SkepticWiki And The Bible

[jjramsey]

BTW, any word on when Malachi151 is going to start mangling the "Existence of Jesus" article?

 

[Ducky]

BTW, any word on when Malachi151 is going to start mangling the "Existence of Jesus" article?

Haven't seen him log in for a very long time.

 

[DiskoVilante]

Are we still going over biblical errors/inconsistencies?

How about this: God, an omnipotent being, has to rest after creating the world in six days (in the Old Testament).

And: God is not omnipotent because in Judges i. 19, he cannot drive out the inhabitants of a valley because they had chariots of iron.

 

[jjramsey]

I noticed that Diamond tried to "fix" the pi=3 article to make it look like the pi=3 argument was anything more than a strawman that makes those who use it look lame. I think, too, that Diamond needs to learn what "poisoning the well" really means.

 

[Diamond]

I noticed that Diamond tried to "fix" the pi=3 article to make it look like the pi=3 argument was anything more than a strawman that makes those who use it look lame. I think, too, that Diamond needs to learn what "poisoning the well" really means.

Yes, "poisoning the well" means writing statements which are deliberately designed to mischaracterize the opinions of your opponents in order to make them look bad.

And "poisoning the well" is exactly what you did in that article, which is why it was cut out. It appears that you cannot resist "poisoning the well" because your argumentation is so weak.

 

[jjramsey]

Yes, "poisoning the well" means writing statements which are deliberately designed to mischaracterize the opinions of your opponents in order to make them look bad.

Actually, that's the straw man fallacy, and you haven't established that I have done that either. If you are going to claim that I have either poisoned the well or proposed a straw man in the pi=3 article, then you ought to (gasp!) show evidence.

Now, seriously, do you really think that if a purported chronicle about the activities of ancient kings reports the circumference and diameter of a round object in round numbers, then that chronicle is really saying that pi=3? If your answer is yes, what possible justification do you have? If the answer to that is "No," then why is the part of the article that says as much described as giving merely a "generous interpretation" of the text rather than an accurate one?

You accuse me of weak argument, but your claim that "the Hebrews could have used 25 cubits and 8 cubits" rather than 30 and 10 cubits to describe the dimensions of the molten sea only makes sense if 25 and 8 were closer to the dimensions of the sea to begin with. And you have yet to provide any other support for the claim that the more precise approximations for pi would have been needed in the texts under discussion.

I'm sorry, but your revisions look like a poor attempt to shore up a bad argument, and show just why Dr. Adequate was right in saying that "No-one who really wants to attack the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy should ever refer to this argument."

 

[davefoc]

I read the pi=3 article and I have followed this dispute a bit.

My two cents:
It seems that jjramsey is correct here assuming I understand the issue.

Many of the apparent biblical inconsistencies seem to be valid when one first considers them. It takes a skilled apologist to make a plausible explanation as to why the apparent inconsistency isn't one.

That is not the case with the pi=3 issue. Almost the only interesting thing about it is that somebody chose to make an issue about it. Yes, it would have been interesting if, while god was inspiring the writer of this passage*, he got him to parenthetically insert a little discussion of irrational numbers and techniques for determining an accurate value for pi. But he didn't do that and it looks like a ridiculous stretch (IMHO of course) to interpret what looks like normal everyday descriptive language as a formal mathematical statement.

*Assuming that God inspired the passage. I understand there are some people who are skeptical about that here. But I don't think the failure of the writer to break into a formal mathematical description of pi in this passage is evidence for the non-existence of God or even an error by the writer.

 

[jjramsey]

I removed the sarcastic "Generous interpretation" bit--talk about well poisoning (!)--included the weaknesses of Diamond's counter arguments, and rejiggered things a bit.

 

[Diamond]

And I restored the version before jjramsey decides to make the article into a tract. I never thought that I 'd actually have left an article which quotes a Christian apologists book and a Christian blogger as if such things were authoritative, but there's only so much crap I'm prepared to wade through at a time.

The weakness of the argument by jjramsey is how much the Bible can b described as imprecise while still remaining infallible or inerrant. Its rather like trying to nail jello to the ceiling but 2000 years of impressive jello-nailing have softened the minds of its adherents.

 

[jjramsey]

And I restored the version before jjramsey decides to make the article into a tract.

You mean a tract that contained stuff like this:

Of course, if the methodology of interpretation described above from How to Read the Bible For All It's Worth were followed consistently, one would still find such things as the creation and flood accounts to be grossly wrong.

Or this:

While this is arguably not too ad hoc, it is unnecessary and probably not reflective of how an ancient reader would read the text, and so it should be rejected.

Curiously enough, you removed both of these statements.

I never thought that I 'd actually have left an article which quotes a Christian apologists book and a Christian blogger as if such things were authoritative

The book from the Christian "apologist" and the quote from the blogger were used to show why even evangelical Christians would consider your argument to be a strawman. To quote myself:

Against most evangelicals, the π = 3 argument would be considered a strawman. The book How to Read the Bible For All It's Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stewart, which is aimed at helping laypersons correctly interpret the Bible, advises, "a text cannot mean what it never could have meant to its author or his or her readers." Someone taking this advice would never try to get an exact value of π from the 1 Kings 7:23 or 2 Chronicles 4:2. The Christian who writes the Prosthesis blog notes,

Scriptural literalism is often associated with fundamentalism, but it isn't clear that fundamentalists are literalists, either. Most denominations that would generally be called "fundamentalist" (keeping in mind the "fundamentalist" is usually a relative term) would hold to inerrancy, not literalism. According to Roy Clouser, what distiguishes the fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture isn't literalism, but the "encyclopedic assumption." This essentially treats Scripture as an encyclopedia that gives the Christian information about every topic from A to Z. It is supposed to tell us about astronomy, psychology, biology, and every other topic. Where this type of interpretation errs is that the Bible is a religious text with a religious focus, it is not meant give us information about every topic imaginable.​

Now why you consider a book aimed at helping a layperson do decent exegesis to be a work of apologetics, or why you consider the quote, "a text cannot mean what it never could have meant to its author or his or her readers," to be apologetic sophistry, I have no idea.

