How Archaeology Illuminates the Bible- Dr. William Dever, excerpt 2

[pomonasucks]

is that a walmart at 2:35?

[cullyvan]

sivonni im not arguing with you anymore. its pointless. You're not right in the head.

[sivonni]

@cullyvan I'll pray for you.

[cullyvan]

@sivonni Seriously  , dont do that .

[steveinchelsea]

The purpose of archeology, being a science, is not to "prove" anything. Archaeologists, being scientists examine the facts and put them in some type of framework. That framework may coincide with what is in the Bible or it may not. Anyone trying to use a science to get a predetermined outcome are not legitimite scientists, archaeologists, or anything else!

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea Archeology fascinates me. 1) it's a glimpse of history, a tangible piece of humanity's past, and 2) recent finds are producing an abundance of information about things previously ONLY found in the Bible. There was no "proof" of King David's existence in history prior to a 1993 find. Now there's tons of knowledge about his descendants, his life and reign. Oh, and all of it backs up what was written in the Bible. Not one contradiction. You don't find that interesting?

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni Archaeology (turn on your spell check) is a science and can be fascinating but should not to be used for your desired results. As far as David is concerned - now I may be wrong here - what I recall is they found a stone tablet referring to the House of David - that's it. Maybe there are new discoveries I'm unaware of. And yes, some discoveries may dovetail with the bible, but many do not. Are you saying that archaeolgy backs up all the biblical accounts of David or the Bible

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea The stone tablet was the first reference, not the only. And, no. I'm not saying archaeolOgy (turn on your spell check), answers backs up ALL accounts of anything. I'm saying it doesn't contradict the Bible.

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni itself ? "not one contradiction" ? that is total hogwash. Just one example, re: Noah's Ark. The Genesis account says the whole world was covered by the flood which wiped out every one. The flood allegedly occurred around 2348 BC. ARCHAEOLOGY has uncovered uninterrupted records of the Egyptian Pharaohs from Menes in 3400 BC to Darius Ochus in 340 BC. There is not one mention of the flood!

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea There are plenty of mentions of the flood throughout history. Are you saying nothing happened if it wasn't mentioned by one civilization? And we don't have an exact time on when it happened, just an estimate than could have been skewed by the Flood itself. As for uninterrupted, it never misses any year? There's an accounting for all of history during that period?

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni OK i'm going to repaeat this one more time. The great flood covered the ENTIRE WORLD according to the bible. The date has been determined by those who believe in it's reality to be approx. 2348 BC. There are UNINTERRUPTED records from ancient Egypt from 3400 BC to 340BC. Not only is there no mention of the flood it obviously did not wipe out the Egyptian people. One of the other commentatore on this page says also true with ancient China. I'm not saying the Bible may not here

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni correspond with the historical record. There are plenty of instances where it does not. The bible is basically mythology. It's like basing ancient Greek History entirely on the Illiad and the Oddysey, or Norse history on Beowulf.

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea Um...not even close to the same. The Bible isn't a book, it's a library of 66 books written out by at least 40 very different men (kings, shepherds, farmers, priests, physician, tax collector, old, young, etc), over approx 1600 to 2200 years, in at least three languages and across three continents, and is consistent in theme and purpose, not contradicting itself. Your comparison is laughable.

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni I'm not disputing the authorship or the # of books. It's still mythologhy, no more credible than The Illiad, the Oddysey, or Beowulf. As for contradictions, they are rife in the New Testament alone. And YOU, sir are laughable, when you try to defend the ludicrous accounts I have mentioned before. If you simply stated the bible is a metaphor not to be taken literally you would avoid all the ridicule that is being heaped on you.

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea If I stated the Bible was a metaphor I'd be WRONG! And what contradictions are you talking about in the New Testament? (If this is the 4,000 versus 5,000 argument again, I'm so over that! It's been proven over and over again that was two separate occasions!) And what ridicule? It's you and one other guy and neither of you have proven anything except that you haven't studied the Bible. Just saying someone's wrong doesn't make you right. Oh. And I'm not a sir.

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni ok, let me turn your argument around. I'm assuming you don't believe the accounts in the Illiad and Oddysey, but let's say I do. And there is some overlap of authentic history, since the ruins of ancient Troy now show there was such a place, and there was a battle etc. even if some of the gods and monsters are a little far fetched Suppose I put up a video titled How Archaeology illuminates Homer and demand you accept everything he asserted without question?

