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[Larynx]

So, by changing the meaning of the words used, you can fit it to history, wow, that certainly has no flaws.

If you're claiming a book to be the word of a god, maybe showing how it fudges things like other ancient world literature isn't the pro you think it is buddy.

[jimwalton]

> So, by changing the meaning of the words used,

Every author defines their own words. You read it all the time when an author says, "By 'authority' I'm speaking of the blah-blah, not the yadda -yadda coming from x-y-z. I mean it in this sense." This approach is both common and respectable. It is both expected and legitimate when an author does such.

So, at the beginning of Genesis it makes sense for us to gain a perspective on what the author of Genesis means when he uses universal terms. Even a brief study shows us all that "all" often doesn't mean "universal/global," but rather an inclusive but smaller set.

If we examine how Genesis uses universal language, and we observe what else is going on, we find that universal language is hyperbole used in rhetoric that gives the deity authority to act and sovereignty in the act, but then also clearly that universality was not the consequence or result of the deities' actions.

Taking the Flood narrative as pertaining to a massively regional cataclysm is in perfect line with not only the Genesis text itself, but also in coordination with other peer readings from its era.
If you're claiming a book to be the word of a god, maybe showing how it fudges things like other ancient world literature isn't the pro you think it is buddy.

Do you ever get back from a sporting event, and your friends say, "Did you win?" and you respond, "We slaughtered them," have you lied? You may add, "We left no one standing. We killed 'em." Is this considered "changing the meaning of these words" or "fudging something"? Nope, it's our recognized sports rhetoric to show how domineering we were in the win.

So also, the Bible uses hyperbolic rhetorical universalism to express a theological point to show God's sovereignty in using disorder to restore order from non-order—exactly what an ancient person would expect a God to do.

In other words, I have' changed words or fudged things.

[Python]

> Corroboration with history (history is always a matter of interpretation of records). The Bible has shown itself to be true in the relating of historical events.

There is historical evidence for some events in the Bible. There is also historical evidence against some events of the Bible, such as the creation accounts, the flood, the patriarchs, the exodus, and so on.

The same applies to points 2, 3, and 4.

> Reliable anecdotal evidence from trustworthy sources.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

> Reason: The Bible gives a well-reasoned and consistent perspective and interpretation of life as we know it. The picture it presents makes sense.

This is highly subjective. I'm not sure if there is anything special about the perspective and interpretation of life in the Bible. You could easily find that in books without divine inspiration.

> Testimonial evidence (of people currently alive)

Peoples lives have been changed by lots of books. That doesn't mean that theya re the word of God.

> Current realities (like the existence of the state of Israel and the existence of the Church) that don't make as much sense outside of the environments and interpretations described by the Bible.

I don't see how this would be evidence for the divine inspiration of the Bible.

> The eyewitness accounts of the Bible ring true.

Which eyewitness accounts? We don't have any eyewitness accounts for the life of Jesus.

> There is no hint of any kind of conspiracy, fraud, or collusion.

That depends on what you mean by those terms. If fraud includes forgery, then there is lots of evidence of that. Many books of the New Testament are forgeries.

> The writers of the Bible exude nobility, morality, and honor.

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. People can live for decades with a cheating spouse without ever finding out. There is no way we can judge the character of someone just based on a short book they wrote.

> The consistency of theme, theology, and focus from over 40 authors from 3 continents over a span of 1600 years is unearthly.

It would say this is probably one of the strongest arguments against the divine inspiration of the Bible. The Bible is written over a period of about a thousand years. The different authors often disagree with each other, they show different cultural influences, they have different theological views, and so on. The Bible is not univocal.

> Prophecy and fulfillment

Do you have any examples of fulfilled prophecies? I've seen many lists online, but those lists are filled with verses that were taken out of context and for which we have no good evidence that they were actually fufilled.

> The events they wrote about were public occurrences, not private experiences. Detecting fraud or error would have been easy.