The weakness of the argument by jjramsey is how much the Bible can b described as imprecise while still remaining infallible or inerrant.

In other words, using round numbers to report the measurements of a round object is an error, regardless of whether those reported measurements are as precise as they need to be in context.

Its rather like trying to nail jello to the ceiling but 2000 years of impressive jello-nailing have softened the minds of its adherents.

A complaint which Dr. Adequate answered more than adequately: "As for 'part of a nearly infinite set of excuses', this is true, but this one happens to be valid. No-one who really wants to attack the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy should ever refer to this argument. One really solid argument is better logically and rhetorically than half-a-dozen most of which turn out not to work."

 

[halofish2000]

I had just a bit of time to read some of David's census. Dr Adequate, what was the sin that David committed by numbering the people?

 

[Dr Adequate]

I had just a bit of time to read some of David's census. Dr Adequate, what was the sin that David committed by numbering the people?

That isn't really explained.

There are other censuses in the Bible where God doesn't get all smitey. Jjr suggested that maybe it was because David didn't follow the same procedure as these censuses, but there's not anything in the text that suggests this.

IMHO, the most likely explanation is that something like this actually happened --- that is, the king took a census, then there was a plague, and people did the usual post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, and decided that the unusual event immediately before the plague must have caused it (it might --- census takers could act as carriers, I suppose). This is just a guess.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Okay, how do you revert articles? I can't find the button.

If Diamond wishes to ask Ducky to block me from editing the SkepticWiki, which I doubt, then I suspect that Ducky will say no.

That "25/8" thing is quite the silliest thing I've seen all week ... no, wait, there was that thing about the Secretary of the Treasury being shot and replaced by a hologram.

The Bible contains all sorts of genuine howlers, as jjramsey's version of the article pointed out. Why can't you write an article about one of those? --- instead of insisting on an argument so completely cuckoo that it's an embarrassment to the SkepticWiki --- and to yourself.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Are we still going over biblical errors/inconsistencies?

How about this: God, an omnipotent being, has to rest after creating the world in six days (in the Old Testament).

Since Genesis is metaphrical, the day of rest is actually conveying a lesson about the Sabbath. Technically humans don't even need to rest a day after working six. The lesson to the Hewbrews was even YHWH rested on the sixth day of the week so they should too.

 

[jjramsey]

Okay, how do you revert articles? I can't find the button.

There isn't a nice, neat button, from what I've seen. Instead, you go to the "History" tab of an article, click on a link to an earlier revision of the article, click on the "Edit" tab of this earlier revision, and then click on the "Save Page" button.

Maybe there is a less convoluted way, but I don't know what it is.

 

[Mercutio]

Okay, how do you revert articles? I can't find the button.

If Diamond wishes to ask Ducky to block me from editing the SkepticWiki, which I doubt, then I suspect that Ducky will say no.

That "25/8" thing is quite the silliest thing I've seen all week ... no, wait, there was that thing about the Secretary of the Treasury being shot and replaced by a hologram.

The Bible contains all sorts of genuine howlers, as jjramsey's version of the article pointed out. Why can't you write an article about one of those? --- instead of insisting on an argument so completely cuckoo that it's an embarrassment to the SkepticWiki --- and to yourself.

I had a prof in college, a nationally recognized chemist, who regularly had us exercise our brains by doing rough estimations of equations before we actually sat down and calculated them--so that we would know, if we did something wrong in the more technical run-through, that the answer we got was not right. The rough estimations were a huge part of really understanding what we were doing. In these rough estimations, he would regularly round up from 7 or 8 to say "call it ten, because that's easier, and just remember that it will be a bit high". When we were figuring out volumes of beakers, etc., pi was always 3, never the exact number.

If it is close enough for a college chemistry class, it is not something to base a critique of the bible on. Once again applying a handy rule of thumb, "Dr. Adequate is once again right" is an easy heuristic to remember.

 

[halofish2000]

Possible reason for the census curse:
1Sa 8:7 God explains how the kings will take from the people because the people wanted kings to rule over them so they could worship like the nations around them
2Sa 24:1 Has David taking a census in order to keep a standing army after all the wars had been won
Ex 30:12 Is the law regarding taking a census and what Davis failed to do...Pay a ransom for their soul
This is the only thing I could find. Hope this helps.

 

[jjramsey]

Diamond sort of cleaned up the Pi=3 article by adding this conclusion:

The argument about the Bible's rendering of Pi proves neither that the Bible is infallible nor particularly inaccurate. It is not a strong argument in favour of infallibility or inerrancy, nor a reason in itself to claim that the Bible generally is inaccurate or misleading.

I'm tempted to let Diamond's "25/8" argument stand in the section "Non-Generous Interpretation," since it is a reminder of how useless the counterclaim "But there were more accurate values of pi known in antiquity" actually is. It doesn't reflect very well on the SkepticWiki, though.