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Archeologly proves the Bible?

David Icke writes about "the divine right to rule" and that people are lizards, all based on Genesis 6:4 "The Nephlim were on the earth in those days-and also afterward-when the sons of god went to the daughters of men and had children by them" hybrid bloodlines? talking snakes? wtf?

The craziness of any of this is beyond me. It is proof that difference between the lunatics and the workers in the asylum are this: the workers have the keys.
 
The Rise of Atheism - Australian Convention 2010

The Rise of Atheism - Australian Convention 2010
Type: Common Interest - Beliefs & Causes
Description: Atheist Alliance International and Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc present...

"THE RISE OF ATHEISM"
Global Convention 12-14 March 2010
Melbourne, Australia

Speakers will include:
- Richard Dawkins
- PZ Myers
- Phillip Adams
- Peter Singer
- Taslima Nasrin
- Catherine Deveny
and many more.

"The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science … We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organized ignorance …"
- Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion

"The number of churchgoers in Australia is about 9% and dwindling, the diversity of spiritual belief is flourishing and atheism is going off like a frog in a sock."
- Catherine Deveny, The Age, Melbourne

http://www.atheistconvention.org.au/

I wish I could go. It is in my old home city, but I can't afford it. :drool:

 
Do you know any atheists in Melbourne who might share common interests, such as Egyptology and aeroplanes, and who also happen to post at JREF, and who could also put you up for a couple of nights?


Why yes! You do!
 
Akhenaten said:
Do you know any atheists in Melbourne who might share common interests, such as Egyptology and aeroplanes, and who also happen to post at JREF, and who could also put you up for a couple of nights?


Why yes! You do!
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I might think about that. Thanks. I did think of asking my old School Mate Archbishop Penis Hart to put me up.

I keep my eye on the convention news.

 
I really, REALLY want to see what it looks like when a frog goes off in a sock. :)

Anyway, John Shelby Spong wrote something very germane to the did-the-apostles-have-tape-recorders discussion. He pointed out in Jesus for the Non-Religious that at the time when the four Gospels (as well as the Gospel of Thomas and the Q source) were written, very few people could, well, write. Those who could used extremely expensive materials. This means that nobody was following Jesus around and copying down anything he said at the time (and it's certainly another good argument for the fact that none of the apostles actually wrote any of the Gospels which bear their names, as if we needed any more proof.)
 
DOC said:
From the article cited in post #406:

"Norman Geisler[7] cites widespread misunderstanding among critics as to “errors” in the Biblical manuscripts. Some estimated as many as 200,000 variant readings. First, these are not “errors” but only variations, the vast majority of which are strictly grammatical. Second, these readings are spread over more than 5,300 manuscripts, so that a variant spelling of one letter of one word in one verse in 2,000 manuscripts is counted as 2,000 “errors.” Textual scholars Westcott and Hort estimated only one in 60 of these variants has significance. This would leave the text 98.33% pure. Philip Schaff calculated that, of the 150,000 variants known in his day, only 400 altered the meaning of the passage, only 50 were of real significance, and not even one affected “an article of faith or a precept of duty which is not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching.”

http://www.windmillministries.org/frames/CH11A.htm
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Okay, you want us to respond to the argument not the highly dubious source. Fine. Now, I admit, I am hardly an expert on biblical textual criticism, but from what I know of textual scholarship in general, this statement doesn't make sense to me. First of all, the thing about "a variant spelling of one letter of one word in one verse in 2,000 manuscripts is counted as 2,000 errors"--I don't see how that is possible unless the word is spelled 2000 different ways in those 2000 MSS, and I don't see how that is possible either.

From what I know of textual criticism, spelling variations aren't considered errors; they're barely considered variations. Admittedly, my field involves languages that don't have standardized spelling. I don't know about biblical languages. If biblical Greek and Hebrew do have standardized spelling, then I would have to say that the differences that are found in the MSS are indeed scribal errors, not just variants. If the spelling isn't standardized, I don't believe respectable scholars would call common variants "errors."