It's pretty easy to publish a book about public events that didn't happen. That wouldn't be unique to the Bible. The non-canonical gospels are some easy examples, but there are many more examples in Greek and Roman texts.

> Their writings have been pored over for millennia and have been accepted by great numbers of scholars.

It has also been rejected by many people, so this argument doesn't point in either direction.

> The Bible has an unearthly kind of power to change lives for the people who submit to its teachings.

This is the same as point 7.

[jimwalton]

> There is historical evidence for some events in the Bible. There is also historical evidence against some events of the Bible, such as the creation accounts, the flood, the patriarchs, the exodus, and so on.

There is evidence for and against whether Donald Trump caused an insurrection on January 6. There is evidence for and against whether Joe Biden is fit for office. Because there is debate and disagreement doesn't necessarily change the historicity of an account. We just need to probe further to find the real truth that is still hiding from us.

> "There is evidence against the creation account."

I take Genesis 1 & 2 as John Walton expounds: it's about function, not material manufacture. It's about God ordering the world to function in a certain way. There is no evidence against that.

> "There is evidence against the Flood."

The flood was a massive regional flood involving the judgement of particular communities. It happened and it served it purpose very well. You may have to present to me the evidence against it, if you choose to pursue that among all the conversations you have raised.

> There is no evidence against the patriarchs.

The scant evidence that is available shows the Genesis accounts of Gn. 12-50 to have many historical elements to them, and nothing in those chapters has ever been proven to be wrong. You may have to present to me the "evidence" against it.

> There is no evidence against the Exodus.

There is also no evidence for it, but that leaves us at limbo, not at "disproved." There are many culturally accurate things written in the text, which leads us to want to trust the rest of the account, but we really can't without evidence. There are no inaccurate things that prove the record wrong.

>> "Reliable anecdotal evidence from trustworthy sources."
> I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Most of history is anecdotal. A historian doesn't work with proof the way a scientist does. Therefore a historian must work with probabilities instead of hard data. There is no reproducibility in history. Mark Chavalas writes, "Anecdotal statements are the stuff of history; they provide information that betrays bits of social and cultural information that are essential to understanding the context of the writing and perhaps the time period that is written about."

> That depends on what you mean by those terms.

You understand now what I mean by a writer has to define terms the way he/she uses them.

> You could easily find that in books without divine inspiration.

Probaby not. The Bible has no peer in that it was written by over 40 authors from 3 different continents over a period of 1300 years and still has a consistency of theme and focus.

> Do you have any examples of fulfilled prophecies?

Sure. Exodus 3-14. Micah 5.2. Matthew 8.13. There are many.

> We don't have any eyewitness accounts for the life of Jesus.

We actually have three: Matthew, Mark, and John.

> Many books of the New Testament are forgeries.

This is highly debatable, and it is highly debated. There is no secure conclusion that any particular book is proven to be a forgery. As Craig Blomberg writes, "There are no actual examples in early Christian history of a document known to have been written by someone other than the person to whom it is attributed, which were deemed acceptable by a sizable segment of the Church. Certainly there are no known examples of books being accepted into the New Testament that were believed to have been written by someone other than the person to whom they are ascribed, with the possible, partial exception of 2 Peter.

"We have no evidence at all that early Christianity accepted pseudonymity as a legitimate device in the testimony that exists. (That came in the second century.)"

> It's pretty easy to publish a book about public events that didn't happen.

But the Bible doesn't have these. Just extra canonical books and some other books from the culture. Burden of proof is on you to prove these from the Bible.

[Coyote]

The problem is we can prove the Bible is NOT the word of a God.

It didn’t exist until the 4th century and was compiled by the Roman government.

It has forgery and interpolation.

It changed many times.

And since you are Protestant it is super easy to prove your faith in the Bible is a lie since the hypocritical reformation removed whole books from the Bible less than 400 years ago.

If God is real, it’s an insult to God to claim that Roman compiled political trash is the word of God.

