Need help debating a Bible thumper

[D_White]

I’ve been debating a theist on another board about theism vs. atheism and I’ve been doing quite well so far I think, but the attention has now shifted to the accuracy of the bible and that’s not really my strong suit. I was wondering if I could get some help picking apart what doesn’t sound like accurate information to me. Here is a section of first post of the one theist I’m debating with since the attention has shifted to the accuracy of the Bible:

As to ancient texts - first of all, the closer in time to an event a recording is made, the more likely its accurate. Second, you can’t seriously compare the Bible to any work of fiction. That’s assinine. These were men who valued what they wrote above all else as a sacred manifestation. Even if you eliminate the doctrine, you have to give credit for the authors wanting an accurate historical record. IF you go back and study a little, you’ll find that all modern fiction sprung from creation plays. There WAS NO FICTION before the bible in the western cannon. There were allegories, and there were myths, but no fiction as we know it. So yes, ancient texts DO carry more weight than modern fiction, no matter how old the fiction gets.

Is there anything there that is blaringly inaccurate that I can point out? I’m hoping this debate is about over now and I’d like to go out on a high note. Thanks.

[Lobohan]

@D_White

IAs to ancient texts - first of all, the closer in time to an event a recording is made, the more likely its accurate.

Unless it was a lie on the day it was written.

Second, you can’t seriously compare the Bible to any work of fiction. That’s assinine.

Why? How is the bible any different that say, the Bhagavad Gita or the Talmud or the Koran?

These were men who valued what they wrote above all else as a sacred manifestation.

Yeah, men. Not gods. The writers of the other religious books were similarly serious. Why are they wrong and not the biblical authors.

Even if you eliminate the doctrine, you have to give credit for the authors wanting an accurate historical record.

The bible is horrible as a history text. There was no flood, no six day creation, no evidence at all of a jewish slavery in Egypt, no census, no plagues, nothing about Jesus was written down until thirty years after he supposedly died for chrissake!

IF you go back and study a little, you’ll find that all modern fiction sprung from creation plays. There WAS NO FICTION before the bible in the western cannon.

uhh…

There were allegories, and there were myths, but no fiction as we know it.

So the bible is allegory and myth then?

So yes, ancient texts DO carry more weight than modern fiction, no matter how old the fiction gets.

To those that choose to believe it.

[D_White]

Excellent, Lobohan! Thank you!

[kaylasdad99]

Well, “asinine” only has one “s”, and “canon”, in this sense shouldn’t have a doubled “n”.

It’s also my sense that treating the stories in the Bible as written history is kind of bizarre. How many hundreds of years was the story of the Great Flood related orally before it was set down on paper, or papyrus, or parchment, or clay tablets? And how many years was Gilgamesh the protagonist before Brother Noah got into the act?

[Larry_Borgia]

@D_White

Excellent, Lobohan! Thank you!

They are all good points, but I fear you may as well present them to your cat, for all the good they’ll do.

[D_White]

@Larry Borgia

They are all good points, but I fear you may as well present them to your cat, for all the good they’ll do.

I hear ya. I wish I never got involved in that thread. This guy keeps coming at me and coming at me with more ridiculous arguments (which I think I rebutted rather well). At this point I’m still spending time on this thread so I don’t look like a quitter, which may give others the impression that “the other guy won”.

Also, the forum I’m posting in is of mostly younger folks who aren’t as good as me at giving a great argument to this guy (he’s a lwayer). Not that I’m that great either, which is evident since I needed help here, but I like to believe that I’m generally tearing up this guys “evidence” for God’s existence.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

As to ancient texts - first of all, the closer in time to an event a recording is made, the more likely its accurate.

The first problem with this is that it assumes there actually was an event in the first place. If the event is fictional or mythical or allegorical, then this claim is meaningless. Beyond that, people were just as capable of lying back then as they are now and they did so frequently. As far back as written history goes, we find people lying about it, exaggerating things, making supernatural claims, etc. all the way back to ancient Egypt.

Second, you can’t seriously compare the Bible to any work of fiction. That’s assinine.

Special pleading, methodological baloney and a mispelled word.

These were men who valued what they wrote above all else as a sacred manifestation.

Cite? We know this how? Even if its true, we still don’t necessarily know genre or intent and there is such a thing as pious fraud. Plus, the same claim can be made about the authors of any sacred text in any religion. Even Christianity has loads of apocryphal gospels, pseudoepigraphical works (works falsely attributed to more famous people by the authors) and forgeries. The authors of the Gnostic Gospels were no less pious than the authors of the Canonicals.

