The Evidence for Evolution in the Fossil Record

[shawn001]

the various books of the bible and the accounts they contain are a record of events which can be backed up physical evidence.

For example, the account about the cities of Soddom and Gomorrah and the fire and sulfure which rained down on them has physical evidence of the event.
You can visit those very places today and see the balls of sulphur strewn over the entire area and you can also see the remains of the buildings there which have been calcified.
You can also read about the kings of Isreael in the bible and you can find secular sources mentioning those same people.

So the bible accounts have physical evidence to back them up.

The bible accounts also have a lot of inconsistencies and errors.

"
Writers of the Bible
Biblical scholars since the 17th century have pointed to evidence that human writers, and in fact a number of different writers, composed the Bible. Mainstream Jewish and Christian organizations, including seminaries and rabbinical schools, generally embrace such scholarship—seeing the voice of God in a text compiled by human hands. In the following interview, Michael Coogan, Professor of Religious Studies at Stonehill College and Director of Publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum, offers insights into how scholars today understand how the first five books of the Bible were written.

"
It wasn't until the 17th century, with the rise of critical thinking in many disciplines—in science, in philosophy, and others—that people began to look at the Bible not just as a sacred text but as they would look at any other book. And they began to notice in the pages of the first five books of the Bible a lot of issues that didn't seem consistent with the idea that Moses was their author. For example, Moses never speaks in the first person; Moses doesn't say, "I went up on Mt. Sinai." There are also a lot of repetitions—the same stories told from different perspectives. And there are also many, many inconsistencies; as the same stories are retold, many of the details change.

So scholars began to think not just that Moses was not the author, but that ordinary men and women (mostly men) had written these pages.

What are some obvious inconsistencies, for instance in the Noah story?
In the story of the flood, in Genesis chapters 6 to 9, there seem to be two accounts that have been combined, and they have a number of inconsistencies. For example, how many of each species of animals is Noah supposed to bring into the ark? One text says two, a pair of every kind of animal. Another text says seven pairs of the clean animals and only two of the unclean animals.

[For more analysis of the flood story, see Who Wrote the Flood Story?.]

NOVA | Writers of the Bible

The bible of course is not a science book or represent what science has learned in the last 2000 years, especially with new technology.

. Science is not anti God.

Some religions and even more some people and their own interpretations are against certain aspects of science like evolution, one of the strongest theories in all of the sciences, and yet have no problem with gravity or say using a computer or plate tectonics, as it doesn't interfere with their personal beliefs.

 

[shawn001]

By the way Peg is worth watching that The Bible's Buried Secrets because it goes over a lot of those finds.


"William Dever, Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona, has investigated the archeology of the ancient Near East for more than 30 years and authored almost as many books on the subject. In the following interview, Dever describes some of the most significant archeological finds related to the Hebrew Bible, including his own hot-button discovery that the Israelites' God was linked to a female goddess called Asherah.

"Thousands of clay figurines like this one suggest that the early Israelites worshipped more than a single God."

NOVA | Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

 

[columbus]

There is also the fact that there is tons of potential evidence that would overturn our understanding. One finding of a primate and a dinosaur in the same rock. Or a trilobite fossilized inside a kangaroo skull. The list of possibilities is endless.
But they are never found.
Tom

 

[Nietzsche]

There is also the fact that there is tons of potential evidence that would overturn our understanding. One finding of a primate and a dinosaur in the same rock. Or a trilobite fossilized inside a kangaroo skull. The list of possibilities is endless.
But they are never found.
Tom

Hell, if you could find a primate and a dinosaur that died within two million years of each other would overturn everything we know.

 

[shawn001]

There is also the fact that there is tons of potential evidence that would overturn our understanding. One finding of a primate and a dinosaur in the same rock. Or a trilobite fossilized inside a kangaroo skull. The list of possibilities is endless.
But they are never found.
Tom

I would probably replace the " tons of potential evidence" though with "tons of extremely unlikely" evidence that would overturn our understanding. Its not just the fossil record of course.

Because, it would be like all of a sudden finding out the Sun does orbit the Earth.