It seems to me that he is trying to minimize the differences in extant MSS. Perhaps some of the variants are minor, but, as has been pointed out repeatedly, we don't have originals with which to compare the copies. And even by your source's generous count, there are still 400 variants that alter the meaning and 50 that are of "real significance." That might not be a huge problem if we were talking about MSS of The Canterbury Tales, but no one lives their lives according to the inerrant word of Geoffrey Chaucer.
 
eccles said:
Exodus 24
16And the glory of the LORD abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

17And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.

18And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.

What was with Moses and God. Were they GAY?

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/338944a84aa90d2878.png[/qimg]
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One never knows. :p But more than likely they were playing scrabble. :D
 
Ah, DOC is back to citing one source and one source only, even it disproves his/her claim.
I've posted before that this 5,000 figure, let alone the 25,000 bloated figure is a deliberate misreading of this source, the article is obliged to admit almost 90% of the Greek manuscripts date from after the 9th century :

Counting Greek copies alone, the texts are preserved in 5,366 partial and complete manuscripts hand copied from the second through the fifteenth century. A few New Testament fragments are very early, dating from the second century. At least 362 New Testament manuscripts and 245 lectionaries (collections of Scripture texts grouped together for reading in public worship services) date from the second through the tenth centuries, constituting nearly 11% of all New Testament and lectionary manuscripts. Such early manuscripts are valuable in establishing the original text of the New Testament. The other 89% of manuscripts are minuscule, dating between the ninth and fifteenth centuries.[2]
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Obviously, the manuscripts of any interest at all here are those which are pre-Constantine, not post.
Even so, it is stretching a point because there is no autograph manuscript. Or rather, an autograph manuscript has yet to be discovered.


Is DOC deliberately feeding the thread misleading figures?
Or does he/she simply not read the sources he/she cites?
A third possibility is that DOC is obliged by his/her church to use these sources.
Any other possibilities?

As far as I can recall, these obviously misleading figures were quoted by DOC to
1/ show important the Gospels were in the context of the pre-Constantine Roman Empire.
2/ conclude the Romans "must" have read them.

Given the variety (and quality) of reading material available in the 1st and 2nd century Rome, it seems to me DOC's argument is pretty farfetched, given the evidence from his/her own source.
 
On the subject of pre Constantine versions of the NT:

Of all the versions, none has as complicated a history as the Latin. There are many reasons for this, the foremost being its widespread use. The Latin Vulgate was, for millennia, the Bible of the western church, and after the fall of Constantinople it was the preeminent Bible of Christendom. There are at least eight thousand Latin Bible manuscripts known -- or at least two thousand more Latin than Greek manuscripts.

The first reference to what appears to be a Latin version dates from 180 C.E. In the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, one of the men on trial admits to having writings of Paul in his possession. Given the background, it is presumed that these were in a Latin version.

But which Latin version? That is indeed the problem -- for, in the period before the Vulgate, there were dozens, perhaps hundreds. Jerome, in his preface to the Vulgate gospels, commented that there were "as many [translations] as there are manuscripts." Augustine complained that anyone who had the slightest hint of Greek and Latin might undertake a translation. They seem to have been right; of our dozens of non-Vulgate Latin manuscripts, no two seem to represent exactly the same translation. /QUOTE]

Here's the link:
http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache...ent+Latin+manuscript&cd=7&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=es

From what I can gather, the hodge-podge of Latin texts would be a deterrent to educated Romans takens the collected tales of (yet another) wonder-worker seriously.
Remember, we talking about a time when 'romantantic' novels full of wonders were popular.
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pakeha said:
On the subject of pre Constantine versions of the NT:

Of all the versions, none has as complicated a history as the Latin. There are many reasons for this, the foremost being its widespread use. The Latin Vulgate was, for millennia, the Bible of the western church, and after the fall of Constantinople it was the preeminent Bible of Christendom. There are at least eight thousand Latin Bible manuscripts known -- or at least two thousand more Latin than Greek manuscripts.

