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From: heahd@tellab1.UUCP (Dan Wood)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Can a thinking man accept the bible? (part 3)
Message-ID: <241@tellab1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Jun-84 09:40:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: tellab1.241
Posted: Wed Jun  6 09:40:17 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Jun-84 07:46:53 EDT
Organization: Tellabs, Inc., Lisle, Ill.
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>   Until late in the 19th century there was no proof outside
> the Bible, that an ancient Hittite civilization ever existed. 
> Naturally, some of the so called "experts" said it was just another
> Biblical fable. But in 1906, Hugo Winckler discovered and excavated
> the ancient Hittite capitol and recovered several thousand Hittite
> scrolls! Amazing thing about it, at least to them, is that the
> discoveries bore out the accuracy of the Bible. 

>  Chapters 37 through 50 of Genesis are now considered some of the
> most valuable historical material in existence. Archeological
> discoveries in recent years have shown that these chapters
> reveal an intimate knowledge of Egypt. They include Egyptian loan
> words, names, titles and customs.
 
   Ok, so the bible contains some verifiable history. This hardly proves that
it is the word of God. If this were the case, then my high school history text
is a sacred book. It's not surprising that the bible is an important source of
Egyptian history, after all the Hebrews spent a lot of time in Egypt.

>   The more we search and dig, the more we discover the Bible
> to be true. A recent report carried in the Los Angeles Examiner was
> captioned "Paydirt Hit in Noah's Ark Hunt". It said that in 1915 a
> Russian pilot spotted an ark frozen in the ice on the exact mountain
> specified in the Scriptures. After World War I, a team of Russian
> soldiers struggled through Arctic weather conditions to examine it.
> They found it to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high,
> corresponding with the Bible description. Photographs were made. However,
> much of this information was lost during the Communist takeover of Russia.

   Mt Ararat is 16,946 feet high (a little over 3 miles) I'm not sure, but I
don't think that any airplanes around in 1915 could fly that high. The
communists had already taken over Russia by the end of WWI. Why would one of
the most notoriously atheistic governments in history send soldiers to verify
a biblical story? Also, since the communist revolution was virtually over at
the time of this alleged expedition, how could any evidence it might have
collected have been destroyed by an event that had already taken place? Even
assuming that there was a boat of some sort on the mountain, the surviving
timbers could hardly have been in good enough shape to take precise
measurements. 

>   The Scripture says that Jesus entered Jericho and there encounterred
> Zacchaeus in a Sycamore tree. The "experts" said this was impossible.
> Wellhausen, Bultmann, Gilmour, and others said there were no trees in Jerico.
> Luke was wrong.

>   But since then, we have discovered the ruins of Jericho. We have found
> that it had streets and public places were shade trees could flourish.
> In fact, a piece of ancient wood found in the excavation has been identified.
> You guessed it-Sycamore! You just can't win! The Bible stands true again!
 
   I almost tire of picking apart these flimsy arguments. But a job worth
starting is worth finishing. 

   The piece of wood found in the ruins of Jericho proves only the sycamore
trees grew there. It doesn't provide one shred of evidence that a short man
once perched there to view an itinerant preacher from Galilee.

>   The coming of Jesus Christ to earth was no unannounced happenstance.
> Throughout the Old Testament His coming had been foretold. Micah said He
> would be born in Bethlehem. Isaiah said he would be born of a virgin,
> rejected by the Jews and crucified. Zechariah forsaw His triumphal entry.
> The Psalmist David revealed He would be betrayed by a friend, given
> gall and vinegar, pierced in His hands and feet and that men would
> gamble for His garments. The Bible foretold that He would be sold
> for thirty pieces of silver. Within thirty-three years He had come and
> gone. But no man ever left such a mark upon the world. Libraries of
> books have been written about Him. It would be impossible to estimate
> the millions of songs which have been sung, prayers which have been
> prayed, and lives which have been changed...in Jesus' Name!

   I've seen no evidence that any of the events described in the Gospels (save
for the Roman census) actually took place. The earliest date I've seen for an
actual written version of any of the gospels is c. 70 A.D. (source: The Concise
Columbia Encyclopedia) for Mark. This leaves better than 30 years for legends
about Jesus to spring up to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies. In other
words it is very easy to fulfill prophecies centurys after the prophecies were
made and decades after their alleged fulfillment. In fact, the source sited
above (The CCE) states that  Matthew was written specifically to convince
Jewish christians that Jesus was the messiah. This makes it more rhetoric than
history.

  It would be impossible to estimate the millions of people that have been
removed from their homeland, dragged from their houses and tortured, and the
lives that have been taken...in Jesus' Name!

>   The earth has recieved the blood of thousands of martyrs who gave
> their last full measure of devotion.

    Other men have given their lives in devotion to other causes. How about
the founders of this country who plegged "...our lives, our fortunes, and our
scared honor..." for a cause they believed in?  Did the lives given at
Jonestown make Jim Jones a messiah? Just because some people are willing to
give their lives doesn't make their cause a holy one.

>   The New Testament is filled with prophecies of our own day.
> Jesus said that in the last days there would be wars and rumors of wars.
> He prophecied earthquakes and tidal waves. He prophecied a state of
> political turbulance and emotional upheaval. He said mens hearts
> would be failing them for fear. The Bible says that evil men and seducers
> will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. Israel was to
> become a nation again and recapture Old Jerusalem. How true all these 
> have proven!

   As has been pointed out already, these prophecies sound like just about any
time in human history. The people of Europe in 1000 A.D. must surely have felt
that the world was about to end and expected to hear the final trumpet any
minute. After all, the millennium was upon them, and Vikings were raiding and
burning from Ireland to Kiev. They must have felt that the armys of Gog and
Magog were upon them.  It's very easy to apply vague prophicies to virtually
any period in history.  Actually, the prophecies listed above match the time
of WWII better than they do our own time. 

                              (to be continued)
-- 


                        Yrs. in Fear and Loathing,
                             The Blue Buffalo
                              Haunted by the -

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