Genesis contradiction

[Tassman]

I'll take that as an admission you are not providing any evidence. I'm actually sharing my evidence of the archeological finds in the 20th century. This is not archeological evidence for Moses' and his writings, but it is textual evidence that the structure of Genesis is ancient, and predates Moses.

Now you assert there is no archeological evidence for Moses, and that may be the case, but there is certainly evidence. The man is reference in just about all the books of the bible that follow Moses' books, and the bible has stood up as a very reliable source of history according to biblical archeology.

Now I wonder if you realize just how many individuals from history actually don't have directly archeological support, but are not doubted.

You see your argument for the non existence of Moses rests on silence in a certain field. Yet you ignore testimonial evidence and even plain rational thinking.

The point is that Moses’ very existence is doubted by majority scholarship. Recent scholarly research, including discoveries by an archaeological team from the University of Tel Aviv, completely deconstruct the Biblical Old Testament and Torah stories and agrees that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people's emergence are radically different from what that story tells. In short, the bible is NOT a reliable source of history.

http://www.perankhgroup.com/abraham,..._and_david.htm

Who told you there is no epistemology for knowing if miracles exist? Are you conflating science and epistemology? I would guess you are, as that's the most commend mistake made by those who try to use science to disprove miracles.

Science does not try to disprove miracles; it considers them to be hypothetically possible but improbable. So again why would you opt for the least likely explanation, i.e. a miracle rather than look for a natural explanation?

[Doug Shaver]

The whole point of deductive logic is that its conclusions are necessarily true.

According to whom?

Just about every book out there on logic is all.

You can check out this link which is my fist hit on google. http://www.psych.utah.edu/gordon/Cla...rds/Logic.html

The author of that piece is a psychologist, not a logician. However, I don't need to attempt any recourse to the genetic fallacy. Nothing he says on that page supports your claim.

Not sure what books could have possibly told you otherwise, but it's possible you misunderstood or I mospoke. Deduction makes definite provable conclusion from its premises. With deduction you can provide absolute proof of your conclusions, given that your premises are correct.

Yes. Let P be the conjunction of all your premises, and C your conclusion. With a valid deductive argument, you can absolutely prove P => C, and so that implication will be necessarily true. But that is not what you said. You said that logic makes the conclusion, C, necessarily true. But, C is not necessarily true just because P => C is necessarily true.

Induction (the foundation of science) is quite different. It creates theories from the data but never proves them correct. It merely gives possible explanations.

That is a decent paraphrase of what Gordon says, but I don't think he provides a good account of inductive logic. Logicians don't define it the way he defines it. The use to which something is put is not the same as its definition.

I might just add, one of the mistakes even many christians make with this is in interpreting the Bible.

I have noticed that. I have noticed that practically every Christian sect accuses every other Christian sect of having a mistaken interpretation of the Bible.

[gerry]

In Genesis, Chapter 1, God creates the animals as well as plants and trees before he creates man. But, in Chapter 2, God creates man previous to his creating animals or plants. I am wondering how apologists explain this contradiction? Is one version correct and the other incorrect, or are we not to take the actual process of creation as it is explained in the Bible literally. If the latter is the case, then is there anything in the creation narrative that should be taken literally? If so, why?
Last edited by JimL; July 29th 2012 at 12:26 PM.

You are obviously and you know it unless you were born yesterday playing the ignorant buffoon.

Do you know what is a concentrate, like say orange juice concentrate?

When you read the Bible, you must get the concentrate, otherwise you are just good at scouring the surface and missing the concentrate.

Now, think concentrate, I will give you a hand:

The concentrate of the creation account in Genesis is as follows:

God is the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.


Don't play dummy unless you were born yesterday.




Cheers.


Gerry

[gerry]

Well, Doug, you are a dodger, you go into declaring that every Christian sect is into contradicting every other Christian sect in interpretation of the Bible.

Do you know that there is a unity in the Apostles Creed, so that if any Christian sect so-self-called Christian does not accept any of the articles of the Apostles' Creed, then it is not any Christian body of Christ's adherents.

Try something original to say, unless you have nothing at all of any original thinking and writing.


Now, about logic, do you know that logic is concerned with concepts, so that in the realm of concepts you can derive absolute truth again in the realm of concepts in the mind of man.

But when you make the transit from that absolute truth in the realm of concepts arrived at by logic to the world where you pick your nose clean you will not have absolute truth, but what I call practical truth: and that is the only measure of truth that we have as we live and act in the actual objective real world of existence in the everyday situation of life and existence.


