Creation vs. Evolution
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6days
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Science / archaeology can be used to determine accuracy of historical accounts. And, thats why its an exciting time for Christians, archaeogy continues to confirm the truth of God's Word.Silent Hunter said:
But ....even Homer nods. God's Word is inerrant.
Are you adverse to doing simple research, that conflicts with your religion? Archaeology has found evidence to support events in the Bible such as wars, invasions, census, marriages, deaths, customs etc)Silent Hunter said:
I'm not the one committing logical fallacies suggesting something is truth because of the opinion of "thousands...". That was you.Silent Hunter said:
Archaeology is one of many ways to confirm the Bible. Opinions that contradict scripture are wrong because of evidence. Archaeology has a great track record of proving skeptics wrong.Silent Hunter said:
Strawman...Silent Hunter said:
What I quoted, and said is accurate - not your misrepresentation.
Here is the wording... "There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of Old Testament tradition." Dr. William F. Albright. Like he says....archaeology helps confirm the accuracy of scripture.
OK. I accept your criticism. I had said there were "answers"- but not real answers- just excuses. So let's hear your "answer" about Jericho, and we'll see if it makes sense.
Logically speaking, since you claim that the Bible is 100% accurate, and there is not example of archaeology proving otherwise, I only need one example to prove you are wrong. If you show that my particular example is wrong, it doesn't prove that you are right about the Bible in general.
But you will gain one thing: I won't bring more examples from archaeology. Not worth the bother.
I don't use translations, except to post here.
We know that David killed Goliath from the first text in Samuel. One could claim that the second Goliath in Samuel is a different person, but that is a very difficult claim to make, same name, from teh same place, same description of his spear even.
The difficulty in the text is real, and not a result of translation issues.
The author of Chronicles is aware of this, and tries to reconcile the two versions.
Chair
Rosenritter
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First of all Chair, thank you for sticking to your planned argument instead of changing it just to be contrary. I am vindicated of the charge of "straw man" argument. Silent Hunter, please refrain from dumb criticisms when you really don't know what's going on. Why... if you did that you might live up to your name!
Second of all Chair, you seem to have skipped stating the rest of what you meant to say and just jumped to your punchline... You can't expect me to state your entire argument for you, so do you want to take the step or should I do this for you also?
Sir Hunter, I'll explain this for you. Chair is doing exactly what I predicted and is using a flawed translation of the Hebrew text. If you look at the King James translation above you will see that there is no difference between the two passages, and no disagreement between who killed Goliath and who killed the brother of Goliath. I realize you are out of your league here, but I'm sure it's nothing new.
The (unnamed) translation that Chair is using (even though he said he is using King James) probably reads "Goliath" rather than "brother of Goliath" in the passage in Samuel. Honestly, it would take a pretty ignorant Hebrew to not know the difference between The Goliath (the original named Goliath) and the next giant in that family, and the Hebrew authors often clip words to try to save space. The reader was expected to be intelligent enough to know what they were reading. Sort of as if I said "John and Jane Doe" and I expected you to realize that John's last name was "Doe" from context. The argument that Chair is using assumes a level of gross stupidity that was unknown to the ancient peoples. A good translator knows his context, subject matter, and culture of his source text.
If you are still lost by this time perhaps you should dig up one of the Atheist or Muslim apologetic websites and do some cut and paste.
First of all Chair, thank you for sticking to your planned argument instead of changing it just to be contrary. I am vindicated of the charge of "straw man" argument. Silent Hunter, please refrain from dumb criticisms when you really don't know what's going on. Why... if you did that you might live up to your name!
Second of all Chair, you seem to have skipped stating the rest of what you meant to say and just jumped to your punchline... You can't expect me to state your entire argument for you, so do you want to take the step or should I do this for you also?
Sir Hunter, I'll explain this for you. Chair is doing exactly what I predicted and is using a flawed translation of the Hebrew text. If you look at the King James translation above you will see that there is no difference between the two passages, and no disagreement between who killed Goliath and who killed the brother of Goliath. I realize you are out of your league here, but I'm sure it's nothing new.
The (unnamed) translation that Chair is using (even though he said he is using King James) probably reads "Goliath" rather than "brother of Goliath" in the passage in Samuel. Honestly, it would take a pretty ignorant Hebrew to not know the difference between The Goliath (the original named Goliath) and the next giant in that family, and the Hebrew authors often clip words to try to save space. The reader was expected to be intelligent enough to know what they were reading. Sort of as if I said "John and Jane Doe" and I expected you to realize that John's last name was "Doe" from context. The argument that Chair is using assumes a level of gross stupidity that was unknown to the ancient peoples. A good translator knows his context, subject matter, and culture of his source text.