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea There's nothing wrong with questioning the Bible. My church leaders encourage us to question it! All I said is I've never found any of the so-called inaccuracies to be anything but mistranslation or misunderstandings or just the "Well, science says that's wrong so it must be." Everything Ive researched FOR MYSELF has given me reason to continue to believe. Can you say the same? Saying believers are stupid or ignorant only proves you haven't done the research.

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea And once again, to be clear, I'm not saying any one religion is correct. Religions are man's way of trying to understand and reach out to God. They're created by men so no one religion is perfect. I'm saying the Bible is accurate. That's all.

[sivonni]

@sivonni And science btw? is disproven ALL the TIME. By scientists! Every day they're announcing some new change to something they insisted was fact (based on a theory). How long was Pluto a planet? Most new discoveries disprove something else and half of it gets discredited or scorned by other scientists. Like carbon dating. They all agree that it works and is accurate to within 150 million yrs. Unless not old enough. Or a volcano. So if the Earth was less than 600,000 years old...yeah.

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni You are contradicting yourself. You say "i'm not saying any one religion is correct" than you say the bible which is supposedly the inerrant word of God is (I'm assuming totally) accurate. You can't have it both ways. Thomas Jefferson carried arround a redacted version of the bible where he kept the wise sayings of Jesus and others, but lined out all the crazy parts, making it a very slim volune indeed!

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea Thomas Jefferson is not a man I have much admiration for, no do I consider him an expert in this field. Many religions are based on the Bible, not the other way around. A lot of non-believers I've met had a bad experience regarding a specific religion and refuse to believe the Bible because of that. Most of those people have never studied the Bible for themselves.

[Flozzee]

what a meaning less video there are plenty of archaeology that supports The Bible.

Don't be stupid and think that archaeology will prove faith. It won't

[sivonni]

@cullyvan It's not about proving faith. It's about proving the accuracy of the Bible itself. And there's plenty of evidence proving that. Try "Evidence the Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell. It's chock full of information and was begun as a text to disprove the accuracy of the Bible by an atheist (Mr. McDowell). He couldn't and he was overwhelmed by evidence that supported it. BTW, I'm a research analyst in the intelligence field. I don't need to prove my faith, but I like researching it.

[sivonni]

@cullyvan Just because it's common knowledge, doesn't mean it's correct. Modern science and medicine is proof of that. Every day they're telling us about something they discovered that was never heard off. Let me ask, have you personally researched the Bible? And I mean, read it for yourself, learned about the manners and customs of the times, the nuances of the languages it was written in? Come back and talk to me when you have. I'd love a serious discussion then!

[sivonni]

@cullyvan The Bible doesn't need to prove itself when no other text in the world has been able to disprove it, which is pretty amazing given how often we update college text books with information which contradicts what we've previously been taught as fact. As to your study about religion, what's wrong with having a moral system? Who says we can't accept our own death? Why do you believe it makes a person deluded to believe something with there is nothing to prove there isn't an afterlife?

[cullyvan]

@sivonni i give up, youre not being logical.

[steveinchelsea]

@cullyvan Nice try anyway, but you can't win with these guys!

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni Where do you come up with this nonsense? Your saying it doesn't make it so !

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea You're saying it isn't doesn't make it false either.

[sivonni]

@cullyvan God created nature. Why wouldn't I believe He could bend it to His will? He is the very definition of supernatural. I'm not "picking and choosing", I believe the Bible is accurate. Every single argument on this page has been refuted and explained away within a Google search. Is it any more logical to say, "That just can't have happened according to the 'laws' of nature so therefore it didn't."? Until the next scientist says, "This is the absolute truth, we were wrong before."

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni Again total hogwash. You make outlandish assertions and pretend it's fact .i.e.."The Bible doesn't need to prove itself when no other text in the world has been able to disprove it" There are literally 1000s of books that disprove it. One is The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy by C. Dennis McKinsey published by Prometheus Books. You can go on PB's website fo find tons more. But I know you're not. You will never admit you're ever wrong just like the birthers.

