Almost always is the case in ancient documents, which you probably know. And is probably the reason why the only written documentation of Alexander the Great (the man who conquered Jerusalem, Palestine, and much of the known world) comes from a single offhand comment in a letter whereas all the other written documents about his life come from writers writing over 300 years after his death.
It's a good point, but, the sources for Alexander the Great were chiefly historians,
real people who we know historicaly existed and who put their names to their works
as the authors, and who in turn named their sources, which were mainly Alexander's campaign historian Callisthenes, his generals Ptolemy and Nearchus, a junior officer on Alexander's campaigns called Aristobulus, and Alexander's chief helmsman Onesicritus.
Most of the books of the Bible are actualy anonymous, chiefly being only
traditionaly attributed to certain people rather than the books actualy naming their own authors.
Manuscript Support for the Bible's Reliability by Ron Rhodes
"The Dead Sea Scrolls prove the accuracy of the transmission of the Bible.
In fact, in these scrolls discovered at Qumran in 1947, we have Old Testament manuscripts that date about a thousand years earlier (150 B.C.) than the other Old Testament manuscripts then in our possession (which dated to A.D. 900).
The significant thing is that when one compares the two sets of manuscripts, it is clear that they are essentially the same, with very few changes.
The fact that manuscripts separated by a thousand years are essentially the same indicates the incredible accuracy of the Old Testament's manuscript transmission. A full copy of the Book of Isaiah was discovered at Qumran.
Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text." The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling." From manuscript discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls, Christians have undeniable evidence that today's Old Testament Scripture, for all practical purposes, is exactly the same as it was when originally
inspired by God and recorded in the Bible.
http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/Manuscript.html
You're taking this guy's word for it that the Old Testament, including the Book of Genesis, was inspired by God? Where's the evidence that Book of Genesis was inspired by God?
Because when we look at the earlier texts from Mesopotamia, such as the Mesopotamian creation account found in the 'Enuma Elish' (which being dated from between 1800 BC to 1100 BC
definately predates the Book of Genesis) we find that there are several quite striking similarities to the creation account found in the Book of Genesis.
1) In both the Enuma Elish and Genesis, creation is an act of divine speech.
2) In both, the primordial world is formless and empty, the only existing thing being the watery abyss which exists prior to creation.
3) In both, the sequence of creation is the same: light, firmament, dry land, luminaries, then finaly life and man.
4) In both humans are created from the earth.
And as I've already informed you, the flood account in Genesis is quite obviously based upon the text found in the Mesopotamian 'Epic of Gilgamesh', which in turn is obviously based upon the 'Epic of Atra Hasis', which, being dated to the 18th century BC predates the Book of Genesis (written around 500 BC) by
at least a thousand years.
Shouldn't that at least
suggest to you that much of the Book of Genesis was actualy inspired by earlier Mesopotamian texts rather than by God?
Remember, the person who is traditionaly considered to have started Abrahamic religion, 'Abraham', was supposedly himself a Mesopotamian who moved to Canaan, a place where they worshipped a pantheon of gods led by a chief god called 'El' who's wife or consort was a mother goddess called 'Asherah'. Even the Bible says that God was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as 'El' (Exodus 6.2–3) and we can also associate the Cannanite god 'El' to the Israelite god 'Yahweh' via both of them being associated with the Canaanite mother goddess 'Asherah' because of the archeological discovery of an 8th century BC piece of pottery with the inscription; "I have blessed you by Yahweh of Samaria and His Asherah" and also the discovery of similar inscriptions (also dated to the 8th century BC) found on walls at two sites, Khirbet el-Kom and Kuntillet Ajrud, both in Israel.
Doesn't
any of that at least
suggest to you that monotheistic Abrahamic religion was originaly inspired by earlier polytheistic religions from Mesopotamia and Canaan?
As the follower of an Abrahamic religion, don't you consider these earlier polytheistic religions as mythological in origin rather than factual?
DOC said:
Which is evidence for the truth of the biblical accounts. They report both the good and the bad unlike a ruler or country which minimalizes the bad or simply don't record it at all.
According to that logic, there is evidence for the truth of the books of Harry Potter because they report both good and the bad things happening in them.
