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Why the bible & not Mythology?
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The Bible is just as real to people today as Zeus on Mt Olympus was to Greeks thousands of years ago.
It's modern mythology, it serves it's purpose being a moral guide for a group of people. It has fables and charachters as rich as those in ancient mythology.
In a few thousand years, perhaps it will be passed on as myth and a new paradigm of religion will be pushed forward.
It's modern mythology, it serves it's purpose being a moral guide for a group of people. It has fables and charachters as rich as those in ancient mythology.
In a few thousand years, perhaps it will be passed on as myth and a new paradigm of religion will be pushed forward.
The bible contrasts with less widely respected religions and mythologies in several ways which lend to the incredible amount of trust many people put
into it.
1. Integrity: We have many old copies and wide distribution with few variations in the books themselves (although the canon wasn't to well established early on.) I will qualify this statement with the fact that having enjoyed centuries of enormous power, the Catholic church might have "improved" the level of agreement between various manuscripts by "losing" documents they didn't like or "finding" extremely fortuitous ones).
2. Millions if not billions of people, (and millions if not billions of dollars) believe in and otherwise support the bible. Can anyone name a US president who openly stated in close proximity to his campaign, or while in office, that he thought Christians were wrong? Now can anybody name a president (and a current candidate) who had to answer just for their belief in a slightly different brand of Christianity?
3. People get martyred for Christianity (and people see fit to kill them over it). How many people got killed for Zeus at any point in the last 1500 years or so? People believe in it- if they didnt maybe it would be more on the level of Greek Mythology.
4. Christianity has punishments and rewards to offer you. What happens if I believe or don't believe in Zeus? I'm not so scared of Poseidon's little trident- I think i'll concern myself with the religion that threatens me with eternal fire that somehow wont kill me- just ruin my day.
1. Integrity: We have many old copies and wide distribution with few variations in the books themselves (although the canon wasn't to well established early on.) I will qualify this statement with the fact that having enjoyed centuries of enormous power, the Catholic church might have "improved" the level of agreement between various manuscripts by "losing" documents they didn't like or "finding" extremely fortuitous ones).
2. Millions if not billions of people, (and millions if not billions of dollars) believe in and otherwise support the bible. Can anyone name a US president who openly stated in close proximity to his campaign, or while in office, that he thought Christians were wrong? Now can anybody name a president (and a current candidate) who had to answer just for their belief in a slightly different brand of Christianity?
3. People get martyred for Christianity (and people see fit to kill them over it). How many people got killed for Zeus at any point in the last 1500 years or so? People believe in it- if they didnt maybe it would be more on the level of Greek Mythology.
4. Christianity has punishments and rewards to offer you. What happens if I believe or don't believe in Zeus? I'm not so scared of Poseidon's little trident- I think i'll concern myself with the religion that threatens me with eternal fire that somehow wont kill me- just ruin my day.
Why the Bible and not Mythology?
This is an interesting question. The Bible is an evolved mythos. Like the Babylonians and the Summerians, to the Greco-Roman and Ancient Ejyptian mythos, it was a transcendent measure of morals and ethics pertaining to a time and its people. I don't believe the Bible was meant to be taken literaly and historicly, as is evident, but like stated before, just one groups ethics and morals.
Deep
This is an interesting question. The Bible is an evolved mythos. Like the Babylonians and the Summerians, to the Greco-Roman and Ancient Ejyptian mythos, it was a transcendent measure of morals and ethics pertaining to a time and its people. I don't believe the Bible was meant to be taken literaly and historicly, as is evident, but like stated before, just one groups ethics and morals.
Deep
I am glad to have stimulated interest in this subject matter from my serpentine garden.
The Bible (old testament) IS mythology, by definition. The fact that it is institutionally supported by several well known globally dominant churches and businesses and governments does not change its literary genre.
The Bible (old testament) IS mythology, by definition. The fact that it is institutionally supported by several well known globally dominant churches and businesses and governments does not change its literary genre.
Originally posted by marg6043
Timing from the begining of the old testament meaning the begining of the creation of the world to match the time of the birth of jesus chronological data.
What part? gen1:1 God created the heavens and the earth.
The bible seems to have taken its place in current mythology (temporary accepted truth) for what I assume two main reasons. Allow me to list the two
and then I will go into more detail with an explanation. First we have hidden but yet direct attacks on seemingly all other cultures of their time.
Second is the natural progression that mythology seems to have taken since its beginnings.
The bible to me is one of the greatest story books of all times. It is a truly great book because people of any intellect are able to understand it. Take the story of Adam and Eve written in 1500 B.C.E it is a story guised in a simple tale. At this time it meant death to speak out against the majority belief of a society so how do you go about it and still get your message across? I would say the best way might to be disguise your true thoughts in a pretty story. So what is the real story? For those that don�t already know here goes. Asherah was the most revered goddess of this time period and for a span of 1800-2100 years. She is said to be the mother of all gods and goddesses. She is symbolized by one the tree of life, two the snake, and some debate over a lion or lioness. The last fact is of major importance because each symbolizes something different. The lion is more about power and authority and the lioness is nurturing and symbolizes life and fertility. I believe it to be the later she would be symbolized by because that is more based in her founding, think the mother of the gods. Ok now it gets interesting the right around 1500 B.C.E. the human powered plow was invented. This equals an explosion of agriculture during this time. Asherah was depicted usually holding plants this was a symbol of flourishing and success of vegetation. So with this sudden boom in agriculture and the surplus of male farmers they must pray to their Asherah but how? Well there is a belief that female goddesses would be represented by priestesses (females). The temples to Asherah were identified by a crest which in fact was one of her symbols the snake. Now people of this time felt that they must attempt to mimic the gods in order to please and gain favor. So the male farmers would spend the day in the field and to please the gods in order to have success with their crops they would have sex with the priestesses. Man is corrupted by woman who was tainted by the snake (Asherah). This might have by chance not seemed right to some people all this crazy sex, but how do you go about speaking out against such a cultural power. Near every story of the bible can be broken down in a similar manner. It�s a simple matter of finding the truth in the myth.
The other factor is the downward progression of gods over time and societies. We start with some of the earliest beliefs being that a god is something that is all powerful better then any one and can not even be gazed upon by man. This god will never leave his place to play among the common folk. The next progression is that of a god that is only connected with the royalty or upper class. This for instance is the rulers who are a direct descendent of the gods or god think Egyptian. Then there is Greek and Roman where it is more accepted that the gods walk among man and are more like man. Then we have a belief in a god that is one of us in actuality becomes one of us and even dies for us. It�s a downward progression to humanize our gods. The problem then becomes how we would humanize such a being to a greater extent. Unless we are in fact at the bottom and it would make sense that we would start to actually move back up the progression again. Or maybe the next great progression will show that we are in fact our own god and we have control that we do not yet understand. Could it be feeling that we are able to control things in our life hate to use it as an example sorry but a matrix dream like state? I apologize for the quick progression as I would explain this more but would not like to have anyone have to read a novel so this is a very brief and quick overview.
Well thanks for your time hope my first post is not to long or boring for everyone out there.
The bible to me is one of the greatest story books of all times. It is a truly great book because people of any intellect are able to understand it. Take the story of Adam and Eve written in 1500 B.C.E it is a story guised in a simple tale. At this time it meant death to speak out against the majority belief of a society so how do you go about it and still get your message across? I would say the best way might to be disguise your true thoughts in a pretty story. So what is the real story? For those that don�t already know here goes. Asherah was the most revered goddess of this time period and for a span of 1800-2100 years. She is said to be the mother of all gods and goddesses. She is symbolized by one the tree of life, two the snake, and some debate over a lion or lioness. The last fact is of major importance because each symbolizes something different. The lion is more about power and authority and the lioness is nurturing and symbolizes life and fertility. I believe it to be the later she would be symbolized by because that is more based in her founding, think the mother of the gods. Ok now it gets interesting the right around 1500 B.C.E. the human powered plow was invented. This equals an explosion of agriculture during this time. Asherah was depicted usually holding plants this was a symbol of flourishing and success of vegetation. So with this sudden boom in agriculture and the surplus of male farmers they must pray to their Asherah but how? Well there is a belief that female goddesses would be represented by priestesses (females). The temples to Asherah were identified by a crest which in fact was one of her symbols the snake. Now people of this time felt that they must attempt to mimic the gods in order to please and gain favor. So the male farmers would spend the day in the field and to please the gods in order to have success with their crops they would have sex with the priestesses. Man is corrupted by woman who was tainted by the snake (Asherah). This might have by chance not seemed right to some people all this crazy sex, but how do you go about speaking out against such a cultural power. Near every story of the bible can be broken down in a similar manner. It�s a simple matter of finding the truth in the myth.