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea I've been to that particular site before. There are many other sites that have counterarguments to his site. As previously stated, I read both sides of the argument, and then read the Bible, and related materials (ie customs of the times) and STUDY FOR MYSELF!!! I wish more people would,  instead of picking a side and backing everything they say. Christians and non-Christians are equally guilty of this.

[sivonni]

@sivonni Sorry, to clarify, I meant that there were many sites that had counterarguments to the arguments in Mr. McKinsey's book, not the the site that sells his book (among many others).

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea I also read skeptoid.com, which is full of information along the same lines and tend to be very unbiased and even-handed in explaining both sides of any argument. Once I'm certain of what both sides are saying, I start my personal research. How do you "study"?

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni Well first of all I do not have to prove my scholarship to you. You who are alleging the authenticity of what is in the bible has to prove it to me. You claim you have looked at both sides objectively still in the end apparently still back up the bible word for word 100%. Never mind my refutation of the account of the flood which you couldn't answer except to say "well maybe it happened sometime else" when it's your own biblical apologists who give that date 2348BC.

[yourmamac]

@steveinchelsea im know scholar but i like to read and i retain information,right.not looking to get in a week long angry back and forth or nothing but i have been doing research on the subject of the bibles realiability because if its true theres life after death and you get what you give. to me that is important. evolution and the bible doesn't have to clash. the bible said the universe had a begining long before scientists or philosphers agreed. the bible describes the animals that appeared

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea I emailed you some research about the flood weeks ago. You never responded.

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni Now how does your "research" deal with some of the other "problems" in the bible, twigs turning into snakes, snakes and donkeys talking, a man living 3 days in the belly of a whale, Jonah stopping the sun so he could finish a battle, Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt. people living for 100s of years, and where did Cain find a wife, unless we are all products of his incest

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea I never claimed to have all the answers, just that I believed in the Bible and that, what I have researched, I've found no reason to doubt. The rest we have to take on faith. By the way, there's all kinds of studies out there about how people could have lived longer when there was no pollution, less diseases, etc. The "laws" given to the Hebrew people are being researched by current scientists about relevant diseases/plague/etc. from that region/time and how each would help.

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni And typically of those I refute on these sites you make a lot of assumptions about me with no evidence. How do you know that I do not study the bible and my scholarship is not equal to yours. I'm sure you've seen the polls recently showing agnostics and atheists know more about the bible than fundamentalist christians. And then you assume, again without evidence, that I somehow had a "bad experience" with religion. As a matter of fact I attended an episcopalian church as a child.

[sivonni]

@steveinchelsea I've asked repeatedly how you study and research and you've never answered. That's what I'm basing my assumptions on. I've also asked for less hostility and even privately messaged you to show you an example of what I was researching regarding the flood. You never responded to that, just jumped on another topic, which indicated that you liked to grandstand but didn't have a lot of follow-through.

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni My friends say why bother and I'm not sure. You seem well intentioned, but I can hardly believe you really make your living doing research. You still can't answer my questions about the flood, and your latest claim that people lived longer in antiquity because there were less diseases is almost laughable. The life expectancy back then was in the 40's including kings etc. Methusaleh living to 969 Sarah 127, Abraham 175, Moses 120 - I DON"T THINK SO! As a matter I KNOW they didn't !

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni You haven't addressed the other "problems" I've brought up. I'm sorry I don't have your exact words, but you said something like you've proved the bible accurate, "the rest you have to take on faith." Sweetheart, that's not scholarship. If you have children and read them Grimm's fairy tales I assume you did not tell them that those things actually happened. The same with the bible. There maybe some moving passages, like the psalms (probably enhanced by King James's translators)

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni but I don't find the bible anything morew than a bronze age collection of mythology and folkolre. You are free of course to believe what you wish. The problem is that believers tend to brainwash their kids with this and I consider that child abuse. I am encouraged to see young people on YouTube and elsewhere rejecting that. I also saw recently a teen on TV taking on the La. statute mandating the teaching of creationism as an alternative to evolution. So there is hope !

[steveinchelsea]

@sivonni The minister and the sunday school teachers were actually very nice. I just at an early age could not believe any of it. And the more I studied the more that was confirmed. And if you don't like Jefferson, I can't imagine what you must think of James Madison, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Robert Ingersoll, Clarence Darrow, Thomas Edison but I won't go on !