[jimwalton]

> The problem is we can prove the Bible is NOT the word of a God

OK, I'll read what you have coming.

> It didn’t exist until the 4th century and was compiled by the Roman government.

This is not true. The Bible is quoted even by the end of the 1st century. We have manuscripts dating to the 2nd century. There is a gathering of the Gospels by the end of the 2nd century. Paul's letters start to be assembled in the 2nd century. There are plenty of manuscripts from the 3rd century, as well as the beginnings of compilation of the Gospels, Pauline Epistles, and General Epistles into a single volume. So you're simply wrong about your assertion here.

> It has forgery and interpolation.

Forgery is posited by some scholars, but it has never been proven. As a matter of fact, Craig Blomberg writes that there are no actual examples in early Christian history of a document known to have been written by someone other than the person to whom it is attributed, which were deemed acceptable by a sizable segment of the Church. Certainly there are no known examples of books being accepted into the New Testament that were believed to have been written by someone other than the person to whom they are ascribed, with the possible, partial exception of 2 Peter.

We have no evidence at all that early Christianity accepted pseudonymity as a legitimate device in the testimony that exists. (That came in the second century.)

So you're just not right about this.

> It changed many times.

It has not. First of all, to prove that something has not changed would be to be obligated to prove a negative, which is impossible. Second, it is possible to demonstrate that there is no good reason to think that the text has been changed. Lastly, there are good reasons to think it has not been changed: the quantity of manuscripts, the variety of sources, and the integrity of transmission of the text.

> hypocritical reformation removed whole books from the Bible less than 400 years ago.

This is not true, either. The books of the Apocrypha (deuterocanonical books) were always in dispute, unlike the NT canon. Various groups accepted, various rejected. The Jewish scholars never included them in their canon. Jesus and the NT writers never quoted from them, though they often quoted from Scripture. There has always been dispute about them.

So you have not carried your case or proven that the Bible is NOT the Word of God.

[Jungle Jed]

Please research the historicity of the Exodus narrative, especially the data from an academic perspective.

[jimwalton]

I have done volumes of research on the Exodus narrative. There are many many details in the Exodus narrative that are true to history and have been proven. There are still many claims of the Exodus narrative for which there is no evidence, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. New discoveries are made all the time. At best we could claim that the lack of certain pieces of evidence motivates us to withhold judgment about these factors. The lack of evidence doesn't prove it didn't happen; instead, it only proves that such claims for now are unsubstantiated.

As you also probably know, many details about the conquest and settlement of Canaan by the Israelites are disputed.

If you would like to discuss the Exodus, I'd be glad to. I have researched it thoroughly, especially from an academic perspective. What would you like to discuss, presumably since it seems you think the Exodus narrative shows that the Bible is not the Word of God?

[Pyotr]

> The flood was a massive regional flood involving the judgement of particular communities.

Sure, floods have happened. They still happen.

> There is no evidence against the patriarchs. The scant evidence that is available shows the Genesis accounts of Gn. 12-50 to have many historical elements to them, and nothing in those chapters has ever been proven to be wrong.

The narratives about the patriarchs are full of anachronisms. The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham by Thomas Thompson and Abraham in History and Tradition by John van Seters are two good books that deal with this topic.

> There is no evidence against the Exodus. There is also no evidence for it, but that leaves us at limbo, not at "disproved." There are many culturally accurate things written in the text, which leads us to want to trust the rest of the account, but we really can't without evidence. There are no inaccurate things that prove the record wrong.

There is an abundance of evidence against the exodus and conquest narrative. I presented some of the evidence against it here.

> Most of history is anecdotal.

Sure, but you haven't shown why the anecdotal evidence of the Bible would be reliable.

> The Bible has no peer in that it was written by over 40 authors from 3 different continents over a period of 1300 years and still has a consistency of theme and focus.