The other factor is the downward progression of gods over time and societies. We start with some of the earliest beliefs being that a god is something that is all powerful better then any one and can not even be gazed upon by man. This god will never leave his place to play among the common folk. The next progression is that of a god that is only connected with the royalty or upper class. This for instance is the rulers who are a direct descendent of the gods or god think Egyptian. Then there is Greek and Roman where it is more accepted that the gods walk among man and are more like man. Then we have a belief in a god that is one of us in actuality becomes one of us and even dies for us. It�s a downward progression to humanize our gods. The problem then becomes how we would humanize such a being to a greater extent. Unless we are in fact at the bottom and it would make sense that we would start to actually move back up the progression again. Or maybe the next great progression will show that we are in fact our own god and we have control that we do not yet understand. Could it be feeling that we are able to control things in our life hate to use it as an example sorry but a matrix dream like state? I apologize for the quick progression as I would explain this more but would not like to have anyone have to read a novel so this is a very brief and quick overview.
Well thanks for your time hope my first post is not to long or boring for everyone out there.
Canaanite name: Asherah (N.B. In addition to native variations by locality or over time, there are often several possible transliterations into the
Roman alphabet used for English.)
Hebrew name: Asherah (N.B. In addition to native variations by locality or over time, there are often several possible transliterations into the Roman alphabet used for English.)
basic information:
Asherah: Canaanite Goddess
Asherah�s relations:
Same as the Hebrew Goddess of the same name, Asherah.
other information:
Asherah � The original bread of life. Hebrew and Canaanite women molded loaves of this figure which were blessed and ritually eaten, the precursor of the communion wafer. Her idols were found under every green tree, were carved from living trees, or erected as poles or pillars beside roadside altars. Crude clay images of her as tree of life later evolved into the more refined Syrian Artemis. Ancient sexual rites (dismissed to this day by male scholars as cult prostitution) associated with worship of Asherah insured that matrilineal descent patterns, with their partnership rather than dominator values, would continue. Hebrew priestly iconoclasts finally uprooted Asherah, supplanting matrifocal culture with patriarchy. Our Judeo-Christian inheritance of this law of the Levites, passed on by the Roman Empire, is one source of present-day sex inequality. � JBL Statues
holy days
Saturday: Asherah is associated with Saturday.
Asherah � The original bread of life.
Canaanite deities
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[edit on 8/27/2004 by lossofreason]
[edit on 8/27/2004 by lossofreason]
Hebrew name: Asherah (N.B. In addition to native variations by locality or over time, there are often several possible transliterations into the Roman alphabet used for English.)
basic information:
Asherah: Canaanite Goddess
Asherah�s relations:
Same as the Hebrew Goddess of the same name, Asherah.
other information:
Asherah � The original bread of life. Hebrew and Canaanite women molded loaves of this figure which were blessed and ritually eaten, the precursor of the communion wafer. Her idols were found under every green tree, were carved from living trees, or erected as poles or pillars beside roadside altars. Crude clay images of her as tree of life later evolved into the more refined Syrian Artemis. Ancient sexual rites (dismissed to this day by male scholars as cult prostitution) associated with worship of Asherah insured that matrilineal descent patterns, with their partnership rather than dominator values, would continue. Hebrew priestly iconoclasts finally uprooted Asherah, supplanting matrifocal culture with patriarchy. Our Judeo-Christian inheritance of this law of the Levites, passed on by the Roman Empire, is one source of present-day sex inequality. � JBL Statues
holy days
Saturday: Asherah is associated with Saturday.
Asherah � The original bread of life.
Canaanite deities
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[edit on 8/27/2004 by lossofreason]
[edit on 8/27/2004 by lossofreason]
The Genesis 1 account also conflicts with the order of events that are known to science. In this account the earth is created before light and stars,
birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. From science, we know the true order of events was just the
opposite. 1:1-2:3
God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them? 1:3-5
God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters. This firmament, if it existed, would have been quite an obstacle to our space program. 1:6-8
Plants are made on the third day before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes (1:14-19). 1:11
God lets "the earth bring forth" the plants, rather than creating them directly. Maybe Genesis is not so anti-evolution after all. 1:11
In an apparent endorsement of astrology, God places the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used "for signs". This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do: read "the signs" in the Zodiac in an effort to predict what will happen on Earth. 1:14
God makes two lights: "the greater light [the sun] to rule the day, and the lesser light [the moon] to rule the night." But the moon is not a light, but only reflects light from the sun. And why, if God made the moon to "rule the night", does it spend half of its time moving through the daytime sky? 1:16
"He made the stars also." God spends a day making light (before making the stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes the trillions of stars. 1:16
"And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth." Really? Then why are only a tiny fraction of stars visible from earth? Under the best conditions, no more than five thousand stars are visible from earth with the unaided eye, yet there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and a hundred billion or so galaxies. Yet this verse says that God put the stars in the firmament "to give light" to the earth. 1:17
In verse 11, God "let the earth bring forth" the plants. Now he has the earth "bring forth" the animals as well. So maybe the creationists have it all wrong. Maybe God created livings things through the process of evolution. 1:24
God gave humans dominion over every other living thing on earth. This couldn't be true, of course, since millions of other species existed for millions of years before humans existed. But this verse is used by fundamentalist Christians to justify their mistreatment of other species and disregard for the environment. After all, they believe that God created the other species just for them, so they can do whatever they please with them. 1:26
God commands us to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over ... every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This verse is used to justify Christian opposition to birth control, to concern for the environment, and to animal rights. The earth was made for humans, and they can do as they damn well please with it. 1:28
All animals were originally herbivores. Tapeworms, vampire bats, mosquitoes, and barracudas -- all were strict vegetarians, as they were created by God. But, of course, we now know that there were carnivorous animals millions of years before humans existed. 1:30
In Genesis 1 the entire creation takes 6 days, but we know from modern science that the universe is at least 15 billion years old. 1:31
Humans were not created instantaneously from dust and breath as in the Gen.2:7, but evolved over millions of years from simpler life forms. 2:7
God makes the animals and parades them before Adam to see if any would strike his fancy. But none seem to have what it takes to please him. (Although he was tempted to go for the sheep.) Note that in these verses, God makes the animals after making Adam, whereas in the first creation story (1:25-27) the order is reversed. After making the animals, God has Adam name them all. The naming of several million species must have kept Adam busy for a while. But we know that the animals were not created instantaneously from the ground, but rather that they evolved over millions of years. And we still don't have names for all of them. Ten thousand new species of insects are discovered and named each year. 2:18-22
God curses the serpent. From now on the serpent will crawl on his belly and eat dust. One wonders how he got around before -- by hopping on his tail, perhaps? But snakes don't eat dust, do they? 3:14
Because Adam listened to Eve, God cursed the ground and causes thorns and thistles to grow. Before this, according to the (false) Genesis story, plants had no natural defenses. The rose had no thorn, cacti were spineless, holly leaves were smooth, and the nettle had no sting. Foxgloves, oleander, and milkweeds were all perfectly safe to eat. 3:17-18
Where are the cherubim, flaming sword moving back and forth, and the tree of life? Surely if they existed, we would have found them. 3:24
"There were giants in the earth in those days." Well, I suppose it's good to know that. But why is there no archaeological evidence for the existence of these giants? 6:4
