This is evidence only that some customs take a long time to die out. And the custom dates back to the time when Man truly did believe the Earth stood still while the Sun went around it.
Are you sure? Got any proof of this, or is it just speculation?
Jab- in no way did i mean to imply that the ancient israelis in any way knew about a heliocentric solar system. However- we, centuries after we KNEW the earth goes around the sun- still speak & write of it as if it was the other way. It is just human nature- becuase that is the way it appears to us.
gaudere & co. I have retrieved my copy of “The Oxford History of the Ancient World”. I am in business, now- you can poke fun at Asimov, maybe- but try that with Oxford. 
As to Jericho & Kenyon. I quote: “Kathleen Kenyon, the British archaeologist who pioneered stratigraphic excavations at the site, thought that erosion had deprived hitory of the Late Bronze Age city that Joshua captured”.* Now, if you remember, i had read Kenyons book myself, years ago, and my memory was that she was very open to Joshua actually capturing a later city that “Great Jericho” itself, and was disapointed that there was so little evidence of it Which is what she meant in the (out of context) quote about there being “no evidence” of it. Kenyon was “pro-conquest”- not anti-Conquest, even tho her dig proved that the ruins of “Great Jericho” was NOT the City attacked by Joshua, as had been thought. Thus, as i said before- Infidels used her work out of context. Oxford has this to say about the site of Jericho: “Because of its ecologically advantageous setting, Tell es-Sultan in the Jericho oasis was rebuilt in succesive periods, although with some gaps in occupation”. True, this does not prove that Joshua did not stumble upon it during one of those gaps- but it does prove that Jericho was rebuilt many times after the destruction of “Great Jericho”- and thus there COULD have been a Jericho there for Joshua to attack.
- I do not want to give the impression that Oxford thinks that this theory of Kenyons is right- they cast doubts upon the “conquest hypothesis”- and their own thoughts on Jericho are summarized in a chart: “meager LBII occupation”- which seems to mean meager evidence of an occupation by Joshua. However, after going thru the other 2 hypothesis & dismissing them- they give most weight to a highly modified & caveated Conquest/migration Hypothesis. Since there is solid evidence that the Isrealis were a “people” with a military as early as 1210 BC- that blows out the theories that the Isrealis were just nomads who settled in ruins, or were another tribe (already living there) that changed its name. BUT- there is solid evidence of the “Conquest” of only 2 cities- Bethel & Hazor. Note, however, that this is good enuf to show there was SOME 'conquesting" going on. There is some evidence at many of the other sites- but nothing real solid.
“There could have been a Jericho there for Joshua to attack.” “The sun could be considered to revolve around the earth depending on your perspective.” Etc., etc., etc
Why all this grasping at straws (or thin reeds - to use a more appropriate simile). If the bible is the word of God, then logically one would think the deity would have taken more care with it. God could have made sure that all obtuseness was cleared up and that nothing got lost in translation. But alas he did not.
Why???
Because the whole notion that this collection of anecdotes, fables and twice told tales is indicative of anything other than an attempt by provincial tribesmen to explain the world around them and record their “glorious” past is absurd.
Some of you will doubtless reply, “no one can know the mind of God - so you cannot be sure that he doesn’t have a purpose in being less than clear”. Spare me!!!
By this logic, if we cannot understand God’s plan what good is it even to try. He is unknowable and therefore he ceases to matter in our daily affairs.
It is evident to me that world makes so much more sense without God than with him that I wonder why so many still believe so stridently.
Bertrand Russell got it right when he said;
“There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably, some part of him is aware that they are myths, and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dares not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.”
I know this post will probably offend some. But hey, you’re the ones believing in fairy stories - time to grow up.
Regards,
Barkhorn.
I went to that website quoted earlier in this thread that was supposed to show me how Bible contradictions can all be explained. Here is the link;
http://members.tripod.com/~vantillian/bible_difficulties.html
I then ended up at this link that has 101Cleared Up “Contradictions” in the Bible. Here is the link;
http://debate.org.uk/topics/apolog/contrads.htm
I wish to quote from #12, " Did Solomon have 40,000 stalls for his horses (1 Kings 4:26), or 4,000 stalls (2 Chronicles 9:25)?", in full since it gives a very good flavor of how all of these contradictions are made to go away. Well did Solomon have 40K or 4K stalls? Here is the answer;
(Category: copyist error, or misunderstood the historical context)
“There are a number of ways to answer these puzzling differences. The most plausible is analogous to what we found earlier in challenge numbers five and six above, where the decadal number has been rubbed out or distorted due to constant use.
Others believe that the stalls mentioned in 2 Chronicles were large ones that housed 10 horses each (that is, a row of ten stalls). Therefore 4,000 of these large stalls would be equivalent to 40,000 small ones.
Another commentator maintains that the number of stalls recorded in 1 Kings was the number at the beginning of Solomon’s reign, whereas the number recorded in 2 Chronicles was the number of stalls at the end of his reign. We know that Solomon reigned for 40 years; no doubt, many changes occurred during this period. It is quite likely that he reduced the size of the military machine his father David had left him.
(Light of Life II 1992:191)”
Wow, I can play “fun with numbers” too to explain away any inconsistency that I may run across.
The bottom line is that THE BOOK that represents the unerring word of God blows the big stalls question by a factor of 10 and that fundies have to resort to all sorts of tortured reasoning to satisfy themselves that the cognitive dissonance they are experiencing is unwarranted.
A much better link that I really enjoy is this one, “The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible”;
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
Here you will find sections on;
Contradictions
Absurdities
Intolerance
Cruelty and Violence
and Sex
BTW, the King James version is used, so it is not a cheat.
Regards,
Barkhorn.