# Authority of the Bible **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 4, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authority-of-the-bible/238252 "2004-04-04T23:35:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2004, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authority-of-the-bible/238252/61 "2004-04-10T17:44:03Z")
Can you show that there is any statistical difference for “hits” using the Bible as a target text than for the Penthouse Forum? _You_ have the burden of proof here. The “Bible Code” works the same for anything transliterated into Hebrew. The significance you attribute to your hits is purely subjective but objective statistical analysis by actual statisticians (not agenda driven religionists) has thoroughly debunked it. [Refutation by the Jornal of Statistical Science](http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/StatSci/). You can check the math yourself. You don’t have to rely on anyone as an “authority.” That’s the beauty of math. It’s completely objective. I notice you didn’t respond to my correction of the “Chernoby/wormwood” thing. Are we agreed that it’s a falsehood? ---
**Author:** ![Thingol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Thingol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thingol)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2004, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authority-of-the-bible/238252/62 "2004-04-10T19:15:48Z")
> [@dal\_timgar](#): > > I have used the Bible Code program myself. I taped a show about it and watched it 3 times and decided to order the program and experiment with it myself. Have any of you actually used it? This is the same line of “reasoning” used by scam artists (and their victims) throughout time. Write Bill Holloway at PentaWater and ask him how he managed to change the molecular structure of water so that it doesn’t clump up so much, and therefore gets into your cells faster. He’ll send you some of his product and ask you to use it and see if you feel better. Thing is, I don’t have to use the stuff, because (A) his claims are nonsensical, and (B) using his product won’t test the claim. Ok, so you’ve watched a video and used the program. Have you compared your results with results that are obtained from using comparable methods with other texts under the same conditions? If not, then you have not set a standard high enough to enable you to realistically differentiate the sheep from the goats (valid ideas from half-baked notions or outright scams). And don’t tell me that you’ve read refutations, because then you’re not applying the same standard, which any fifth grader can tell you isn’t a fair comparison. And the fact is, other people have done this very thing, and the results are indistinguishable among texts. > [@dal\_timgar](#): > > I have personally found too many things in THE BIBLE CODE and I looked for stuff not mentioned anywhere else. But don’t you understand that that’s the whole point? You can find anything you like! That’s why it’s invalid. Finally, I’m getting really tired of hearing this kind of slander aimed at people who call bullshit on unsupported ideas: > [@dal\_timgar](#): > > A lot of people seem to get upset if other people think differently from them. IF YOU DON’T AGREE WITH ME THEN YOU MUST BE STUPID. This has never been implied, at least not that I’ve seen. In every case above, legitimate objections have been raised. That does not mean that the objections are ultimately correct. They may be wrong. But using playground tactics like this only serves to cast your position in a less favorable light. Speaking of which: > [@dal\_timgar](#): > > There are BELIEVERS and ANTIBELIEVERS. Antibelievers often have this delusion that they are LOGICAL. There is only one way to think. That is to think FOR YOURSELF. Casting me as an “antibeliever” because I don’t believe what you do, and implying that I am therefore deluding myself, is exactly what you have just objected to. And if there are only believers and antibelievers, which group is thinking for themselves? I have no reason to side with “believers” and no reason to side against them. I look at the world around me, use the good sense I’ve been given, and make conclusions. How is that delusional? ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2004, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authority-of-the-bible/238252/63 "2004-04-10T22:54:50Z")
> [@dal\_timgar](#): > > I have personally found too many things in THE BIBLE CODE and I looked for stuff not mentioned anywhere else. > > Dal Timgar What sort of things? Can you give us right now a prediction of something that will happen tomorrow, or any time in the future. Finding some word or phrase in the Bible “decoding” that can be interpreted as referring to something that happened in the past doesn’t count. What good is that? We know the even occured so having the “Bible code” tell us that it happened is a little redundant. ---
**Author:** ![Iscariot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ac91a4/32.png) [@Iscariot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iscariot)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2004, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authority-of-the-bible/238252/64 "2004-04-12T13:21:27Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > The Exodus story simply cannot be supported by archaeology or extra-Biblical documentation. Some minimalist theories exist about nomadic immigrants from Sinai bringing their own tribal traditions into Canaan (possibly traditions involving a Volcano god) but there was no enslavement in Egypt and no mass Exodus. Nor was there a time when the Israelite people were absent from Palestine. The archaeology shows a continuous, unbroken occupation. There were “proto-Israelite” slaves in Egypt though–there’s really no doubt of that. Egyptians even had the same word for Canaanite and “slave.” The El-Amarna tablets contain numerous mentions of enslaving the Canaanites. It just happened centuries before the Exodus supposedly did–the story’s grown so many times with the retelling, and so many other cultures joined the polyglot that would become Israel, that there’s simply no hpe of knowing what the story looked like at the outset. You still find the occasional straggling archaeologist who would have it that there was, in fact, a real Exodus. They’re usually carried in the glossy pages of the BAR with a catchy headline like **ISRAELITES IN EGYPT? FOUR ROOM HOUSES AND WHAT THEY TELL US** , right underneath the one that loudly proclaims the James Ossuary may still be real. Regards [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authority-of-the-bible/238252.md?page=3)