Once again, we are not debating as to whether the Bible is true or false. The question is are there stories in the Bible that are falsifiable-are there any ways to show that particular stories in the Bible couldn’t be true. For example, see Prof. Pepperwinkle’s post showing that the walls of Jericho couldn’t have been caused by Joshua blowing a horn because Joshua wasn’t alive at that time.
Assuming the records magically showed up tomorrow, I imagine that condemning a person (or three) to the death penalty would be recorded. supposed we find the records for AD 20 to AD 50 and no “Jesus the Nazerine” shows up as being crucified?
That would just show that the records haven’t shown up yet, or that someone is hiding them, or that those particular records were destroyed somehow. Unfortunately, magical suppositions rarely work when trying to falsify a claim.
<mod hat on>
sentrix, you were doing pretty well up until this post. Rein it in a bit as the above is on the line.
No warning issued.
<mod hat off>
The one spot on that page that mentions the timeframe 1800-1400 BCE does not strike me as “Archaeological Evidence”. More like “Archaeological Supposition based on Inference and Estimates”
I’m not saying that there isn’t evidence, but I don’t see how that particular web page displays it in an incontrovertible way. Is there a link on that page I should be following?
More evidence on the fall of Jericho, 1800-1400 BCE.
Actually it is if the thing being discussed should have left evidence. For instance, nearly a million Hebrews camping in the desert for 40 years should have left campfires, burial grounds (they pretty much all died before the entry to Canaan) and dessicated poop. The absence of any of this is pretty good evidence for the absence of the hikers.
Some other examples. David was supposed to have a major empire. No one seems to have noticed. (Though there is some evidence of a king named David.)
At the resurrection there were earthquakes and zombie saints marched around Jerusalem. No one noticed that also.
So, why did he inspire such utter bilge? And how do you tell the difference between the nonsense parts and the real parts?
As for the day versus back in the day argument - as others have mentioned, Genesis is very explicit about evenings and mornings, and grandpa does not say evening and morning of the day he was back in. Not to mention that you should demonstrate that Hebrew has that same double meaning. Interpreting the Bible according to English overloaded words does not work very well.
thank you jonathan chance. my apologies for the comment i was out of line.
if anyone wants meat to throw on this bbq about falsifiable claims then look at the new york atheists page on fb. quite an educated read with all matter of supporting evidence.
The power of faith?
The power of prayer?
Those who believe can drink poison and play with deadly snakes without harm?
The power to heal the sick?
Does dessicated poop really last for literally thousands of years?
“dating of 1550 BC mainly came from the lack of an expensive type of pottery from Cyprus popular in 1400 BC.”
So we’ve got one nugget pointing the date.
But on that same page, there’s:
All of these previous findings correlate with the biblical narrative:
The city was strongly fortified (Joshua 2:5,7,15, 6:5,20).
The attack occurred just after harvest time in the spring (Joshua 2:6, 3:15, 5:10).
The inhabitants had no opportunity to flee with their food (Joshua 6:1).
The siege was short (Joshua 6:15).
The walls were leveled, possibly by an earthquake (Joshua 6:20).
The city was not plundered (Joshua 6:17-18).
The city was burned (Joshua 6:20)
All this saying the biblical account was correct.
Alls I’m saying is, that doesn’t appear to be a good example of a falsifiable biblical claim.
But that’s only providing you can place Joshua as alive c1550-1400 BCE. As mentioned above, Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, V.1.28, places him at 1355-1245 BCE.
How can there not be any separate account of this at all? Why does something like this only appear in one gospel? Someone would have written about it, after they changed their underwear anyway.
Except, again, the authors clarify that what they’re talking about is a miracle. And they not only say the sun stood still, but give the amount of time it stood still for, which is hard to square with it just meaning “something took a really long time”.
In general, ancient Hebrew literary style involved repeating the same thing twice in two different ways (as with saying something took a day in genesis, and then saying it took a morning and an evening), which doesn’t really leave a lot of room for misunderstood idioms.
Plus, more generally, here isn’t really any mystery to solve here. The miracles in the Old Testement are meant to be understood as miracles. And they are there because they were written by an Iron age people, and iron age people believed that miracles and magic happened.
We’ve got dinosaur poop. It wouldn’t last everywhere, of course, but the Sinai is the perfect place for preserving it. There would be a lot of it.
My problem with Josephus is that a lot of his book was based on texts of the events written long after they happened. He wrote a lot of his historical works with seeming artistic license, and some have even suggested that some of the outcomes were rigged as a propaganda ploy against the Jewish War.
If you look at Masada (chosen for it being within his own time period), for instance, the Romans break through the outer wall and, upon finding the newly-constructed inner wall that was made of wood and other soft items, the Romans set it ablaze.
Then the Romans pulled away and decided to call it a night, being sure to keep a careful watch for Jewish escapees. A speech was also inserted by the leader of the Masada complex into the story, here, which is hard to believe he got from the Roman reports of the incident Come the morning, the Romans marched against and through the breach and found bodies and all of their possessions burned in a giant pile (Despite the Romans also finding a cache of weapons for up to 10,000 soldiers).
Through the night, the guards posted to watch for escapees didn’t notice a movement of almost 1,000 people that should have been visible through the breach? No one noticed that a very large fire was started? And why, when you are about to grab victory do you suddenly stop and go back to base camp?
There are other troubles with his account, but it seems to make more sense that he was either glossing over facts he didn’t have access to, or he was dramatizing the writings to make for a better reading experience.
This is actually common for ancient historians, as they weren’t as fact based in those days. But hailing to their authority kinds leaves me wanting for a better source, especially when they don’t get the actions in their own times recorded so well.
And even that is assuming that you can place Joshua alive at all. Best we can tell, the supposed conquest never happened.
I’m willing to bet that earthquake is poetic and never literally happened. Ditto with the “massacre of the innocents” by Herod.
But the fact neither is mentioned in extant writings of the period isn’t proof.
What you have to appreciate, is how limited and few contemporary written sources concerning 1st century Judea are. We know hardly anything about the period from contemporary sources.
To take an example, the guy allegedly in charge of the place during the (alleged) death of Jesus - Pontus Pilate - barely rates a mention: he’s discussed by Josephus and has a mention in Tacitus, but that’s about it. Until 1961, there was literally no physical evidence he ever existed. Then, a limestone block was found:
If a figure of such contemporary importants rates so little mention (at least, that survives), it is hardly a surprise that a massacre or an earthquake isn’t recorded in the surviving record.
One thing people don’t realize about Judea is that it was largely a backwater after the fall of the Monarchy in the 800’s BCE until…well, I honestly can’t recall it being an important region, outside of Jerusalem (to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).
Anyway, the point is that most people of the Roman empire didn’t give to shakes of salt about Judea. The Roman province that took the name Judea (Historical Judah/Judea, Isreal/Samaria, and Idumea/Edom) was captured from Syria in ~70-60BCE and was used as to control the overland route to the Egyptian bread basket. By itself, it held little other value for Rome. The tax revenues were fairly miniscule (compared to the rest of Roman tax intake) and it housed a few related religions that were strange to the Romans. The lack of real Roman oversight led to the Jewish War, where the area tried to gain independence from Rome between 65 and 130CE. It was only after this long-term revolt movement started that Rome rolled in and established more than a token bureaucracy/military presence to govern the province.