If you are still lost by this time perhaps you should dig up one of the Atheist or Muslim apologetic websites and do some cut and paste.
hello? Anybody home?
I am not using any translation at all.
Both texts in Samuel say Goliath. Neither says "Brother of Goliath".
6days
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Hmmmmmm..... Well, I did ask if this was your best example, so I assume other examples would be weaker.
You didn't really give info on your claim. Sorry for the long cut and paste, but this might be the example you were thinking of?....
In the spring of 1997, two Italian archaeologists conducted a limited excavation on the ancient tell of Jericho. Lorenzo Nigro and Nicolo Marchetti, working under the auspices of the new Palestinian Department of Archaeology, excavated for one month on the fringes of Kathleen Kenyon's west and south trenches. Their dig was the first foreign expedition in the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank since self-rule began in 1994. After their excavation, Nigro and Marchetti announced they found no evidence for a destruction from the time of Joshua. While it is too soon for the academic community to see details of their discoveries, their announcement suggests their excavation was conducted to disprove the Biblical account of Joshua's capture of the city. Is it further possible that the Palestinian Authority supported this dig for the express purpose of denouncing any Jewish connection to the site? The walls DID come tumbling down! As to their evidence, Dr. Bryant Wood, Director of the Associates for Biblical Research and one of the leading experts on the archaeology of Jericho, recently responded. “It matters little what the Italian archaeologists did not find in their month-long dig. The evidence is already in. Three major expeditions to the site over the past 90 years uncovered abundant evidence to support the Biblical account.” As Wood went on to point out, John Garstang (1930-1936) and Kathleen Kenyon (1952-1958) both dug at Jericho for six seasons and a German excavation directed by Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger dug for three. All found abundant evidence of the city's destruction by fire in a layer related to the Biblical date of 1400 BC. ABR's Bryant Wood standing beside a section of the collapsed wall of Jericho. In September 1997, Dr. Wood visited Jericho and examined the results of the Italian excavation first hand. Incredibly, he found the Italians had uncovered the stone outer revetment wall at the base of the tell with part of the mudbrick wall built on top of it still intact. In the balk of the Italian excavation, at the outer base of the revetment wall, Wood noticed the remains of the collapsed mudbrick city walls which had tumbled. Not only did the Italians find the same evidence uncovered in the earlier excavations, it fits the Biblical story perfectly! Wood reports: “The Italian excavation actually uncovered most of the critical evidence relating to the Biblical story. But even more exciting is the fact that all the evidence from the earlier digs has disappeared over time. We only have records, drawing and photos. But the Italians uncovered a completely new section of the wall which we did not know still existed. I had my photograph taken standing next to the wall where the mudbrick collapse had just been excavated!” Unfortunately, the Italian archaeologists, the Palestinian Authorities, the Associated Press and most of the world doesn't realize any of this. It is a sad commentary on the state of archaeology in the Holy Land, when the purpose of an excavation at a Biblical site is to disprove the Bible and disassociate the site with any historical Jewish connection.
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a011.html
Rosenritter
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What language is the Hebrew text in, and what language are you writing in? Even if you are doing the translation yourself, it is a translation.
2 Samuel 21:19 KJV
(19) And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
2 Samuel 21:19 HOT
(19) ותהי־עוד המלחמה בגוב עם־פלשׁתים ויך אלחנן בן־יערי ארגים בית הלחמי את גלית הגתי ועץ חניתו כמנור ארגים׃
I went through a little effort to make sure the italics came through correctly. If you were aware of the greater mechanics of translation, you would know that those italicized words occur more often than just one location. In some cases English words are required to complete the passage for grammatical or content reasons that are not directly from a source word. This is where translator skill and knowledge is required to go beyond a mere word-for-word application.
The Chair translation (yours) is "dumb on purpose" and pretends ignorance that David did kill Goliath, but is most famous for this act among the Hebrew people. No (real) Jew was confused as to this event. Your translation also seems oblivious to the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles.
1 Chronicles 20:5 HOT
(5) ותהי־עוד מלחמה את־פלשׁתים ויך אלחנן בן־יעור את־לחמי אחי גלית הגתי ועץ חניתו כמנור ארגים׃
If your translation was familiar with the style of the Old Testament writings, your translator would also be aware that clipping bits of passages with assumed well-known content between was nothing unusual... at least, for the Hebrew. It seems unusual for us, and the average English reader expects everything spelled out with precision. That is why the better English translation (KJV) notes the distinction and "fills in the gap" where your translation did not.
Trust me, the writers of Samuel knew their history better than you do.
The Hebrew text is in Hebrew.