I'm not sure how this relates to my point. This is one of the other points that I responded to: "I would say this is probably one of the strongest arguments against the divine inspiration of the Bible. The Bible is written over a period of about a thousand years. The different authors often disagree with each other, they show different cultural influences, they have different theological views, and so on. The Bible is not univocal."

> Exodus 3-14

What do you mean by this? Why do you see this as a fulfilled prophecy?

> Micah 5.2

Do you have any god evidence that this was actually fulfiled? I know it's written in two of the gospels, but how do you know that what they report is true?

> Matthew 8.13

This is about a past event, Everyone can write about past events. There is also no good evidence that this actually took place. Any book can claim that someone performed miracles in the past.

> We actually have three: Matthew, Mark, and John.

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John were not written by the people it was later attributed to. They were written decades after the events by people who never met Jesus.

> This is highly debatable, and it is highly debated.

It really isn't. There is very good evidence that many books of the New Testament are forgeries, and this is accepted by the large majority of New Testament scholars. There are some people who work at evangelical institutions who have signed a statement of faith that the Bible is inerrant. Big surprise, they say that the Bible is indeed inerrant. Craig Blomberg is one of them. That doesn't take away that we can say with very high confidence that some of the New Testament books were forged.

> But the Bible doesn't have these. Just extra canonical books and some other books from the culture. Burden of proof is on you to prove these from the Bible.

You're making the claim that the Bible is the word of God and presented thi as an argument. That means that you should substantiate that claim.

[jimwalton]

> Sure, floods have happened. They still happen.

Yep, I agree.

> The narratives about the patriarchs are full of anachronisms.

There are some, yes, but they are certainly not full of them. I am not disputing that the text was not edited in later years, with obviously some insertions that were anachronistic. The point does nothing to prove your argument or to dispute mine. My point is that the patriarchal narratives have never been proven to be false.

> There is an abundance of evidence against the exodus and conquest narrative.

There is no evidence that proves any part of the exodus and conquest narrative to be false. There are vast disputes about many elements of both, but there has been no evidence showing them to be false.

> Sure, but you haven't shown why the anecdotal evidence of the Bible would be reliable.

The Bible has been shown to be historically reliable. We can talk about any particular text(s) if you wish. Arguing in generalities is never fruitful.

> The different authors often disagree with each other,

I disagree. Again, generalities don't make for fruitful discussion. We'd have to converse about specific examples.

> they show different cultural influences

This is not a problem to historicity or its theological claims.

> "Micah 5.2" Do you have any god evidence that this was actually fulfiled?

The evidence we have is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. We have no evidence to the contrary. If you dispute the claim, the evidence to the contrary is what you must produce.

> "Matthew 8.13" This is about a past event

If you expect that Matthew wrote about this narrative before it happened, that's not the way biographies work. My response to you would be to ask what evidence you have to claim this didn't happen the way Matthew reports it. On what basis do you dispute it?

> The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John were not written by the people it was later attributed to. They were written decades after the events by people who never met Jesus.

The evidence for traditional authorship is stronger than evidence to the contrary. I know each book's author is disputed in our times, but in the early Church, there was no dispute. There is unanimity of position that the authors were Mt, Mk, Lk, and John. There is no extant copy with any other attribution. In addition, there are reasons to believe the authors are the traditional authors, and the result of my research is that the case for the traditional authors has more weight than the case against.

> There is very good evidence that many books of the New Testament are forgeries

This is simply untrue. The majority of the epistles of Paul are undisputed. The remainder of the letters of Paul are disputed but not proven to be forgeries. The cases for the Gospels are stronger for traditional authorship than for any competing theory. Hebrews is not a forgery, we just don't know the author. James is highly disputed, there is no scholarly consensus. The early Church used James and there is evidence of widespread acceptance. Jude was widely recognized by the early Church. Revelation author is unknown, but it's not regarded as a forgery.

> That means that you should substantiate that claim.

I did substantiate the claim. Theological claims can't be proven but only substantiated. I gave close to 20 points of argument as to why I consider the Bible to be the Word of God.