Noah is told to make an ark that is 450 feet long. The largest wooden ships ever built were just over 300 feet, and they required diagonal iron strapping for support. Even so, they leaked so badly that they had to be pumped constantly. Are we to believe that Noah, with no shipbuilding knowledge and no shipbuilding tradition to rely upon, was able to construct a wooden ship that was longer than any that has been built since? But not only was the ark too big to be seaworthy, it was far too small to be able to contain the earth's millions of plant and animals species. 6:14-15
Whether by twos or by sevens, Noah takes male and female representatives from each species of "every thing that creepeth upon the earth." Now this must have taken some time, along with expert knowledge of taxonomy, genetics, biogeography, and anatomy. How did Noah manage to collect the endemic species from the New World, Australia, Polynesia, and other remote regions entirely unknown to him? How, once he found them, did he transport them back to his Near Eastern home? How could he tell the male and female beetles (there are more than 500,000 species) apart? How did he know how to care for these new and unfamiliar animals? How did he find the space on the ark? How did he manage to find and care for the hundreds of thousands of parasitic species? How did Noah obtain and care for the hundreds of thousands of species of plants? (Plants are ignored in the Genesis account, but the animals wouldn't last long after if the plants died in the flood.) No, wait, don't tell me. A miracle happened. Millions of them. 7:8
All of the animals boarded the ark "in the selfsame day." Since there were several million species involved, they must have boarded at a rate of at least 100/second. How did poor Noah and his family make sure that the correct number of each species entered through the door and then get them all settled into their proper living quarters so efficiently? I wish the airline companies could do as well! 7:13-14
The flood covered the highest mountain tops (Mount Everest?) with fifteen cubits to spare. Where did all the water come from? Where did it all go? Why is there no evidence of such a massive flood in the geological record? 7:20
"The windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained." This happens whenever it stops raining. 8:2
Noah sends a dove out to see if there was any dry land. But the dove returns without finding any. Then, just seven days later, the dove goes out again and returns with an olive leaf. But how could an olive tree survive the flood? And if any seeds happened to survive, they certainly wouldn't germinate and grow leaves within a seven day period. 8:8-11
When the animals left the ark, what would they have eaten? There would have been no plants after the ground had been submerged for nearly a year. What would the carnivores have eaten? Whatever prey they ate would have gone extinct. And how did the New World primates or the Australian marsupials find there way back after the flood subsided? 8:19
Noah kills the "clean beasts" and burns their dead bodies for God. According to 7:8 this would have caused the extinction of all "clean" animals since only two of each were taken onto the ark. 8:20-21
"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." Although this would have been good advice for the mythical Noah, it is deadly advice for humankind as a whole. Overpopulation is one of our greatest problems, yet there is nothing in the bible to address it. 9:1
According to this verse, all animals fear humans. Although it is true that many do, it is also true that some do not. Sharks and grizzly bears, for example, are generally much less afraid of us than we are of them. 9:2
"Into your hand are they (the animals) delivered." God gave the animals to humans, and they can do whatever they please with them. This verse has been used by bible believers to justify all kinds of cruelty to anmials and environmental destruction. 9:2
God is rightly filled with remorse for having killed his creatures. He even puts the rainbow in the sky to remind himself of his promise to the animals not to do it again. But rainbows are caused by the nature of light, the refractive index of water, and the shape of raindrops. There were rainbows billions of years before humans existed. 9:13
Some creationists believe that this verse refers to continental drift, which, they say, began to occur during the days of Pelag (which means "division"), about 100 or so years after the flood. But many other creationists disagree. 10:25
"The whole earth was of one language." But this could not be true, since by this time (around 2400 BCE) there were already many languages, each unintelligible to the others. 11:1, 6
God worries that people could actually build a tower high enough to reach him (them?) in heaven. 11:4
According to the Tower of Babel story, the many human languages were created instantaneously by God. But actually the various languages evolved gradually over long periods of time. 11:9
The ridiculously long lives of the patriarchs. 11:10-32
In these verses the Philistines are said to have lived in Canaan at the time of Abraham, yet the Philistines did not live in the region until the period of the Judges, well after the time of Abraham. 21:32, 26:1, 21:32, 21:32, 8, 15, 18
Jacob displays his (and God's) knowledge of biology by having goats copulate while looking at streaked rods. The result is streaked baby goats. 30:37-39
Joseph and his magic divining cup. 44:5, 44:15
Exodus
The Israelite population went from 70 (or 75) to several million in a few hundred years. 1:5,7, 12:37, 38:26
Why are some people born with disabilities? Because God deliberately makes them that way. 4:11
Leviticus
The bible says that hares and coneys are unclean because they "chew the cud" but do not part the hoof. But hares and coneys are not ruminants and they do not "chew the cud." 11:5-6
Bats are birds to the biblical God. 11:13, 19
Be sure to watch out for those "other flying creeping things which have four feet." (I wish God wouldn't get so technical!) I guess he must mean four-legged insects. You'd think that since God made the insects, and so many of them (at least several million species), that he would know how many legs they have! 11:23
Numbers
The Israelite population went from seventy (Ex.1:5) to several million (over 600,000 adult males) in just a few generations! 1:45-46
"And there we saw the giants ... And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." This statement may have been figurative, hyperbole, typical biblical exaggeration, or an actual description of the sons of Anak, in which case they must have been about 300 feet tall. These are the same giants (the Nephilium) that resulted when the "sons of God" mated with "the daughters of men in Gen.6:4. Of course these superhuman god-men should have been destroyed in the flood. So what are they doing still alive? 13:33
Deuteronomy
Og, the king of the giants, was a tall man, even by NBA standards. His bed measured 9 by 4 cubits (13.5 feet long and 6 feet wide). 3:11
God promises to cast out seven nations including the Amorites, Canaanites, and the Jebusites. But he was unable to fulfill his promise. These nations were "greater and mightier" than the Israelites, who according to Ex.12:37 and Num.1:45-46 already had numbered several million. So the region, according to the bible, must have had a population of more than twenty million! 7:1
This verse mistakenly says that the hare chews its cud. 14:7-8
To the biblical God, a bat is just an another unclean bird. 14:11, 18
"Their wine is the poison of dragons." I wonder what genus and species the bible is referring to when it mentions dragons. 32:33
Joshua
In Joshua 8 the Israelites destroy Ai and make it a desolate heap. But archaeology has revealed that Ai was an abandoned city by the time of the Israelites and that this story is nothing more than a myth invented to explain the ruins of an ancient city that the Israelites encountered. 8:1-29
In a divine type of daylight savings time, God makes the sun stand still so that Joshua can get all his killing done before dark. "Is this not written in the book of Jasher?" Beats me. 10:12-13
"And the coast of Og king of Bashan, which as of the remnant of the giants ..." Why is there no record of any of these giants in the archeological record? 12:4, 18:16
Judges
"The stars in their courses fought against Sisera." Unless astrology is true, how can the stars affect the outcome of a battle? 5:20
1 Samuel
"The pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he hath set the world upon them. 2:8
2 Samuel
In another biblical exaggeration, the servants of David kill 20,000 soldiers in one day. 18:7
The earth shakes, the foundations of heaven move, smoke comes out of God's nostrils, and fire out of his mouth. 22:8-16
How many soldiers did Israel have? This verse says that Judah and Israel had a total of 1,300,000 fighting men (1 Chr.21:5 says 1,570,000) in this battle. Of course, this is a ridiculously high number for a battle between two tribal armies in 1000 BCE. (The United States had about 1.37 million active duty soldiers in 2001.) 24:9
1 Kings
This verse implies that the value of p is 3. (The actual value is approximately 3.14159.) 7:23
God creates droughts by causing "heaven to shut up" as a punishment for sin. 8:35
2 Kings
Isaiah, with a little help from God, makes the sun move backwards ten degrees. Now that's quite a trick. All at once, the earth stopped spinning and then reversed its direction of rotation. Or maybe the sun traveled around the earth in those days! 20:11
1 Chronicles
Among those killed by the "mighty man", Benaiah, was a giant Egyptian "five cubits high". Since a cubit is 18 inches or so, that would have made him about 7'6" (2.3 meters). 11:23
In this verse we are told that the earth is stable and does not move. If so, then it must not spin on its axis or travel about the sun. 16:30