Please, if you have learned nothing from me, at least get that into your head.


Now, tell me if you have anything at all which is not borrowed from others that I can learn from you, at least anything at all that you have thought up and can present it in your own original personal composition in words.




Cheers.

Gerry

[Doug Shaver]

Please, if you have learned nothing from me, at least get that into your head.

If I have learned nothing from you, it is because you have shown me no reason, aside from your mere say-so, to suspect that you have anything to teach me.


Now, tell me if you have anything at all which is not borrowed from others that I can learn from you, at least anything at all that you have thought up and can present it in your own original personal composition in words.




Cheers.

Gerry[/QUOTE]

[Calminian]

The point is that Moses’ very existence is doubted by majority scholarship.

Doubted is not a very strong word. And isn't this always the case with the Bible? Don't they always doubt something prior to archeological evidence being unearthed?

The way I look at it, the Bible has proven itself to be a reliable historical document. You would think it would be given the benefit of the doubt by this time, but it is human nature to doubt things like the Bible.

Recent scholarly research, including discoveries by an archaeological team from the University of Tel Aviv, completely deconstruct the Biblical Old Testament and Torah stories and agrees that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people's emergence are radically different from what that story tells. In short, the bible is NOT a reliable source of history.

Oh well then that settles it! LOL. Come on I have no idea what the above means. "Experts" make lofty statements all the time. And then other experts come along and refute them. I'd like to know what you personally know. Make an argument from the data these experts are giving you, and then let's talk about it. Too often the arguments boil down to my expert is better than your expert.

Science does not try to disprove miracles; it considers them to be hypothetically possible but improbable.

Please share the scientific data that has revealed that miracles are possible. I'd love to see this.

So again why would you opt for the least likely explanation, i.e. a miracle rather than look for a natural explanation?

Well, if you believe science has proven the possibility of miracles, then why would you not consider them at some point? For I also believe miracles to be vastly rare, but not non-existent.

At any rate, please share the scientific study that revealed miracles are now indeed possible.

[technomage]

Sorry, Jim-I think I missed this, and it is an important point.

But why would the writer have need to contradict the creation account for the purpose of instructing.

Jim, the important thing to remember here is that these are two separate accounts from two separate (but related) cultures. Israel and Judah both formed from Hebrew-speaking peoples, but they have differences, just as the United States and England are different.

It is very likely that the author of Gen 1 had never heard nor read the Gen 2 account. and it was later when these two accounts (as well as many other fragmentary accounts) were compiled into one document.

[Doug Shaver]

The way I look at it, the Bible has proven itself to be a reliable historical document.

The way you look at it seems to be the way of dogmatic evangelicals, but not anyone else's.

You would think it would be given the benefit of the doubt by this time

Why would anyone without inerrantist presuppositions think that? What historiographical principle, applied by professional historians to ancient documents in general, do you think should be driving the rest of us to that conclusion?

[gerry]

Dear Doug:



I invite you to dialog with me outside the Bible, on experience and reason.




Cheers.

Gerry

[Tassman]

Doubted is not a very strong word. And isn't this always the case with the Bible? Don't they always doubt something prior to archeological evidence being unearthed?

“Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs' acts are legendary, the Israelites did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, and they did not conquer the land……these facts have been known for many years.

http://www.perankhgroup.com/abraham,..._and_david.htm

“The archaeological surveys conducted over the past two decades in the hills of Menasseh, Ephraim, Benjamin and Judah, on the west bank of the River Jordan, indicates that the origin and development of the Israelite entity was somewhat different from either of the rival accounts in the Bible. The survey was conducted by more than a dozen archaeologists, most of them from Tel Aviv University's Institute of Archaeology”

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive...0and%20Reality

This is archeological evidence that has been “unearthed” by bona fide archeologists and there are virtually no doubts that above conclusions are correct. They are only questioned by Evangelical cowboys such as the discredited “archeologist” Ron Wyatt with his farcical discoveries such as Noah’s Ark and the remains of the “Tower of Babel”.

The way I look at it, the Bible has proven itself to be a reliable historical document. You would think it would be given the benefit of the doubt by this time, but it is human nature to doubt things like the Bible.

No it hasn’t. Extensive biblical criticism over many decades has revealed that the Bible has many historical and factual errors and contradicts itself.

Oh well then that settles it! LOL. Come on I have no idea what the above means. "Experts" make lofty statements all the time. And then other experts come along and refute them. I'd like to know what you personally know. Make an argument from the data these experts are giving you, and then let's talk about it. Too often the arguments boil down to my expert is better than your expert.

