Two items appear below:

1 The Bible - A Fairy Story Book
2 The Bible: A Book of Fact



THE BIBLE – A FAIRY STORYBOOK

(Investigator 123, 2008 November)


Christians claim that the Bible is the word of god written by God himself.

But historians and scientific research show that it's nothing but myths, fairy tales and outright lies written by ignorant men.
Prof. Brian de Kretser
Institute for Research into Religions,
Darwin, N.T.
Australia

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


THE BIBLE: A BOOK OF FACT

Anonymous

(Investigator 124, 2009 January)


The Bible cannot be a "Fairy Story Book" by "ignorant men", as  Brian De Kretser (#123) claims, because billions of people who opposed the Bible in numerous disputes turned out wrong. The disputes include racism, idolatry, asteroids, sexual morality, the hearing ability of snakes, how lions kill prey, and hundreds more. There's an index in Investigator 120 which  lists articles on these topics.


CHARACTERS

My initial investigation into the "Historicity of Old Testament Characters" (Investigator 47) found 43 characters confirmed or possibly-confirmed out of about 2,900. My latest list puts the confirmations at 66. (#122; #117) Clearly more characters are being confirmed as time passes. King David who Mr DeKretser specifically listed as "mythical" was confirmed in 1994. David's palace may have been found also. (#106)

Some archaeologists still disputed that David founded an empire and claim David was merely a "hilltop chieftain". But recently a ceramic shard bearing the oldest known Hebrew inscription was dug up in the ruins of a fortress dated near 1000 BC. Dr Yossi Garfinkel argues that the walls of the fortress required moving 200,000 tons of stone – too big a task for 500 inhabitants – and therefore suggests an organized Israeli kingdom existed at that time. (The Weekend Australian November 1-2, 2008, p. 16; International Herald Tribune, October 30, 2008)


VARIANT READINGS

The "variant readings" in about 5,000 ancient biblical manuscripts were debated in #96-102. The high figure of 150,000 cited by De Kretser, include spelling variations. Spelling variations in documents, however, do not mean that the statements in the document are false. Even the most reputable science journals using computer spell-check have spelling errors! The "variant readings" are the basis from which scholars known as "textual critics" scientifically confirm what the original Scriptures said. Their discoveries are incorporated into new Bible translations to make them more faithful to the original.

Actual "contradictions" – where a statement is both affirmed and denied in the original Scriptures – are hard to demonstrate. I've examined some which sceptics on the Internet presented as decisive and reconciled them. (#113; #114)

De Kretser needs to be clear on what a contradiction is. The two statements "Bob opened the door" and "Bob did not open the door" appear contradictory. However, they are only contradictory if both statements refer to the same "Bob" and the same door and the same instant in time! If the two statements refer to different Bobs, doors, or times then they are compatible and consistent.


QUOTED MYTH

To prove the Bible writers borrowed neighboring myths requires actual quotations – not vague similarities.

The biblical Flood story is often compared to Babylonian flood stories and the Bible accused of a rehash. However, in the 1990s scientists identified the "Black Sea Burst-Through" when the Mediterranean flooded into the Black Sea about 5,600 BC and raised its level 110 meters. Some writers now argue that the biblical and Babylonian flood stories are based on this Black Sea event. (Ian Wilson 2002, Before The Flood) The Bible Flood-story and other flood stories such as the Babylonian may therefore originate long before Babylon existed and could therefore be independent sources.

We cannot conclude, however, that the Black Sea Flood is the Biblical Flood since other gigantic floods occurred even earlier than 5,600 BC. But I'll leave that for a future article.


BOOK OF FACT

During all my general reading over the past 40 years I've watched for modern discoveries that bear on the Bible. Early on I noticed cases where the Bible turned out correct and its critics wrong. After making this observation I then sometimes used the Bible to predict future scientific discovery.

I got the Britannica revised on the question of whether snakes hear the snake charmer's flute. (#94) I have, in my lifetime, seen the whole scientific world reverse itself on the question of asteroid and comet impacts. (#79-83). Probably over 1,000 claims in the Bible are now scientifically confirmed.

There was even the case of an atheist noticing that Genesis implies people other than Adam's descendants lived alongside humans – and in 1996 science proved Neanderthals and humans are different species and that they interacted. (#91-101) Thus even an atheist reading the Bible noticed a scientific truth ahead of science!


Why then so much disagreement over the Bible? The Bible teaches that all people are deceived by supernatural powers able to distort human thinking and implant false beliefs and who accept human adherence to false belief as worship. I sometimes challenge skeptics to identify one person, only one out of all the people who ever lived, whose beliefs were entirely correct.


CONCLUSION

The Bible is a book of enlightenment misrepresented by misguided people. If we accept science this fact is obvious.


The Bible is investigated on this website by science and debate.
More than 700 articles spanning more than 30 years:

http://ed5015.tripod.com/