According to this verse David's army had 1,100,000 men from Israel and 470,000 men from Judah, Of course, this numbers is ridiculously high for a battle between two tribal armies in 1000 BCE. (The United States had about 1.37 million active duty soldiers in 2001.) 21:5
King David collects ten thousand drams (or darics) for the construction of the temple in Jerusalem. This is especially interesting since darics were coins named after King Darius I who lived some five hundred years after David. 29:7
2 Chronicles
Since the molten sea was round with a diameter of ten cubits and a circumference of thirty cubits, we know that the biblical value of p is 3. (The actual value is approximately 3.14159.) 4:2
500,000 soldiers die in a single God-assisted slaughter. 13:16-17
Esther
"Haman thought in his heart." Most people think with their heads, but biblical folks think with their hearts. 6:6
Job
The earth rests upon pillars and doesn't move (unless God gets angry or something). 9:6
Heaven is set upon pillars that tremble when God gets mad. 26:11
The earth is set on foundations and it does not move. 38:4-6
God has snow and hail all stored up to use later "in time of trouble." 38:22
As the note in the Harper Collins Study Bible says, "This folk tradition about ostriches does not accord with facts about their nature." Ostriches are not cruel and stupid birds who abandon their eggs to die after laying them, as these verses imply. They are, in fact, careful and attentive parents. The male scoops out a hollow for the eggs, which are incubated by the female during the day and the male at night. After the eggs are hatched, they are cared for by the mother for over a month, at which time the chicks can keep up with running adults.39:13-16
The bible is wrong about ostriches being cruel and inattentive parents (39:13-16). But if they were, whose fault would it be? Why would God deprive them of the wisdom and understanding needed to do the job right? 39:17
Bible believers have identified the behemoth as a hippopotamus, dinosaur, or wildebeest. But my favorite is the note in the Harper Collins Study Bible: "If tail(40:17) is not a euphemism for the sexual organ, Behemoth seems in this respect to resemble a crocodile." 40:15
Psalms
The earth shakes whenever God really gets mad. 18:7
"The foundations of the world were discovered ... at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils." Apparently, then, the earth is set on firm foundations and does not move -- and God has nostrils. 18:15
God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them? 1:3-5
God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters. This firmament, if it existed, would have been quite an obstacle to our space program. 1:6-8
Plants are made on the third day before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes (1:14-19). 1:11
God lets "the earth bring forth" the plants, rather than creating them directly. Maybe Genesis is not so anti-evolution after all. 1:11
In an apparent endorsement of astrology, God places the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used "for signs". This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do: read "the signs" in the Zodiac in an effort to predict what will happen on Earth. 1:14
God makes two lights: "the greater light [the sun] to rule the day, and the lesser light [the moon] to rule the night." But the moon is not a light, but only reflects light from the sun. And why, if God made the moon to "rule the night", does it spend half of its time moving through the daytime sky? 1:16
"He made the stars also." God spends a day making light (before making the stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes the trillions of stars. 1:16
"And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth." Really? Then why are only a tiny fraction of stars visible from earth? Under the best conditions, no more than five thousand stars are visible from earth with the unaided eye, yet there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and a hundred billion or so galaxies. Yet this verse says that God put the stars in the firmament "to give light" to the earth. 1:17
In verse 11, God "let the earth bring forth" the plants. Now he has the earth "bring forth" the animals as well. So maybe the creationists have it all wrong. Maybe God created livings things through the process of evolution. 1:24
God gave humans dominion over every other living thing on earth. This couldn't be true, of course, since millions of other species existed for millions of years before humans existed. But this verse is used by fundamentalist Christians to justify their mistreatment of other species and disregard for the environment. After all, they believe that God created the other species just for them, so they can do whatever they please with them. 1:26
God commands us to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over ... every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This verse is used to justify Christian opposition to birth control, to concern for the environment, and to animal rights. The earth was made for humans, and they can do as they damn well please with it. 1:28
All animals were originally herbivores. Tapeworms, vampire bats, mosquitoes, and barracudas -- all were strict vegetarians, as they were created by God. But, of course, we now know that there were carnivorous animals millions of years before humans existed. 1:30
In Genesis 1 the entire creation takes 6 days, but we know from modern science that the universe is at least 15 billion years old. 1:31
Humans were not created instantaneously from dust and breath as in the Gen.2:7, but evolved over millions of years from simpler life forms. 2:7
God makes the animals and parades them before Adam to see if any would strike his fancy. But none seem to have what it takes to please him. (Although he was tempted to go for the sheep.) Note that in these verses, God makes the animals after making Adam, whereas in the first creation story (1:25-27) the order is reversed. After making the animals, God has Adam name them all. The naming of several million species must have kept Adam busy for a while. But we know that the animals were not created instantaneously from the ground, but rather that they evolved over millions of years. And we still don't have names for all of them. Ten thousand new species of insects are discovered and named each year. 2:18-22
God curses the serpent. From now on the serpent will crawl on his belly and eat dust. One wonders how he got around before -- by hopping on his tail, perhaps? But snakes don't eat dust, do they? 3:14
Because Adam listened to Eve, God cursed the ground and causes thorns and thistles to grow. Before this, according to the (false) Genesis story, plants had no natural defenses. The rose had no thorn, cacti were spineless, holly leaves were smooth, and the nettle had no sting. Foxgloves, oleander, and milkweeds were all perfectly safe to eat. 3:17-18
Where are the cherubim, flaming sword moving back and forth, and the tree of life? Surely if they existed, we would have found them. 3:24
"There were giants in the earth in those days." Well, I suppose it's good to know that. But why is there no archaeological evidence for the existence of these giants? 6:4
Noah is told to make an ark that is 450 feet long. The largest wooden ships ever built were just over 300 feet, and they required diagonal iron strapping for support. Even so, they leaked so badly that they had to be pumped constantly. Are we to believe that Noah, with no shipbuilding knowledge and no shipbuilding tradition to rely upon, was able to construct a wooden ship that was longer than any that has been built since? But not only was the ark too big to be seaworthy, it was far too small to be able to contain the earth's millions of plant and animals species. 6:14-15
Whether by twos or by sevens, Noah takes male and female representatives from each species of "every thing that creepeth upon the earth." Now this must have taken some time, along with expert knowledge of taxonomy, genetics, biogeography, and anatomy. How did Noah manage to collect the endemic species from the New World, Australia, Polynesia, and other remote regions entirely unknown to him? How, once he found them, did he transport them back to his Near Eastern home? How could he tell the male and female beetles (there are more than 500,000 species) apart? How did he know how to care for these new and unfamiliar animals? How did he find the space on the ark? How did he manage to find and care for the hundreds of thousands of parasitic species? How did Noah obtain and care for the hundreds of thousands of species of plants? (Plants are ignored in the Genesis account, but the animals wouldn't last long after if the plants died in the flood.) No, wait, don't tell me. A miracle happened. Millions of them. 7:8
All of the animals boarded the ark "in the selfsame day." Since there were several million species involved, they must have boarded at a rate of at least 100/second. How did poor Noah and his family make sure that the correct number of each species entered through the door and then get them all settled into their proper living quarters so efficiently? I wish the airline companies could do as well! 7:13-14
The flood covered the highest mountain tops (Mount Everest?) with fifteen cubits to spare. Where did all the water come from? Where did it all go? Why is there no evidence of such a massive flood in the geological record? 7:20
"The windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained." This happens whenever it stops raining. 8:2