The first reference to what appears to be a Latin version dates from 180 C.E. In the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, one of the men on trial admits to having writings of Paul in his possession. Given the background, it is presumed that these were in a Latin version.

But which Latin version? That is indeed the problem -- for, in the period before the Vulgate, there were dozens, perhaps hundreds. Jerome, in his preface to the Vulgate gospels, commented that there were "as many [translations] as there are manuscripts." Augustine complained that anyone who had the slightest hint of Greek and Latin might undertake a translation. They seem to have been right; of our dozens of non-Vulgate Latin manuscripts, no two seem to represent exactly the same translation. /QUOTE]

Here's the link:
http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache...ent+Latin+manuscript&cd=7&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=es

From what I can gather, the hodge-podge of Latin texts would be a deterrent to educated Romans takens the collected tales of (yet another) wonder-worker seriously.
Remember, we talking about a time when 'romantantic' novels full of wonders were popular.
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Latin was taught in most schools in my day. It was compulsory at the Roman Catholic School I went to. I hated it. It was so hard. We had a saying "Latin is a language as dead as dead can be. It killed the Ancient Romans and now it's killing me" Of course it also depended on the skill of the teacher. In 10th year (to use modern class names) , our teacher was Fr. McArevey who did like me and decided to get stuck into me with my Latin. I finished up getting first in the Class in Latin. Next year I copped Fr. Owens (not Welsh of course). He was old and a poor teacher. At the end of 1st. term i applied to give it up. No more Latin.

Church Latin is very different from that of the Roman Empire. Of course it is no longer used for Mass. It is used only in very official Vatican documents. Pope Ratslinger is trying to bring it back for those who want it. But, as Church attendance among Roman Catholic is declining rapidly ( about 10% attendence ). there wont be anyone to say Mass for.


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Fake university, fake mascot, REAL crocoduck t-shirt!

After Kirk Cameron used the non-existence of the ‘crocoduck’ (half crocodile, half duck) as an argument against evolution, crocoduck-mania took to the web like wildfire. But instead of becoming the silver-bullet argument Kirk Cameron had hoped for, it became the icon of evolution-denying stupidity at which we can all laugh.

To celebrate this epic failure by the anti-evolution crowd, RichardDawkins.net has created the “University of Intelligent Design Crocoducks” team t-shirt!

The design features ‘Chuck the Crocoduck,’ the official mascot of the University of Intelligent Design, founded in 4004 BC (not to be confused with the very real Liberty University).

Enjoy demolishing the brain-dead Intelligent Design/Creationist “arguments” (we use the term generously) for friends, family or strangers, with Chuck the Crocoduck’s help!

http://store.richarddawkins.net/products/crocoduck-t-shirt

 
The N/T is riddled with contradictory views about who jesus was and the significance of his life. Most of the books were written in the names of the apostles by christians living decades later, and that central christian doctrines were the inventions of still later theologians. The gospel of Mark, or whoever wrote that book did so around 65-70AD, most scholars agree that this was the first of the gospels to be written. That's a full 30-40 years after the events depicted in it. How on Earth can anyone take this shamble of collections of books in the N/T seriously?
 
DOC said:
The Roman historian Tacitus said Jesus received the ultimate penalty from Pontius Pilate. And all four gospels said Jesus was put in a tomb. We know from the evidence that 1st century tombs existed outside a gate of the wall of Jerusalem. It is rational to conclude that Jesus was put in one of those first century tombs that we know existed.
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Zeus appeared to women in the form of a swan, sometimes. Swans exist. Therefore Zeus exists. QED.
 
eccles said:
I have a lot of work to do on this. I am open minded about most of this except that I totally reject a "god" and the divinity of Jesus. I got too much crap from the Roman Catholic Church which is one reason why I gave it up.
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That doesn't sound like a good reason to give up faith in something unrelated. But I guess since having faith isn't rational either, it's all fair.
 
The babble is usually printed on fine paper. This paper can be useful in an emergency should a household run out of toilet paper. :o
 
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