Even if you eliminate the doctrine, you have to give credit for the authors wanting an accurate historical record.

No we don’t. We know for a fact that Bibles’ “historical record” is frequently and demonstrably ahistorical. The fact of the matter is that the authors usually did not know much real history and often didn’t care about literal history anyway. That wasn’t the genre they were writing in.

IF you go back and study a little, you’ll find that all modern fiction sprung from creation plays. There WAS NO FICTION before the bible in the western cannon. There were allegories, and there were myths, but no fiction as we know it. So yes, ancient texts DO carry more weight than modern fiction, no matter how old the fiction gets.

This is complete nonsense, of course, and is irrelevant in any case. I suppose this person is talking about fiction as an entertainment genre, but that discussuion is irrelevant since the Bible is not generally alleged to be “fiction” in the strictest literary definition of the word, but consists of a variety of other genres including seemingly “historical” narratives which are better classified myth, allegory, propaganda and folktales than as fiction. That doesn’t make them any more historical.

All these argumnets are kind of mooted by the fact that so much of the Bible can be proven to be ahistorical (in a literal sense) by irrefutable physical evidience.

[Sage_Rat]

I’d point your bible thumper to the following article on the Children’s Crusade which, accurate or not, does bring up a lot of reasons why historical histories shouldn’t be considered to be terribly reliable.

http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/childrens_crusade/

[Voyager]

As to ancient texts - first of all, the closer in time to an event a recording is made, the more likely its accurate.

Get “Who Wrote the Bible” out of the library. The Torah was collated long after the supposed events - about the time of Jeremiah, IIRC. One question for your friend - find a mention of the Torah and the laws in Judges and in the time of the early kings of Israel. The Ark was mentioned, but no one seemed to know of the holiest work there was.

Second, you can’t seriously compare the Bible to any work of fiction. That’s assinine. These were men who valued what they wrote above all else as a sacred manifestation. Even if you eliminate the doctrine, you have to give credit for the authors wanting an accurate historical record. IF you go back and study a little, you’ll find that all modern fiction sprung from creation plays. There WAS NO FICTION before the bible in the western cannon.

Then your friend thinks the epic of Gilgamesh, which predates the Bible, was true?
The editor(s) of the Bible clearly had a different sense of truth than we do - the Greek historians also. Why else edit two contradictory stories together, right after one another? (See the beginning of Genesis.) There were clearly all sorts of stories about gods - whether or not you call them fiction, they sure weren’t history.

There were allegories, and there were myths, but no fiction as we know it. So yes, ancient texts DO carry more weight than modern fiction, no matter how old the fiction gets.

Sorry, both myths and fiction are untrue. I don’t see why one carries more weight than the other from our point of view. Sure the Greeks believed in their myths, and your friend believes in ours, but the only way of determining the accuracy of the stories is by studying history and by archeology. In all these things the Bible comes up short. You might ask him for historical evidence, independent of the Bible. The existence of cities and great Kings doesn’t count - Jefferson living doesn’t make Vidal’s Burr true.

It is very hard for those of us who grew up believing in these stories to give them up. It upsets me that the Davidic empire never existed, but that’s what the evidence says and I’ve got to accept it.

[msmith537]

There WAS NO FICTION before the bible in the western cannon.

So then Greek mythology should be considered historically accurate?

[Meatros]

@D_White

@A Theist

As to ancient texts - first of all, the closer in time to an event a recording is made, the more likely its accurate.

This seems to be just a non sequitur. It doesn’t follow at all - if it did, then wouldn’t we have to consider Joseph Smith’s testamony that the Angel Moroni gave him two golden tablets?

@A Theist

Even if you eliminate the doctrine, you have to give credit for the authors wanting an accurate historical record.

I don’t think this is even true - the gospels don’t read like histories, they read like stories. That’s why we have access to information that we wouldn’t have otherwise (such as when Jesus is in the garden of gesthame - sp? - and has doubts when anyone who would have written it was asleep).

@A Theist

IF you go back and study a little, you’ll find that all modern fiction sprung from creation plays. There WAS NO FICTION before the bible in the western cannon.

Not sure I follow - is he suggesting that the vedas were historical? That the epic of gilgamesh was historical? If so then I think he is going to have some difficulties.

@A Theist

There were allegories, and there were myths, but no fiction as we know it. So yes, ancient texts DO carry more weight than modern fiction, no matter how old the fiction gets.

Precisely when is he talking about? I’m fairly certain that Sumer had ‘fiction’. Also, how do you seperate fiction from myth?