Noah sends a dove out to see if there was any dry land. But the dove returns without finding any. Then, just seven days later, the dove goes out again and returns with an olive leaf. But how could an olive tree survive the flood? And if any seeds happened to survive, they certainly wouldn't germinate and grow leaves within a seven day period. 8:8-11
When the animals left the ark, what would they have eaten? There would have been no plants after the ground had been submerged for nearly a year. What would the carnivores have eaten? Whatever prey they ate would have gone extinct. And how did the New World primates or the Australian marsupials find there way back after the flood subsided? 8:19
Noah kills the "clean beasts" and burns their dead bodies for God. According to 7:8 this would have caused the extinction of all "clean" animals since only two of each were taken onto the ark. 8:20-21
"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." Although this would have been good advice for the mythical Noah, it is deadly advice for humankind as a whole. Overpopulation is one of our greatest problems, yet there is nothing in the bible to address it. 9:1
According to this verse, all animals fear humans. Although it is true that many do, it is also true that some do not. Sharks and grizzly bears, for example, are generally much less afraid of us than we are of them. 9:2
"Into your hand are they (the animals) delivered." God gave the animals to humans, and they can do whatever they please with them. This verse has been used by bible believers to justify all kinds of cruelty to anmials and environmental destruction. 9:2
God is rightly filled with remorse for having killed his creatures. He even puts the rainbow in the sky to remind himself of his promise to the animals not to do it again. But rainbows are caused by the nature of light, the refractive index of water, and the shape of raindrops. There were rainbows billions of years before humans existed. 9:13
Some creationists believe that this verse refers to continental drift, which, they say, began to occur during the days of Pelag (which means "division"), about 100 or so years after the flood. But many other creationists disagree. 10:25
"The whole earth was of one language." But this could not be true, since by this time (around 2400 BCE) there were already many languages, each unintelligible to the others. 11:1, 6
God worries that people could actually build a tower high enough to reach him (them?) in heaven. 11:4
According to the Tower of Babel story, the many human languages were created instantaneously by God. But actually the various languages evolved gradually over long periods of time. 11:9
The ridiculously long lives of the patriarchs. 11:10-32
In these verses the Philistines are said to have lived in Canaan at the time of Abraham, yet the Philistines did not live in the region until the period of the Judges, well after the time of Abraham. 21:32, 26:1, 21:32, 21:32, 8, 15, 18
Jacob displays his (and God's) knowledge of biology by having goats copulate while looking at streaked rods. The result is streaked baby goats. 30:37-39
Joseph and his magic divining cup. 44:5, 44:15
Exodus
The Israelite population went from 70 (or 75) to several million in a few hundred years. 1:5,7, 12:37, 38:26
Why are some people born with disabilities? Because God deliberately makes them that way. 4:11
Leviticus
The bible says that hares and coneys are unclean because they "chew the cud" but do not part the hoof. But hares and coneys are not ruminants and they do not "chew the cud." 11:5-6
Bats are birds to the biblical God. 11:13, 19
Be sure to watch out for those "other flying creeping things which have four feet." (I wish God wouldn't get so technical!) I guess he must mean four-legged insects. You'd think that since God made the insects, and so many of them (at least several million species), that he would know how many legs they have! 11:23
Numbers
The Israelite population went from seventy (Ex.1:5) to several million (over 600,000 adult males) in just a few generations! 1:45-46
"And there we saw the giants ... And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." This statement may have been figurative, hyperbole, typical biblical exaggeration, or an actual description of the sons of Anak, in which case they must have been about 300 feet tall. These are the same giants (the Nephilium) that resulted when the "sons of God" mated with "the daughters of men in Gen.6:4. Of course these superhuman god-men should have been destroyed in the flood. So what are they doing still alive? 13:33
Deuteronomy
Og, the king of the giants, was a tall man, even by NBA standards. His bed measured 9 by 4 cubits (13.5 feet long and 6 feet wide). 3:11
God promises to cast out seven nations including the Amorites, Canaanites, and the Jebusites. But he was unable to fulfill his promise. These nations were "greater and mightier" than the Israelites, who according to Ex.12:37 and Num.1:45-46 already had numbered several million. So the region, according to the bible, must have had a population of more than twenty million! 7:1
This verse mistakenly says that the hare chews its cud. 14:7-8
To the biblical God, a bat is just an another unclean bird. 14:11, 18
"Their wine is the poison of dragons." I wonder what genus and species the bible is referring to when it mentions dragons. 32:33
Joshua
In Joshua 8 the Israelites destroy Ai and make it a desolate heap. But archaeology has revealed that Ai was an abandoned city by the time of the Israelites and that this story is nothing more than a myth invented to explain the ruins of an ancient city that the Israelites encountered. 8:1-29
In a divine type of daylight savings time, God makes the sun stand still so that Joshua can get all his killing done before dark. "Is this not written in the book of Jasher?" Beats me. 10:12-13
"And the coast of Og king of Bashan, which as of the remnant of the giants ..." Why is there no record of any of these giants in the archeological record? 12:4, 18:16
Judges
"The stars in their courses fought against Sisera." Unless astrology is true, how can the stars affect the outcome of a battle? 5:20
1 Samuel
"The pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he hath set the world upon them. 2:8
2 Samuel
In another biblical exaggeration, the servants of David kill 20,000 soldiers in one day. 18:7
The earth shakes, the foundations of heaven move, smoke comes out of God's nostrils, and fire out of his mouth. 22:8-16
How many soldiers did Israel have? This verse says that Judah and Israel had a total of 1,300,000 fighting men (1 Chr.21:5 says 1,570,000) in this battle. Of course, this is a ridiculously high number for a battle between two tribal armies in 1000 BCE. (The United States had about 1.37 million active duty soldiers in 2001.) 24:9
1 Kings
This verse implies that the value of p is 3. (The actual value is approximately 3.14159.) 7:23
God creates droughts by causing "heaven to shut up" as a punishment for sin. 8:35
2 Kings
Isaiah, with a little help from God, makes the sun move backwards ten degrees. Now that's quite a trick. All at once, the earth stopped spinning and then reversed its direction of rotation. Or maybe the sun traveled around the earth in those days! 20:11
1 Chronicles
Among those killed by the "mighty man", Benaiah, was a giant Egyptian "five cubits high". Since a cubit is 18 inches or so, that would have made him about 7'6" (2.3 meters). 11:23
In this verse we are told that the earth is stable and does not move. If so, then it must not spin on its axis or travel about the sun. 16:30
According to this verse David's army had 1,100,000 men from Israel and 470,000 men from Judah, Of course, this numbers is ridiculously high for a battle between two tribal armies in 1000 BCE. (The United States had about 1.37 million active duty soldiers in 2001.) 21:5
King David collects ten thousand drams (or darics) for the construction of the temple in Jerusalem. This is especially interesting since darics were coins named after King Darius I who lived some five hundred years after David. 29:7
2 Chronicles
Since the molten sea was round with a diameter of ten cubits and a circumference of thirty cubits, we know that the biblical value of p is 3. (The actual value is approximately 3.14159.) 4:2
500,000 soldiers die in a single God-assisted slaughter. 13:16-17
Esther
"Haman thought in his heart." Most people think with their heads, but biblical folks think with their hearts. 6:6
Job
The earth rests upon pillars and doesn't move (unless God gets angry or something). 9:6
Heaven is set upon pillars that tremble when God gets mad. 26:11
The earth is set on foundations and it does not move. 38:4-6
God has snow and hail all stored up to use later "in time of trouble." 38:22
As the note in the Harper Collins Study Bible says, "This folk tradition about ostriches does not accord with facts about their nature." Ostriches are not cruel and stupid birds who abandon their eggs to die after laying them, as these verses imply. They are, in fact, careful and attentive parents. The male scoops out a hollow for the eggs, which are incubated by the female during the day and the male at night. After the eggs are hatched, they are cared for by the mother for over a month, at which time the chicks can keep up with running adults.39:13-16
The bible is wrong about ostriches being cruel and inattentive parents (39:13-16). But if they were, whose fault would it be? Why would God deprive them of the wisdom and understanding needed to do the job right? 39:17
Bible believers have identified the behemoth as a hippopotamus, dinosaur, or wildebeest. But my favorite is the note in the Harper Collins Study Bible: "If tail(40:17) is not a euphemism for the sexual organ, Behemoth seems in this respect to resemble a crocodile." 40:15
