“Ahem. This is a stack of rocks.”

a reply to: Byrd

There's nothing about Sparta and Athens and the Peloponnesian wars (though those shape world history and were well known at the time of Alexander) and nothing about Alexander himself, whose very presence (and choice of generals) led to the first books of the Bible being written down instead of being relayed by word of mouth.

Of course the Bible is just as I see it should be. It isn't concerned with the
history of mankind that mankind thinks is important. It is perfectly only
concerned with what is important to God. And what is important to God
is that none should parish. So scripture is righteous in the history it keeps.
And parts that for centuries were scoffed at? Have proven themselves true
thru archaeological findings of recent. As I understand the record have they
not? Tell me how inaccurate the Bible is if I'm wrong? And mean while I'll
commend you my dear on your knowledge of trucking. I am impressed.


ETA

So no. Not simple, not easy, and really hard to explain to folks. I hope I've given you a little insight, though, on what it's like.

To be clear I above all appreciate your time and do not take it for granted.
I thirst for everything you can tell me. And I give you my gratitude and respond
the best way I know how. But I read every word.

originally posted by: Randyvine2
a reply to: Byrd

There's nothing about Sparta and Athens and the Peloponnesian wars (though those shape world history and were well known at the time of Alexander) and nothing about Alexander himself, whose very presence (and choice of generals) led to the first books of the Bible being written down instead of being relayed by word of mouth.

Of course the Bible is just as I see it should be. It isn't concerned with the
history of mankind that mankind thinks is important. It is perfectly only
concerned with what is important to God. And what is important to God
is that none should parish. So scripture is righteous in the history it keeps.
And parts that for centuries were scoffed at? Have proven themselves true
thru archaeological findings of recent. As I understand the record have they
not?

The Bible is used as a reference book for archaeology in the area of Israel and for timelines there. It is not accurate enough to be used for matters pertaining to other countries. The parts about Egypt are not correct (for example, Moses would have been heralded as a prince who killed a brutal slavemaster because brutality against slaves was against the Egyptian Law of Ma'at. Joseph could not have been vizir over Egypt because at that time they had two vizirs and their names are known (and some details about their lives, including that they were high priests of Ra or Amun or some other deity that clearly is not the one in the Bible.)

Other things are clearly folk tales -- like putting peeled material in front of animals so that they have white coats or brown coats or spotted coats, depending on what you want. Genes don't work that way.

Some are inaccuracies -- like the famous "pi=3"... even the Egyptians knew this was wrong.

Remember the history of the Bible --there is actually no such book. The Old Testament comes from the writings of the elders (priests) at the time of Alexander the Great. There were many other books of religious literature that the Jews had (see the Dead Sea Scrolls as an example) and after the birth of Christianity there were thousands of these scrolls (books) around.

The Bible didn't exist until around 200 BC, after the first five books (requested by Ptolemy) and after more books had been approved as "the Septuagent." But in making that choice, they left out thousands of other books written about the Jews and their faith.

In 300 AD (a little later) the Christian leaders of the major world cities were concerned that there wasn't any consistency in the teachings and wanted to make a book of official teachings. This was a huge job, and they selected the books of the New Testament out of thousands (and I do mean thousands) of other other books and letters that were being used by the Church to teach the faith.

They whittled down the choices by selecting books that made the grade on two tests:
The test of the apostle: Was it written by an apostle or one closely associated with an apostle?
The test of antiquity: Had the church recognized these books as God’s words given to men?

That still left a lot of contradictory books, and the Church fathers had more meetings (and excommunications and a lot of brawls) about them until they finally came up with the books now in the Catholic Bible (including some that they agreed were important but looked a bit "iffy"... like Bel and the Dragon.)

And then came Martin Luther, who in 1522 presents a new translation of the New Testament (which was the one used by the translators of King James) -- it took out the exocanonical books and edited some other things.

Wikipedia gives a pretty decent review of how it came to be

So the books came from a lot of sources and some were more accurate than others.

It's a really fascinating thing to study and there's a lot of good sites if you search for them that go over the history and the various authors and sources.

But that's why you get errors. It was books selected from thousands and thousands of manuscripts that represented what a group of humans liked and fit what they wanted as Official Literature of the religion.

And mean while I'll
commend you my dear on your knowledge of trucking. I am impressed.

(grin) My thanks, but I know nothing about trucking. What I *do* know is how to find reliable information (and I was vaguely aware because I have a good friend who's a long distance hauler) that it's not just 'hop in the truck and drive.'