somewhat like was formed in the Cannonite society. The young Yahweh in the beginning was not a cosmic creator but only a creator of man. Also, archeology now shows that there was likely never an Exodus and that the Israelite religion very likely started within the Cannanites. El was their major god and Yahweh himself says he started as El. In Exodus 6 Yahweh is talking to Moses and he says "I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El shaddai, but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them." Even Yahweh himself says that he started life with the name El.

Historically, when two religions joined gods merged and became the same. If you are trying to meld to religions you are trying to convince two groups of people. One that worships Yahweh and another that worships a god called El and that they are actually the same god so that people have no trouble with merging the two. It's interesting that El is even in the word Israel.

 

[challupa]

Or even better than Wiki is a site called talkorigins.org

Here are your links since you can't yet.

TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy

European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[fallingblood]

Are you saying that the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not want their readers to believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead?

One thing that has to be understood about the early followers of Jesus, and people in general in the first century C.E., resurrection was not unique. It would not have been considered impossible by people in the first century. So it is possible that they believed that he rose from the dead. However, the fact that they all describe the idea differently certainly suggests that they were not meaning their accounts to be exact biographies or histories. They were writing for different groups, and had certain messages that they were trying to get across.

Also, the resurrection idea during that time also symbolized something else. For Paul, it was suppose to issue in the general resurrection, and the Kingdom of God that would set up its presence on Earth. Paul even states that without a general resurrection, then Jesus would not have been resurrected. So the idea of the resurrection is the not same as today.

Just a quick mention on the Ten Plagues. If they truly did happen, there is a logical, scientific explanation for the occurrences. I had bought the movie The Reaping awhile back, and they included a documentary that explained how science could account for the ten plagues by purely natural means.