Psalms
The earth shakes whenever God really gets mad. 18:7
"The foundations of the world were discovered ... at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils." Apparently, then, the earth is set on firm foundations and does not move -- and God has nostrils. 18:15
The sun moves around the earth. 19:5-6
God saves the author of this psalm "from the horns of the unicorns." He is a lucky guy -- those unicorns are vicious beasts. 22:21
God makes Lebanon and Sirion "like a young unicorn." 29:6
God holds the earth up with pillars. 75:3
Another reference to "the foundations of the earth", implying that the earth is fixed and does not move. 82:5
"The world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved." 93:1
"The world also shall be established that it shall not be moved." 96:10
God set the earth on firm foundations "that it should not be moved for ever." So, according to the Bible, the earth is stationary and does not orbit the sun 104:5
"The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." Then why do nearly all animals die painful deaths from starvation, predation, or disease long before they reach adulthood? 145:9
Isaiah
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb...." I wonder what will become of the spiders. Will they be more friendly toward flies? And will the parasitic wasps find another way to feed their larvae? Or will they continue to feed off the living bodies of caterpillars? 11:6, 65:25
"And the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den." A cockatrice is a serpent, hatched from a cock's egg, that can kill with a glance. They are rare nowadays. 11:8
God will gather up the people of Judea "from the four corners of the earth." In the Bible's view, the earth is flat with four corners. 11:12
According to the Bible, the moon produces its own light and the earth does not move. 13:10
When God gets really angry, he causes earthquakes. 13:14
Out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent." What ever happened to these fascinating biblical creatures? 14:29
Among the many strange creatures mentioned in the Bible that no longer seem to exist is the "fiery flying serpent." 30:6
"The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold." Well, this is one prophecy that will never come true. Since the moon has no light of its own, but only reflects that of the sun, it could never shine like the sun. And the sun will not, at least not while there are humans to see it, shine 7 times as bright as it does now. 30:26
"And the unicorns shall come down with them." 34:7
Dragons and satyrs may not seem real to you, but they did to the author of these verses. 34:13
God makes the sun move backwards 10 degrees. Now that's a neat trick! 38:8
According to this verse, the earth is a flat disc that God looks down upon from his throne in heaven. (The NRSV says, "It is he who sits above the circle of the earth....") 40:22
Even the dragons honor God. 43:20
Bad people hatch poisonous cockatrice eggs. Whoever eats the eggs will die, and when the eggs are crushed a viper hatches out of them. 59:5
"Neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee." Of course the moon doesn't give off light, but only reflects the light from the sun. 60:19
Jeremiah
When God gets angry, the earth trembles. 10:10
This verse implies that the earth is on foundations and does not move. But of course we know that the earth is in constant motion as it rotates about the sun. 31:37
[edit on 8/27/2004 by lossofreason]
God saves the author of this psalm "from the horns of the unicorns." He is a lucky guy -- those unicorns are vicious beasts. 22:21
God makes Lebanon and Sirion "like a young unicorn." 29:6
God holds the earth up with pillars. 75:3
Another reference to "the foundations of the earth", implying that the earth is fixed and does not move. 82:5
"The world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved." 93:1
"The world also shall be established that it shall not be moved." 96:10
God set the earth on firm foundations "that it should not be moved for ever." So, according to the Bible, the earth is stationary and does not orbit the sun 104:5
"The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." Then why do nearly all animals die painful deaths from starvation, predation, or disease long before they reach adulthood? 145:9
Isaiah
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb...." I wonder what will become of the spiders. Will they be more friendly toward flies? And will the parasitic wasps find another way to feed their larvae? Or will they continue to feed off the living bodies of caterpillars? 11:6, 65:25
"And the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den." A cockatrice is a serpent, hatched from a cock's egg, that can kill with a glance. They are rare nowadays. 11:8
God will gather up the people of Judea "from the four corners of the earth." In the Bible's view, the earth is flat with four corners. 11:12
According to the Bible, the moon produces its own light and the earth does not move. 13:10
When God gets really angry, he causes earthquakes. 13:14
Out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent." What ever happened to these fascinating biblical creatures? 14:29
Among the many strange creatures mentioned in the Bible that no longer seem to exist is the "fiery flying serpent." 30:6
"The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold." Well, this is one prophecy that will never come true. Since the moon has no light of its own, but only reflects that of the sun, it could never shine like the sun. And the sun will not, at least not while there are humans to see it, shine 7 times as bright as it does now. 30:26
"And the unicorns shall come down with them." 34:7
Dragons and satyrs may not seem real to you, but they did to the author of these verses. 34:13
God makes the sun move backwards 10 degrees. Now that's a neat trick! 38:8
According to this verse, the earth is a flat disc that God looks down upon from his throne in heaven. (The NRSV says, "It is he who sits above the circle of the earth....") 40:22
Even the dragons honor God. 43:20
Bad people hatch poisonous cockatrice eggs. Whoever eats the eggs will die, and when the eggs are crushed a viper hatches out of them. 59:5
"Neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee." Of course the moon doesn't give off light, but only reflects the light from the sun. 60:19
Jeremiah
When God gets angry, the earth trembles. 10:10
This verse implies that the earth is on foundations and does not move. But of course we know that the earth is in constant motion as it rotates about the sun. 31:37
[edit on 8/27/2004 by lossofreason]
Lamentations
Ostriches are not cruel and inattentive parents, as this verse implies. They are, in fact, careful and attentive parents. The male scoops out a hollow for the eggs, which are incubated by the female during the day and the male at night. After the eggs are hatched, they are cared for by the mother for over a month, at which time the chicks can keep up with running adults. 4:3
Ezekiel
To Ezekiel the earth is flat and has four corners. 7:2
God "will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light." To Ezekiel, the sun is just a little light that can be covered with a cloud, and the moon produces its own light. 32:7
Daniel
The third year of the reign of Jehoiakim would be 606 BCE, at which time Nebuchadnezzar was not yet king of Babylon. It was 597 BCE that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem for the first time (without actually destroying it). By that time Jehohiakim was dead and his son, Jehoiachin, was ruling. (see Nebuchadrezzar II, Encyclopedia Britannica) 1:1
The stone became "a great mountain" that "filled the whole earth." This could only be possible on a flat, disc-shaped earth. 2:35
Daniel's tree is tall enough to be seen from "the end of all the earth." Only on a flat earth would this be possible. 4:10-11, 20
Nebuchadnezzar eats grass, lets his hair grow like eagle feathers and his nails like bird claws. Of course, there is no record in secular history that Nebuchadnezzar suffered any such strange sickness. 4:32-33
Apparently, the author of Daniel knew of only two Babylonian kings during the period of the exile: Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, who he wrongly thought was the son of Nebuchadnezzar. But Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 BCE and was succeeded by his son, Awil-Marduk (referred to in the bible as "Evilmerodach" [see 2 Kg.25:27 and Jer.52:31]). In 560 BCE, Amel-Marduk was assassinated by his brother-in-law, Nergal-shar-usur. The next and last king of Babylon was Nabonidus who reigned from 556 to 539, when Babylon was conquered by Cyrus. It was Nabonidus, and not Belshazzar, who was the last of the Babylonian kings. Belshazzar was a the son and viceroy of Nabonidus. But he was not a king, and was not the son (or any other relation) of Nebochadnezzar. (See The Neo-Babylonian Empire, Encyclopedia Britannica). 5:2,11,18,22
Darius the Median is a fictitious character whom the author perhaps confused with Darius I of Persia, who came to the throne in 521 BCE, 17 years after the fall of Babylon. The author of Daniel incorrectly makes him the successor of Belshazzar instead of Cyrus. (See biblical literature, Daniel, Encyclopedia Britannica) 5:31
To Daniel, the stars are small objects that can fall from the sky and then be "stamped upon." 8:10
Joel
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood." These "signs" were a lot more impressive before the causes of solar and lunar eclipses were understood. 2:31
Jonah
A human being cannot survive three days and nights in a fish's (or whale's) belly. 1:17
"Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey." That would make it about 60 miles in diameter -- larger than Los Angeles! 3:3
Micah
The earth is set upon strong foundations and therefore does not move. 6:2
Habakkuk
"The sun and moon stood still in their habitation." This verse apparently refers to Joshua 10:12-13, where God makes the sun stand still. Of course, this could only be possible if the sun moves around the earth. 3:11
Matthew
Herod kills all boys in and around Bethlehem that are two years old and under. Such a massacre would certainly have been noted by contemporary historians. Yet not even Josephus, who documented Herod's life in detail, mentioned this event. 2:16
The devil kidnaps Jesus and takes him up to the top of the temple, and then to the top of "an exceedingly high mountain," high enough to see "all the kingdoms of the world." I guess the earth was flat in those days. 4:8
"Behold the fowls of the air...." Jesus says that God feeds them. But, if so, he does one hell of a lousy job at it. Most birds die before leaving the nest, and the few who manage to fly soon die painful deaths of starvation, predation, or disease. If God is caring for them, pray that he stays away from you. 6:26
Speaking of the birds, Jesus asks: "Are ye not much better than they?" This is meant as a rhetorical question, but the answer is far from obvious to me. I guess to Jesus, though, birds are not worth much compared to humans. So you can do whatever the hell you want with (and to) them. 6:26
According to Matthew, people who cannot speak are possessed by the devil. 9:32-33
God is involved in the death of every sparrow. He sees to it that they each die painful deaths of starvation, predation, or disease. But don't worry. God will do the same for you. (He thinks that humans are worth much more than sparrows.) 10:29. 31
Jesus casts out a devil from a man who was blind and dumb (blind and dumb people are possessed by devils). 12:22
Jesus is incorrect when he says that the mustard seed is the smallest seed. And since there are no trees in the mustard family, mustard seeds do not grow into "the greatest of all trees." 13:31-32
Jesus cures an epileptic "lunatic" by "rebuking the devil." (Epilepsy is caused by devils.) 17:15-18
"The moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven." Apparently, Jesus believed that the moon produces its own light, and that the stars are lights held in place by a firmament only a few miles above our heads. 24:29
Jesus believed that Noah's flood actually happened. 24:37
Mark
Jesus is incorrect when he says that the mustard seed is the smallest seed. (The smallest seeds are found among the tropical, epiphytic orchids.) 4:31
Jesus heals a boy with "a dumb spirit" by saying, "Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him and enter no more into him." (Sounds like a script from Monty Python, doesn't it?) But how could a deaf spirit hear the words spoken to it? And how could a dumb spirit cry out? 9:17, 25
"In those days ... the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall." Of course this is nonsense. The billions of stars will never fall to earth and the moon does not produce its own light. 13:24-25
Luke
The devil takes Jesus to the top of a mountain and shows him "all the kingdoms of the world." I guess the world was flat in those days. 4:5
Epilepsy is caused by devils. 9:39-42
People who cannot speak are possessed with devils. 11:14
"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars." 21:25
John
"These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing." But no such site is known in history. Some translations (ASV, NAB, NIV, RSV, NRSV) rename Bethabara as Bethany, but Bethany is a suburb of Jerusalem and, therefore, not "beyond the Jordan." 1:28
Romans
Paul claims that before Adam sinned death did not exist. But, of course, death didn't enter the world a few thousand years ago because of Adam's sin. Death has been a part of life since life first arose (on this planet, at least) a few billion years ago. 5:12
1 Corinthians
Paul shows his ignorance (and God's) of biology by saying that only dead seeds will germinate. Actually, a seed must be alive to germinate. 15:36
1 Timothy
Paul instructs Timothy to avoid science, especially that which disagrees with him ("science falsely so called"). Other versions translate this phrase as "false knowledge", which may be more correct. However many fundamentalist Christians still use this verse ("science falsely so called") to justify their rejection of any idea, scientific or otherwise, they believe contradicts the bible. 6:20
Hebrews
God set the earth on a foundation; therefore, it must not move. 1:10
James
James says that, even in his day, all beasts, birds, serpents, and sea creatures had been tamed by humans. 3:7
If you are sick, don't go to a medical doctor -- rely on the power of prayer. 5:14-15
By praying, Elias was able to keep it from raining for three and a half years. 5:17
Revelation
"Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him." This could only happen on a flat earth. 1:7
Jesus holds seven stars in his hand. Of course, it is possible that this is to be taken metaphorically. Perhaps. But it is clear from other verses (6:13, 8:10, 12:4) that John thought of stars as being small, perhaps even small enough for Jesus to hold in his hand. 1:16
"And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth...." To John, the stars are just little lights a few miles away that can easily fall to the earth. 6:13
John "saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth." Well, I guess that settles it: the earth is flat and square-shaped, or at least quadrilateral in shape. 7:1
"And there fell a great star from heaven, burning
Ostriches are not cruel and inattentive parents, as this verse implies. They are, in fact, careful and attentive parents. The male scoops out a hollow for the eggs, which are incubated by the female during the day and the male at night. After the eggs are hatched, they are cared for by the mother for over a month, at which time the chicks can keep up with running adults. 4:3
Ezekiel
To Ezekiel the earth is flat and has four corners. 7:2
God "will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light." To Ezekiel, the sun is just a little light that can be covered with a cloud, and the moon produces its own light. 32:7
Daniel
The third year of the reign of Jehoiakim would be 606 BCE, at which time Nebuchadnezzar was not yet king of Babylon. It was 597 BCE that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem for the first time (without actually destroying it). By that time Jehohiakim was dead and his son, Jehoiachin, was ruling. (see Nebuchadrezzar II, Encyclopedia Britannica) 1:1
The stone became "a great mountain" that "filled the whole earth." This could only be possible on a flat, disc-shaped earth. 2:35
Daniel's tree is tall enough to be seen from "the end of all the earth." Only on a flat earth would this be possible. 4:10-11, 20
Nebuchadnezzar eats grass, lets his hair grow like eagle feathers and his nails like bird claws. Of course, there is no record in secular history that Nebuchadnezzar suffered any such strange sickness. 4:32-33
Apparently, the author of Daniel knew of only two Babylonian kings during the period of the exile: Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, who he wrongly thought was the son of Nebuchadnezzar. But Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 BCE and was succeeded by his son, Awil-Marduk (referred to in the bible as "Evilmerodach" [see 2 Kg.25:27 and Jer.52:31]). In 560 BCE, Amel-Marduk was assassinated by his brother-in-law, Nergal-shar-usur. The next and last king of Babylon was Nabonidus who reigned from 556 to 539, when Babylon was conquered by Cyrus. It was Nabonidus, and not Belshazzar, who was the last of the Babylonian kings. Belshazzar was a the son and viceroy of Nabonidus. But he was not a king, and was not the son (or any other relation) of Nebochadnezzar. (See The Neo-Babylonian Empire, Encyclopedia Britannica). 5:2,11,18,22
Darius the Median is a fictitious character whom the author perhaps confused with Darius I of Persia, who came to the throne in 521 BCE, 17 years after the fall of Babylon. The author of Daniel incorrectly makes him the successor of Belshazzar instead of Cyrus. (See biblical literature, Daniel, Encyclopedia Britannica) 5:31
To Daniel, the stars are small objects that can fall from the sky and then be "stamped upon." 8:10
Joel
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood." These "signs" were a lot more impressive before the causes of solar and lunar eclipses were understood. 2:31
Jonah
A human being cannot survive three days and nights in a fish's (or whale's) belly. 1:17
"Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey." That would make it about 60 miles in diameter -- larger than Los Angeles! 3:3
Micah
The earth is set upon strong foundations and therefore does not move. 6:2
Habakkuk
"The sun and moon stood still in their habitation." This verse apparently refers to Joshua 10:12-13, where God makes the sun stand still. Of course, this could only be possible if the sun moves around the earth. 3:11
Matthew
Herod kills all boys in and around Bethlehem that are two years old and under. Such a massacre would certainly have been noted by contemporary historians. Yet not even Josephus, who documented Herod's life in detail, mentioned this event. 2:16
The devil kidnaps Jesus and takes him up to the top of the temple, and then to the top of "an exceedingly high mountain," high enough to see "all the kingdoms of the world." I guess the earth was flat in those days. 4:8