And if you knew any Hebrew at all you would see that the two texts in Samuel disagree, and the translations you quote tried to "fix" the text. Try a literal translation. Or just run it through an on line translator. Since you don't trust a Hebrew speaker.
gcthomas
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Are you familiar with the 9000 years of tree ring sequences that has been used to calibrate the C-14 dates? Apparently not.
The 22000 year carbon-date is consistent with millions of years true age due to the obvious limitations of the method (which is why longer lived isotopes than C-14 are used for suspected very old material — tiny amounts of confounding C-14 can enter samples by a variety of methods) but absolutely inconsistent with flood time-scales, which are well within the reliable range of C-14 dating.
Silent,
Well, I checked out your third link and found it to be wonderful. Except for a slight bit of disbelief, it is mostly just fine, if you read the whole thing. ... and did you skip your evening meds again?
Michael
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Rosenritter
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I heard something like that once. But these were with bristle cone pine trees, the sequence was not contained in one tree, the longest single tree reading was estimated to be about 4800 years, and the guy that did the research wouldn't share the details of his research results with people from cross-examination. The single tree 4800 year range was consistent with Noah's flood, especially considering that trees aren't always limited to one ring per year as is often assumed.
But maybe you were thinking of something else?
As for how you figure that "22000" is closer in scale to "millions" than "6000" after accounting for possible error, that must be the new math thing you have going. One is off by a factor of at least 400, the other by a factor of 4, and that is before accounting for errors and bad assumptions in the dating process.
Rosenritter
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I do not trust your integrity as a qualified translator of the ancient documents. Whether you speak Hebrew or not is beside the point, what you lack is an understanding of the nature of the documents in question and application to the narration style of those times and peoples.
The supposed "disagreement" you claim might confuse someone who only understands and expects word-for-word every time. For the Hebrew of the time period there would be no confusion, and that's why in spite of whatever reading skill you claim, why your attempt at translation fails in this case. Modern language expects the words every time, whereas the ancient writing style expected you to be able to cross a little space without stumbling.
Paul was a Hebrew, was he not? I think he was a Pharisee of Pharisees by his own description. How do you translate the text of Dueteronomy 25:4? I would like to compare your translation to his.
Jose Fly
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Remember what I said earlier about creationists and how they 1) argue via assertion, and 2) dodge, avoid, and ignore just about everything that doesn't agree with them? 6days has done a great job of illustrating those things in the last few days, so now let's see how he does with this....
6days has been posting quotes from Christian archaeologists saying that archaeology supports the Bible (as part of his "science supports the Bible" argument), while at the same time chastising others for citing "thousands of scientists" and ignoring his own hypocrisy. Well, let's see what some other archaeologists have to say about their field of science and the Bible.
Camel archaeology contradicts the Bible
The Bible, as History, Flunks New Archaeological Tests
Archaeology Contradicts the Bible
I can go on and on, but the question now is, by what standard are 6days' quotes compelling but the above aren't?
6days has been posting quotes from Christian archaeologists saying that archaeology supports the Bible (as part of his "science supports the Bible" argument), while at the same time chastising others for citing "thousands of scientists" and ignoring his own hypocrisy. Well, let's see what some other archaeologists have to say about their field of science and the Bible.
Camel archaeology contradicts the Bible
"The research, conducted by Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel-Aviv University, challenges “the Bible’s historicity.” The discrepancy “is direct proof that the [Biblical] text was compiled well after the events it describes,” according to a statement released by the university on Monday."
The Bible, as History, Flunks New Archaeological Tests
""The way I understand the finds, there is no evidence whatsoever for a great, united monarchy which ruled from Jerusalem over large territories," said Israel Finkelstein, the director of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University.
King David's Jerusalem, he added, "was no more than a poor village at the time."
[Regarding the Joshua's conquest of Canaan] But these days, she said, an increasing number of archaeologists have come to doubt that Joshua's campaign ever took place.
Instead, they theorize that the ancient Israelites emerged gradually and peacefully from among the region's general population -- a demographic evolution, not a military invasion.
"And that would explain how their pottery is so similar to the Canaanites', and their architecture, their script," Marcus said.
Finkelstein makes the same argument: "Archaeology has shown that early Israel indeed emerged from the local population of late Bronze Canaan."
In addition, he said, archaeology has turned up no physical remains to support the Bible's story of the Exodus: "There is no evidence for the wanderings of the Israelites in the Sinai desert.""
King David's Jerusalem, he added, "was no more than a poor village at the time."
[Regarding the Joshua's conquest of Canaan] But these days, she said, an increasing number of archaeologists have come to doubt that Joshua's campaign ever took place.
Instead, they theorize that the ancient Israelites emerged gradually and peacefully from among the region's general population -- a demographic evolution, not a military invasion.
