You know…I read in " Chariots of the Gods" that the people who hypothesize that our religions were born out of contact, with aliens hypothesize that the AOC was kind of a walkie talkie to God.
Post 1:
Post 5:
That sure didn’t last long. :rolleyes:
What’s to study? The test is “Do you believe there is a G*d?” If you answer “NO” then you are an atheist and there’s nothing else to learn. 
Most of that would definitely tend to mess with your mind. :eek:
Perhaps you should study the Book of Job. :smack:
She saw the light 27 years before you did. What took you so long? 
Atheism isn’t a belief. If you’ve reached some sort of enlightenment then you might want to reconsider how honest you’re being with yourself.
God probably was just made up by humans, so if you think it best to disregard the whole thing then certainly, but going about sputtering in your non-belief rather belies your “un-belief.”
Semi-Hijack
What happened to Spielburg’s Ark. From Raiders? The prop used in the film?
And are replicas for sale, scale or otherwise?
Gotta say it really does sound like atheism is just your latest obsession. What is it about atheism that you think requires diligent study?
I’ll bet it really is sitting in a crate in a big warehouse, somewhere. The ultimate in irony.
The details of it’s construction make it doubtless to me there really was an Ark (’-R-W-N), at one time. What it contained, and how “Holy” it really was- is another matter. Ancient Dudes made Holy items, and even wrote about them. Plenty of said holy items have been found. There is no reason at all to not accept that at one time the Ancient Isrealites had a gold-covered wood box *that they considered * Holy.
I think a lot of born again athiests ( ) take the more fanatical view about the bible…sort of going to the opposite extreme from their previous religious views. While its true that ‘just because its in the bible’ doesn’t necessarily mean something is true, the converse of ‘just because its in the bible’ means its automatically false is also incorrect. The bible has been shown to have some serious gaps, flaws and other errata…but that doesn’t mean its ALL wrong, false or incorrect either. It is what it is…an oral history compiled at some point from various traditions and stories floating about and seasoned with a certain deliberate slant.
Take what it says with a large grain of salt…but don’t go overboard with it.
-XT
It was reclaimed by George Burns, who then brought it back to the sound stage from “Heaven Can Wait.”
This is the closing remark in C K Dexter Haven’s staff report and I’m curious about it. Do the two words '-R-W-N and T-B-H mean the same thing in Hebrew or did an English translator screw up?
I don’t find it hard to believe that the Ark existed, although the circumstances of its construction as related in the Bible are questionable, to say the least. I think it entirely reasonable that a reliquary of some sort was constructed by a tribe, survived a few hundred years (not all that long, after all, except to Americans), was installed in the Jerusalem temple, and was either lost or destroyed by the Babylonians.
I’m not at all sure why it matters whether it existed or not, though. Any ceremonial purpose the ark might have be used for have been moribund for millenia. Jews are quite content to have the ten (out of 613) commandments supposedly held by the ark down on paper. Christians, well, I really don’t know what Christians are up to, but I know that the Ark doesn’t come up too often.
Regarding the OP, it would seem to me to be more productive to try to find out what you think is true, rather than rage against what you think is false.
No, it’s just that the letter combo “a-r-k” in English means “big box”. “Etymology: Middle English, from Old English arc, from Latin arca chest; akin to Latin arcEre to hold off, defend, Greek arkein, Hittite hark- to have, hold”
Both the “Ark of the Covenant” and “Noah’s ark” are boxes*. We keep the word “Ark” in these usages as it’s rare. We could say “Noah’s box” and the “Box of the Covenant” but they don’t sound as cool.
- read the description- Noah wasn’t building a ship so much as a big floating box. It’s wasn’t designed to maneuver, sail or navigate. (yes, I know the story of Noah is a myth)
It goes back a lot further than the English translators.
For some reason, the Jewish scholars who translated the Hebrew bible into the Greek Septuagint used the same word, kibôtos / [symbol]kibwtos[/symbol] to represent both '-R-W-N and T-B-H. Later, when Jerome translated the bible into Latin, he followed the same pattern, using the Latin arcam in both meanings. (I do not know whether there had been an interim use of a “common” word in Aramaic that might have influenced both the translators of the Septuagint and Jerome.) Even before the early translations of the bible into English, of course, there were “bible stories” and sermons that made reference to both the ark of Noah and the Ark of the Covenant, so the Latin arcam had already been introduced into English (with a lot of different spellings that eventually resovled into “ark”). So when the translators of the KVJ or the Douai-Rheims, (and even Tyndale before them) went to put the passages into English, they used the word with which the majority of (illiterate) people would have already been familiar rather than coming up with a new word and confusing people.
Ark meaning the chest (along with kibôtos / [symbol]kibwtos[/symbol] and arcam) seems to be the “standard” word while applying it to Noah’s vessel seems to be the exception in all three languages (Greek, Latin, English).
Interestingly, the KJV also used “ark” to indicate the basket of bulrushes into which Moses was placed. I would speculate that that was also a carryover from popular bible stories (of unknown provenance) because that translation is not supported by either the Greek or the Latin.
aron, the word used for the Ark of the Covenant, means “chest” or “box.”
Tebah, the word used for Noah’s ark, seems to have a more obscure etymology. It’s also the word used for the basket which is used to save baby Moses. Maybe “vessel” would be an accurate rendering?
Hopefully one of our Hebrew scholars can help. I’m much better with Greek and Latin.
Yeah, it’s being reviewed by Top Men.
Nobody is interested in your dogma here.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable that some of the mythic history had been invented by priests before being written down? Keeping the riffraff out of the Holy of Holies was considered very important, and this could have been some of it.
This is all a part of a question I’ve had for some time - how much of the history was invented by the writers of the Torah, and how much was written and redacted from legends already extant? It seems unlikely they could have sprung a history written from scratch, but it seems likely that the dialogs between Patriarch and God could have been invented. How much of the contradictory versions of stories come from politically opposed sources, and how much comes from different strands of legends that the redactors felt needed to be included?
Good application of a time machine - recording oral history.
If they let in guided tours would that make their claim any more accurate?