You mean “lofty statements” by “experts” such as former male-nurse cum “archeologist” Ron Wyatt or self-described “Biblical Archeologist" Bob Cornuke?

Please share the scientific data that has revealed that miracles are possible. I'd love to see this.

There’s no data, which is the point. This is why miracles are considered improbable. They are only considered “hypothetically possible” because science doesn’t like to rule out any hypothesis absolutely. But miracles are at the bottom of the heap of possible explanations.

Well, if you believe science has proven the possibility of miracles, then why would you not consider them at some point? For I also believe miracles to be vastly rare, but not non-existent.

See above.

At any rate, please share the scientific study that revealed miracles are now indeed possible.

How do you suggest we “prove” hypothetical possibilities? And I’m still waiting for your non-scientific evidence for miracles. All you’ve provided so far are supposed eyewitness reports.

[gerry]

Dear Tassman:


You make yourself out to be some kind of expert in what? Bible questions?


Hey, have you ever done any years of graduate or postgraduate studies of biblical subjects?


Better you stick to reason in the matter of God's existence, because then you don't have to exhibit any credentials on Bible expertise to use reason to debate on God's existence.


You just have to use your inborn reason of course without any pre-suppression or pre-delimitation of its prowess and reach.



By the way, what are graduate studies and what are postgraduate studies, just an aside.





Cheers.

Gerry

[Doug Shaver]

Dear Doug:



I invite you to dialog with me outside the Bible, on experience and reason.




Cheers.

Gerry

If you can propose something more specific, I'll consider it.

[gerry]

In Genesis, Chapter 1, God creates the animals as well as plants and trees before he creates man. But, in Chapter 2, God creates man previous to his creating animals or plants. I am wondering how apologists explain this contradiction? Is one version correct and the other incorrect, or are we not to take the actual process of creation as it is explained in the Bible literally. If the latter is the case, then is there anything in the creation narrative that should be taken literally? If so, why?

You are really an addict to dodging.


Start with the very first line of the Bible in Gen. 1:1 -- "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Now, consult science today, it tells us that the material universe has a beginning 13.7 billion years ago.


Don't be searching contradictions in the Bible, just keep with the first line Gen: 1:1, and interpret everything in the Bible from that first line, if anything at all seems to contradict that first line, then it is biblical fables good for mankind when mankind was not yet as informed as today with science.


Don't be dodging over the Bible, start with your existence and infer from there to the existence of God as the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.


You atheist guys are just dodgers nothing more.

Be rational animals, start with your own existence, the experience of your conscious being, and there use reason to infer to the existence of God as the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.


You cannot gainsay my challenge to you, start with your existence, etc.

Otherwise you are a batch of chicken dodgers.

Hahahahahaha!


Trying hard to dodge with going into the Bible, that is for humans who have come already come to the existence of God from experience and reason.

You guys are bereft of experience and certainly without reason or you have put your reason away locked up in a dungeon.





Cheers.

Gerry

[Calminian]

Sorry, Jim-I think I missed this, and it is an important point.



Jim, the important thing to remember here is that these are two separate accounts from two separate (but related) cultures. Israel and Judah both formed from Hebrew-speaking peoples, but they have differences, just as the United States and England are different.

It is very likely that the author of Gen 1 had never heard nor read the Gen 2 account. and it was later when these two accounts (as well as many other fragmentary accounts) were compiled into one document.

Evidence please. Well, if you bought into the fragmentary theory, there is no evidence. What is your evidence the authors of these two tablets never met?

I won't hold my breath for an explanation, but now that we understand the toledoths are colophon statements, we now know and understand that on the Gen. 1:1-2:4a is actually the only creation account. Adam's account which follows starts with an account of the formation of the Garden of Eden, and cultivated plants. I know you hate me bringing this up.

Wish you guys weren't still stuck in theories that popped up before the age of archeological enlightenment. :)

And Tech, I still don't see a new thread in apologetics. Are you still avoiding talking about this?

[gerry]

Unless atheists are scientists investigating the manuscripts of the Bible, they are into nothing more than a contest in producing texts from the Bible to show their own kind how smart they are that they can pick from the Bible texts from it as to discredit the Bible itself.


Get serious, start with the existence of God as per concept the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe, by your experience of existence and with your unshackled reason.


Otherwise you are just into dodging.



Cheers/

Gerry.