"Behold the fowls of the air...." Jesus says that God feeds them. But, if so, he does one hell of a lousy job at it. Most birds die before leaving the nest, and the few who manage to fly soon die painful deaths of starvation, predation, or disease. If God is caring for them, pray that he stays away from you. 6:26
Speaking of the birds, Jesus asks: "Are ye not much better than they?" This is meant as a rhetorical question, but the answer is far from obvious to me. I guess to Jesus, though, birds are not worth much compared to humans. So you can do whatever the hell you want with (and to) them. 6:26
According to Matthew, people who cannot speak are possessed by the devil. 9:32-33
God is involved in the death of every sparrow. He sees to it that they each die painful deaths of starvation, predation, or disease. But don't worry. God will do the same for you. (He thinks that humans are worth much more than sparrows.) 10:29. 31
Jesus casts out a devil from a man who was blind and dumb (blind and dumb people are possessed by devils). 12:22
Jesus is incorrect when he says that the mustard seed is the smallest seed. And since there are no trees in the mustard family, mustard seeds do not grow into "the greatest of all trees." 13:31-32
Jesus cures an epileptic "lunatic" by "rebuking the devil." (Epilepsy is caused by devils.) 17:15-18
"The moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven." Apparently, Jesus believed that the moon produces its own light, and that the stars are lights held in place by a firmament only a few miles above our heads. 24:29
Jesus believed that Noah's flood actually happened. 24:37
Mark
Jesus is incorrect when he says that the mustard seed is the smallest seed. (The smallest seeds are found among the tropical, epiphytic orchids.) 4:31
Jesus heals a boy with "a dumb spirit" by saying, "Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him and enter no more into him." (Sounds like a script from Monty Python, doesn't it?) But how could a deaf spirit hear the words spoken to it? And how could a dumb spirit cry out? 9:17, 25
"In those days ... the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall." Of course this is nonsense. The billions of stars will never fall to earth and the moon does not produce its own light. 13:24-25
Luke
The devil takes Jesus to the top of a mountain and shows him "all the kingdoms of the world." I guess the world was flat in those days. 4:5
Epilepsy is caused by devils. 9:39-42
People who cannot speak are possessed with devils. 11:14
"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars." 21:25
John
"These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing." But no such site is known in history. Some translations (ASV, NAB, NIV, RSV, NRSV) rename Bethabara as Bethany, but Bethany is a suburb of Jerusalem and, therefore, not "beyond the Jordan." 1:28
Romans
Paul claims that before Adam sinned death did not exist. But, of course, death didn't enter the world a few thousand years ago because of Adam's sin. Death has been a part of life since life first arose (on this planet, at least) a few billion years ago. 5:12
1 Corinthians
Paul shows his ignorance (and God's) of biology by saying that only dead seeds will germinate. Actually, a seed must be alive to germinate. 15:36
1 Timothy
Paul instructs Timothy to avoid science, especially that which disagrees with him ("science falsely so called"). Other versions translate this phrase as "false knowledge", which may be more correct. However many fundamentalist Christians still use this verse ("science falsely so called") to justify their rejection of any idea, scientific or otherwise, they believe contradicts the bible. 6:20
Hebrews
God set the earth on a foundation; therefore, it must not move. 1:10
James
James says that, even in his day, all beasts, birds, serpents, and sea creatures had been tamed by humans. 3:7
If you are sick, don't go to a medical doctor -- rely on the power of prayer. 5:14-15
By praying, Elias was able to keep it from raining for three and a half years. 5:17
Revelation
"Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him." This could only happen on a flat earth. 1:7
Jesus holds seven stars in his hand. Of course, it is possible that this is to be taken metaphorically. Perhaps. But it is clear from other verses (6:13, 8:10, 12:4) that John thought of stars as being small, perhaps even small enough for Jesus to hold in his hand. 1:16
"And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth...." To John, the stars are just little lights a few miles away that can easily fall to the earth. 6:13
John "saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth." Well, I guess that settles it: the earth is flat and square-shaped, or at least quadrilateral in shape. 7:1
"And there fell a great star from heaven, burning
this is just a fraction of the stuff i have discovered in research
i know it is a lot of reading but well worth it
the reason i posted these was to intensify the string topic conversation
i do not mean to offend anyone....
remember research is just research
**loss**
i know it is a lot of reading but well worth it
the reason i posted these was to intensify the string topic conversation
i do not mean to offend anyone....
remember research is just research
**loss**
For once there may be a simple answer if the old wife�s tales in the bible wernt taken as true by some people then no one would show up to church on
sundays.
Okay, Simple answer: Why not a bit of both? Disregard what you've been told or taught, take what you will and believe what you like from both
sources, and form your own opinion. It might clash with other peoples views, but if it makes sense to you then it can be good for you, which is the
whole point of belief.
Make your own opinion, don't just settle for one side of a story, write your own. I dont know how to put it..................but you get the picture
Make your own opinion, don't just settle for one side of a story, write your own. I dont know how to put it..................but you get the picture
Originally posted by dcgolf
So it is more believable that the entire universe started from something smaller than the period at the end of this sentence and expanded to what we have today (Big Bang Theory)?
It's more believable that if there is a God, he created the universe, but he did not create Christianity, or Islam, or any other exclusivist religion which preaches the 'one way to God.' Humans created religion. If there is a God, it does not correlate that he must be the God of Christianity.
You know what (not directed to the poster above, but just in general)? When I seriously look at some of the stories in the Bible, such as Adam and Eve and the snake blah blah. It's almost ... hmm ... it's almost frightening how that sounds JUST LIKE an Aesop's fable tale, yet people take it to be fact. And consequently use the rest of the Bible for negative purposes, such as shunning others, or judging them based on that book. Sigh.
It just seems so silly.
[edit on 30-8-2004 by W_HAMILTON]
In all that is said to be faith faith is only definable with the person who has that faith....
I agree with hamilton on this topic
why not a bit of both after all religion is a collaboration of many different fables and stories.
Some stories have been passed down from generation to generation...and that is what the children are led to believe...
Some stories are written to explain many things that we humanly can't comprehend...
as was stated in another post here abouts...
Just be who u are and don't worry about what others say about your beliefs or otherwise....
++++LoSs++++
I agree with hamilton on this topic
why not a bit of both after all religion is a collaboration of many different fables and stories.
Some stories have been passed down from generation to generation...and that is what the children are led to believe...
Some stories are written to explain many things that we humanly can't comprehend...
as was stated in another post here abouts...
Just be who u are and don't worry about what others say about your beliefs or otherwise....
++++LoSs++++
This is a great thread.
Recently I read Tom Harpurs book "The Pagan Christ' and was totally captivated by the entire story.
Recurring throughout this book was the notion that Christianity found it necessary to 'de-myth-tify' the Old and New Testaments and set them firmly onto the historical map.
But the bottom line is that the more they made it historical, the more questionable the proving became. We're talking 1700 years of tweaking here.
That's a long time to try to set the myth and allegorical stories in the bible into a real timeframe with actual places and people.
If you've never heard of Tom Harpur and these questions are your wheat to mill, then I suggest a google search or even the book itself...but it is still a best seller and in hardcover.
Tom has a good website with some great links for further study
Recently I read Tom Harpurs book "The Pagan Christ' and was totally captivated by the entire story.
Recurring throughout this book was the notion that Christianity found it necessary to 'de-myth-tify' the Old and New Testaments and set them firmly onto the historical map.
But the bottom line is that the more they made it historical, the more questionable the proving became. We're talking 1700 years of tweaking here.
That's a long time to try to set the myth and allegorical stories in the bible into a real timeframe with actual places and people.
If you've never heard of Tom Harpur and these questions are your wheat to mill, then I suggest a google search or even the book itself...but it is still a best seller and in hardcover.
Tom has a good website with some great links for further study
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