# The Eighth-day Adventist Church proposal **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 15, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157 "2011-07-15T18:54:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2011, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/41 "2011-07-16T20:54:44Z")
> [@David42](#): > > It’s fine with me if that’s what you want the thread to turn into. Its your thread. But shutting down my arguments by changing the O.P. doesn;t give me the chance to debate it that I wanted. I didn’t shut your suggested modification down as much as fail to see its relevance. In fact, I specifically accepted it for the sake of argument and asked “Now what?” a few posts back because I thought you were going to expand on what you thought might happen if ancient and differing texts were uncovered. As far as I know, I’ve never changed the OP; I’ve shown a reluctant and unenthusiastic willingness to indulge variations (mostly suggested by you, I might add). sh1bu1, with his “ancient tribe” idea, has suggested something which I thought was quite close to the principles of the OP, and I disagree with the notion that his discussion should be entertained elsewhere, but if he (or you, or anyone) _does_ take it elsewhere, I will not (and indeed can not) do anything to stop it. > [@](#): > > or this thread could contain both but I think that likely to be confusing. The thread’s not exactly a barn-burner with discussions being lost in cacophony. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2011, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/42 "2011-07-16T22:09:28Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I didn’t shut your suggested modification down as much as fail to see its relevance. In fact, I specifically accepted it for the sake of argument and asked “Now what?” a few posts back because I thought you were going to expand on what you thought might happen if ancient and differing texts were uncovered. > > As far as I know, I’ve never changed the OP; I’ve shown a reluctant and unenthusiastic willingness to indulge variations (mostly suggested by you, I might add). sh1bu1, with his “ancient tribe” idea, has suggested something which I thought was quite close to the principles of the OP, and I disagree with the notion that his discussion should be entertained elsewhere, but if he (or you, or anyone) _does_ take it elsewhere, I will not (and indeed can not) do anything to stop it. > > The thread’s not exactly a barn-burner with discussions being lost in cacophony. Reasonable enough. ---
**Author:** ![Toucanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/43 "2011-07-17T08:57:56Z")
> [@Toucanna](#): > > {snip}…these folks would be more than happy to recite them to transcribers. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > {snip}…I guess what you’d get would be the best consensus of what they remember the bible said. Actually, what you would get is several, if not many, versions of “the bible”. While all (major) Jewish movements agree on which books constitute their Bible, different Christian sects consider different books canonical. See the section titled, _3–Christian Canons_ at [this Wikipedipa page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible#Christian_canons) for an overview of the subject. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/44 "2011-07-19T20:14:58Z")
You would use archaeology and textual criticism. You would probably find that no “8 day” Bibles predate the 21st century. All 20th, 19th, and older Bibles would have the standard 7 day creation. You might go to rare book rooms and consult 1st Edition King James Versions and observe that 100% of them have a seven day creation. Medieval essays and sermons that quoted from Genesis would always quote the seven day version. You would observe that the 8 day creation only appears in English language NIV’s. You would consult Spanish bibles, Japanese bibles, Czech bibles, Arabic bibles, and Cherokee bibles and you would find that all of them agree on a 7 day creation. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2011, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/45 "2011-07-20T10:39:52Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > You would observe that the 8 day creation only appears in English language NIV’s. You would consult Spanish bibles, Japanese bibles, Czech bibles, Arabic bibles, and Cherokee bibles and you would find that all of them agree on a 7 day creation. Yes, but does that matter? Regardless of the ages of the differing versions, how could one establish which is the more accurate description of the creation, and if a child reads an eight-day version as his first bible and grows up believing it, is he wrong in any provable way for doing so? ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/46 "2011-07-20T15:15:18Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > You would use archaeology and textual criticism. > > You would probably find that no “8 day” Bibles predate the 21st century. All 20th, 19th, and older Bibles would have the standard 7 day creation. You might go to rare book rooms and consult 1st Edition King James Versions and observe that 100% of them have a seven day creation. Medieval essays and sermons that quoted from Genesis would always quote the seven day version. > > You would observe that the 8 day creation only appears in English language NIV’s. You would consult Spanish bibles, Japanese bibles, Czech bibles, Arabic bibles, and Cherokee bibles and you would find that all of them agree on a 7 day creation. You seem to have totally missed the point of the thought experiment. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/47 "2012-06-25T09:28:56Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I don’t get why an old version of an 8-day Genesis has more authority than a new version (nor why either should have less authority than an old 7-day version). Establishing this authority, or even a hypothetical approach one might take to do so, is what I had in mind, but no matter. And I don’t understand why you don’t get this. If one document suddenly is different from another, which is more likely: new information was discovered that proved that it really was eight days, or that someone arbitrarily changed what originally said seven days? So we know for sure the eight day one is inaccurate. We don’t know how the seven days proposition was decided, and thus there is still a chance of it being accurate. You want to not treat the Bible as a history book, but the authority comes from its historicity. Even if not 100% factual, the Bible is supposedly inspired by God. Any change to it without any reference to such inspiration is inherently going to be less authoritative. This, by the way, is the reason KJV only adherents believe that the King James Version is authoritative. They believe that the translators also received inspiration from God, and thus, even if you find more information to help you interpret the original languages more closely, that information is not inspired and thus inferior. As **davidm** says, the only way to make your eighth day Bible work is to have claims that it has been newly inspired. Placing it in the past accomplishes this by possibly making the seven-day Bible an arbitrary change. Having it changed in modern day does not. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/48 "2012-06-25T09:37:14Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > I think you are missing the point. The question is given two religious manuscripts, each from about the same time, how would we decide which one to believe? > > Belief in the Bible is a tautology: what is in the Bible is true because it is in the Bible and the Bible is true. But given two texts, one saying _A_ and the other saying _not A_, how would we know which one is correct? > > It’s similar to the thought exercise that resulted in me no longer believing in God. There are multiple versions of religion, many of them very different from each other, and people who follow those religions are just as convinced they are right as I was in my Christian beliefs. If I had been born in a different country to a different family then I would have a completely different set of beliefs, so what is it that made my belief correct and those incorrect? > > Lets make the OP a little different: there are two tribes with religious beliefs that are similar but differ in one significant aspect. If Tribe A dies out and Tribe B survives then our entire religious history goes one way, and if Tribe A survives instead, our set of beliefs goes in another direction. In both cases people could later point to the religious traditions of those before them to justify their beliefs. How could an observer back in time have decided which of those tribe’s beliefs were correct? > > To me it is a little like evolution. A horse was not destined to have evolved. A small change in the environment a million years ago could have produced different results. Are our religious beliefs also a product of chance? This is where you have to investigate the consequences for lack of belief. It is fortunate that there are very few instances where one group believes X and the other believes not X, with both believing in eternal punishment if you disagree. In those cases, your only choice is to pick the one that makes the most sense. But, in every other case, such as the same beliefs but only one believes in a “hell,” all you have to do is go with the one that is more advantageous. The hard part, of course, is, after doing all this, convincing yourself to believe what you’ve rationally decided is best to believe. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/49 "2012-06-25T09:57:27Z")
If you’re rejecting older source documents as having authority, yeah, you’re going to be at sea when it comes to all the humanities. Want to read my new original Shakespeare? _The Tragedy of Errors, Much Ado About Something, Hambone, and Titus Andronicus: A Romantic Comedy._ I assure you it’s quite authoritative! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/50 "2012-06-25T10:45:58Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > And I don’t understand why you don’t get this. If one document suddenly is different from another, which is more likely: new information was discovered that proved that it really was eight days, or that someone arbitrarily changed what originally said seven days? So we know for sure the eight day one is inaccurate. We do? > [@](#): > > Any change to it without any reference to such inspiration is inherently going to be less authoritative. It will? > [@](#): > > As **davidm** says, the only way to make your eighth day Bible work is to have claims that it has been newly inspired. It is? Anyway, I suggested that would make an eighth-day bible “work”, to the extent that a bible can, is widespread distribution. It the hypothetical publisher prints and ships tens of millions of eight-day bibles, what’s to stop him? What to stop said bibles from gradually displacing seventh-day versions? If someone says “_that’s_ is not a true bible, _this_ is!”, can he bring any rational arguments to prove it, or does it tend to fall back on “we’ve always done it this way.” My larger point in starting the thread initially (and I’m surprised anyone would bother to bump it at this late date) was to suggest how arbitrary the bible is, even on basic information of cosmic significance, i.e. how long it takes to make a universe. ---
**Author:** ![Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8491ac/32.png) [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fake_Tales_of_San_Francisco)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157/51 "2012-06-25T11:48:28Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It is? Anyway, I suggested that would make an eighth-day bible “work”, to the extent that a bible can, is widespread distribution. It the hypothetical publisher prints and ships tens of millions of eight-day bibles, what’s to stop him? What to stop said bibles from gradually displacing seventh-day versions? If someone says “_that’s_ is not a true bible, _this_ is!”, can he bring any rational arguments to prove it, or does it tend to fall back on “we’ve always done it this way.” Nothing would stop him, but the eight-day bibles could not possibly replace seven-day bibles. For starters, word would get out straight away that they contain a rather obvious copyist error on the first few pages. I imagine such a bible would make most major news networks too. There’d be a public outcry. Major product recall because of the error. Like the Shakespeare example, if someone published his works with changes, the literary community would have a field day. It would be plainly obvious that that person had changed Shakespeare’s original works. I don’t imagine many book shops would stock it either, if it contained errors. Same with the bible. For me there’s two definitions of ‘true’ knocking about here. There’s ‘true’ in the sense that _this is really how the universe came about_ and ‘true’ as in _closer to the original/oldest copies we have_. The latter is the only one we can really argue. The former is a pointless exercise. And nothing here proves that the details of the bible are arbitrary. Of course, it \*is largely arbitrary, but the details such as the days in a week were probably made up before the bible stories were being told. The bible has god create a 7 day week because people _did_ divide time that way, and still do. God is made in man’s image. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-eighth-day-adventist-church-proposal/589157.md?page=2)