"And that would explain how their pottery is so similar to the Canaanites', and their architecture, their script," Marcus said.
Finkelstein makes the same argument: "Archaeology has shown that early Israel indeed emerged from the local population of late Bronze Canaan."
In addition, he said, archaeology has turned up no physical remains to support the Bible's story of the Exodus: "There is no evidence for the wanderings of the Israelites in the Sinai desert.""
Archaeology Contradicts the Bible
"Christians have calculated the beginning of the world–getting a date around 4004 BCE. The problem is this: when you calculate it, you end up with Noah’s global flood-genocide occurring around 2350 BCE, but historical records and radiocarbon dating show civilizations going back much earlier than 2350 BCE. If the Bible were literally true, the first civilizations wouldn’t be seen until hundreds of years after the 2350 BCE date. But, the first Egyptian dynasty began around 3100 BCE and the history of their civilization continued uninterrupted until modern times (remember that every Egyptian person died in Noah’s flood).
Archeologists know which Pharaohs ruled, how long they ruled, and which dynasties they were a part of. This data comes from two sources: historical records (Rosetta Stone translations) and radiocarbon dating, both of which agree with each other. Comparisons of the two timelines show that Noah’s flood would have occurred during the fifth of the six Egyptian dynasties of the Old Kingdom."
Archeologists know which Pharaohs ruled, how long they ruled, and which dynasties they were a part of. This data comes from two sources: historical records (Rosetta Stone translations) and radiocarbon dating, both of which agree with each other. Comparisons of the two timelines show that Noah’s flood would have occurred during the fifth of the six Egyptian dynasties of the Old Kingdom."
I can go on and on, but the question now is, by what standard are 6days' quotes compelling but the above aren't?
Jose Fly
New member
Again 6days illustrates what I said about creationists....argue via assertion.
6days
New member
Yes.. and that sure seems to bother you. Archaeology does help confirm Biblical accuracy.JoseFly said:
Actually...the first quote I provided was from an archaeologist who set out to prove the Bible wrong. But, on his 'damascus' road, he came face to face with the evidence....archaeology is consistent with, and helps confirm Biblical history.
There always have been people trying to prove the Bible wrong, Jose. Archaeology has left egg on the face of many skeptics. Archaeology has shown the Bible provides an accurate history of people, places, events, customs etc.JoseFly said:
Your list is interesting. I know in at least one of your examples, even secularists have said your claim is false. Instead of just throwing mud at the wall and hoping something sticks, why not pick out the very best example. Lets discuss it.
There are different types of tools. Archaeology is a tool. So are you. But archaeology is a tool that has proven Biblical accounts true over, and over and over.
Jose Fly
New member
As I noted earlier, creationists 1) argue via assertion and 2) dodge inconvenient questions and facts. 6days' latest post shows both.
It's like talking to a robot who just keeps repeating the same phrases over and over and over and over.
And in my last post I asked the following question: By what standard are 6days' quotes compelling but the above aren't?
6days completely ignored it.
It's like I said earlier....I describe the behavior and 6days comes along and exhibits it perfectly. Bizarre ain't it? :chuckle:
It's like talking to a robot who just keeps repeating the same phrases over and over and over and over.
And in my last post I asked the following question: By what standard are 6days' quotes compelling but the above aren't?
6days completely ignored it.
It's like I said earlier....I describe the behavior and 6days comes along and exhibits it perfectly. Bizarre ain't it? :chuckle:
Dear Jose,
I think that 6days does a wonderful job of keeping up with all of you atheists and evolutionists. There are a lot more than one of you to contend with and it is quite unfair for him to pursue keeping up with all of your posts. What do you expect of him?? He is not dodging anything. If I were him, I would just tell you where the door is at and log out of this Thread, just to get a rest and composure to come back and answer more of your questions. So be considerate, Jose. You're not the only atheist out there.
Michael
Dear gcthomas,
Hey, I thought that C-14 carbon dating was an unreliable method of dating things. I wouldn't trust it, even with younger things than with older. None of the methods of dating anything by science are very trustworthy to be honest. Even when they tested the Shroud of Turin, I think their procedure was at great fault and perhaps a cloth piece was not of the original one and was not dated correctly. In other words, I think they should do another test and see what happens before claiming it to not be authentic. Who knows if someone besides the nuns tried repairing the Shroud since the fire happened which caused it to be damaged initially. Scientists should try dating another part of the Shroud.
I truly believe the Spirit that reentered Jesus' body to bring Him back to life again was the energy which caused the image. And I believe very much that the Shroud is authentic. What do you think??
Best Wishes & Cheerio!!
Michael
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