Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on July 3, 2009 at 10:40am

People spend their entire lives researching this question - there is no simple answer. Here is a good place to start -

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1985/who-wrote-the-bible-p...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael Howard on July 3, 2009 at 1:27pm

Spot on! Impressive.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on July 3, 2009 at 2:06pm

Also, there is geological proof that the biblical flood is bullshit, too...

There is however solid geological evidence that several thousand years ago, the Black Sea experienced catastrophic flooding. Imagine if you're a farmer living on its edge, with no knowledge of how floods work or that there's so much bigger world around you. Suddenly the ocean itself starts chasing you inland a mile a day. As far as your knowledge of your world is concerned, this must be happening globally. Even if you don't have a god at that point, you're going to imagine there is one and wonder what you did to piss it off.

That is probably not the only event that inspired the Gilgamesh/Noah flood stories, but it's a good bet that it had a hand. Floods happen. Floods in the desert are especially sudden and biblical in proportion ... to the eyes of the person experiencing it. Even today, when you're caught outside in a heavy rainstorm it's hard to imagine that elsewhere in the world it's sunny and dry!

A great book along these lines: "When they Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth."

It's not that the bible is a book of intentional 'lies,' (or started out that way), but rather, this is how people of the time perceived their world. Even when they know (and they often know) that they're making up a legend, that is how information is passed down through generations. It's likely that many of the original writers never dreamed anyone would take their stories literally.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gecko, Seth...brother of Richie! on July 3, 2009 at 8:23pm

Yes very good historical facts about the creation of Bible and the spread of xtianity! And dead on about the flood. As Mary points out below there was A flood in the Black Sea region that is probably the start of flood myths in the whole region. It was certainly not the only one, but NO evidence exists for the hypothesis of a world wide flood.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on July 3, 2009 at 8:32pm

The TRUTH about The Flood (.pdf).

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on July 4, 2009 at 4:12am

Exactly SGecko. I can't believe that we have to even come up with a straight-faced answer to whether or not there could have been a sudden global flood that covered everything. It's like having to give a straight-faced answer to "The moon is made of green cheese" or "God made the Earth in 6 days 6,000 years ago."

As many Xian Fundies will note, most every aboriginal culture has a global flood story. A) See above re; localized flooding appearing global when you don't know how big the world is. B) We did indeed start coming out of an ice age 10,000 years ago. Ice melts, sea/lake/river levels go up. Floods. The river is higher now than anyone can remember. The city your great, great, great ancestors built is now underwater, making it look like the world was flooded. And so on.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by evan on July 5, 2009 at 5:11am

i was wondering where you got this information especially the part about constantine

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sue B on July 5, 2009 at 5:51pm

Jacqueline, you impress me more with every post!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Father Nature on July 3, 2009 at 11:13am

There are a number of books on this subject that are worth reading. If you do a Google search on "who wrote the bible" or "who wrote the new testament" you'll get specific titles.

The books of the new testament are known to have been written many years (70+ IIRC) after the events that they describe by people who couldn't have experienced them firsthand. They recorded, and embellished, stories that had been passed down in an era when superstitous ideas were the norm and scientific skepticism was rare. The original writings were later imperfectly translated and sometimes intentionally modified to suit the aims of christian zealots. The result is a work of propaganda, not unbiased scholarship.

Proving any event in the bible to be untrue is problematic. What you can do is point out the inconsistencies, absurdities, errors, and lack of supporting evidence and demonstrate that the probability of that event happening, as described, is extremely low. Let Occam's Razor be your guide.

Of course some people will cling to even the lowest probablility and continue to believe the myths.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael Howard on July 3, 2009 at 7:02pm

Good stuff. Let’s not forget what would happen to ALL life in the oceans as a result of fresh water diluting the salinity they need to survive or perhaps the fact that all plant life would be lost forever....I could go on and on....

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Goz on July 6, 2009 at 3:56pm

You got that right..Not to mention the special diets these species need to survive. And how would they ,as he mentioned in his other video,even get there? The meerkats,the flying squirrels, the bears,butterflies,bees and roos,the cloud rats,the barn swallows,the egrets,the fiddler crabs,etc. Could you imagine the chaos,the spread of disease,the carnage,with that many creatures crowded together for an entire year on a little boat? Not to mention all the shit?..And wtf is a clean animal vs an un clean animal anyway?
I've worked as a wildlife rehabber and i can see so many flaws in this stupid story it's astounding.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on July 6, 2009 at 7:42pm

Not to mention all those nasty parasites and lethal bacteria. Are viruses counted?

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page