Egyptian Moses II

The latest response by my sister was pretty awesome, so I decided to make a new post on the same discussion.


Thanks for the thoughts,
As I mentioned, I will look into some of the sources that you mentioned Travis. I like the learning. For you I would recommend a book called “On the reliability of the Old Testament” by Kenneth Kitchen if you are loo...king for reading (The Times of London has called Kitchen the “very architect of Egyptian chronology”) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Kitchen. I do not have time currently to address all of your statements but my main thought to you would be that a similarity of beliefs in other places does not mean that those beliefs in any way influenced the Bible. Is it possible, yes. Is it possible not, yes as well. It seems to me that you are assuming that if there is a similarity of beliefs (obscure or otherwise) then the beliefs must be related. Do you apply this standard to everything?

I see your point about the “Eight witnesses” and concede that you must be discerning about “witnesses” (I of course reject Mormon doctrine). My point in making the witness statement was simply to make the obvious distinction (at least in my mind) from ancient pagan mythology and the founding and growth of Christianity. The accounts are much different.

K C, I have done a little more than just listening to “what my church has told me”. I have a history degree from UW and am a year away from completing my second Master’s degree. I have done extensive studies of both church and ancient history. I have seen and studied the Dead Sea scrolls (even read them in the Hebrew). So, from what I know after hearing statements like “Eusebius basically got to choose which ones were included” it makes me believe that it is you that have not read (I’m sure you have but then why make a statement like that). Certainly he played a major role, there is no doubt about it. But there were certain guidelines which the church leaders used to determine what they believed to be Scripture and what was obviously not. The church was already established by this time, now they were just organizing (not creating) what is called the canon of Scripture. A task much easier once they did not fear for their lives. There is much to say on this but for time sake (both yours and mine) I recommend “The Story of Christian Doctrine” by Roger Olson as a good general resource.

You say that I am not looking at evidence, I say you are doing the same thing but from your point of view. You are taking accounts and saying they discredit other accounts, I am doing the same. i.e. you say there is no historical data that supports Herod killing children or of a census, I say of course there is – the Bible. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. You are starting from the presupposition that the bible is not true, I am starting from the opposite position. You also come across as if you believe that all ancient evidence refutes or contradicts the Bible, do you believe this?

I see no altered contradictions within the gospel accounts, any “so called” ones you have (or the ones you’ve heard about in a class once or magazine but not read for yourself) are easily answered. I have done much study in this. None of these questions are new; Biblical scholarship has been around for quite a while and has dealt with them all. I do not mind discussing them with you civilly, feel free to send me a friend request and if you would like to discuss these issues I’m open to it. I have studied, but I of course do not presume to know everything and still have much to learn. I appreciate threads like this because they do challenge me to read and learn new things.

All of this aside, consider a moral question which cannot be answered by ancient evidence. Surmise with me, IF the God of the Bible exists and judges you at the end of your life, would you be good enough to go to heaven?

K C: J B, I am glad to hear you have researched quite a bit into the historicity of the bible and the church. However, and I can agree with you on this, we are both likely biased because of our beliefs--you start from a point of faith and fin...d and logicize things supporting the truth of the bible, and I like to read about things that show a lack of support of the truth of the bible. However, I was on the other side for many, many years. I was a very strong Christian. It is partially, probably in large part really, thanks to the Christian university I attended that I became non-Christian. Analyzing the original text of the bible in classes opened my eyes up to doing more of my own research on all things Christian and made me face facts that I for some reason at that point in my life could no longer logicize away. This is just something where we will never convince each other of our side, but I do appreciate the discussion as well. I assure you I have read numerous books supporting the historicity of the bible and Jesus, but when I allowed myself to read books from the opposing side, the arguments were just so much more convincing to me. They refuted each and every point the Christian books had made. I had quite a crisis of faith, but I was (I think luckily) able to overcome it and come out on the other side a better person. Just my personal journey.

As far as would I be good enough to go to heaven, that just opens up a huge can of philosophy worms. I'll put aside the fact that I don't believe in heaven. But there is always the argument that how could a loving god send people to hell. And knowingly send people to hell. It is illogical. God is omniscient, so even though we have "free will", god knows what our decision will be. If god knows I am going to hell in the end, for one thing, why bother with "being good"? Yet I do bother with it. For another, I'm guessing you believe, since I am a non-believer that I would think heaven requires "being good enough" of a person. Yet, I know this is not the case. The bible says one has to accept Jesus as savior. And requirement #2 MAY be baptism (not a belief of everyone, but it DOES say that). And that's how we show we are "good enough" to get into heaven? I could have lived a life like Jeffery Dahmer, but if, in the end, I truly believed in god, I would get in to heaven merely because of a belief? Yet one of the people he murdered may have been a non-believer who was condemned to hell, but, if his life had not been taken prematurely, might have changed his mind and one day believed in god. This is how a supposedly loving god judges people, on whether they accept his narcissitic need to be believed in? Doesn't that seem kind of juvenile? Especially when combined with the "jealousy" god shows and even admits to in the Old Testament, and the genocide he requires the Israelites to perform. Jealousy and ordering murder isn't exactly loving. Regardless of all this, even if I somehow started believing again, I would possibly be screwed anyway, as mentioned in Hebrews 6: 4-6. So what would be the point of believing again anyway? Apparently, that is the one unforgiveable sin, unforgiveable type of person that a loving god cannot redeem. Shouldn't an all-loving being have UNCONDITIONAL love?

Me: So let me get this right. In one paragraph you're accusing me of assuming nonexistent correlations between religions, which, for many religions many scholars can see, and have written documentation, of the transition from one deity to the n...ext. However, in the very next paragraph you're telling me that, in fact, certain eye witnesses accounts are actually much different than others, depending upon what you believe. And you never really even say how these vary. I think you're assuming just as much as I am.

As for the Council of Nicea and their choices of which books make the cut for the Bible and which don't, why wasn't Bel the Dragon considered? I mean it has our protagonist of the Lions' Den fame, and it has a deity that stands to be disproved. This sounds like a great story! I bet it was just dismissed because of the living nature of the deity. It wasn't an idol. It was likely just a large lizard captured somewhere down south or out east and brought back to Cyrus' court. This animal was deified as Bel (Lord) the Dragon, which was later said to be correlated with Marduk, another interesting deity, as he was known as the "solar calf"... But not to tangent to another deity story, my guess (yes, again I'm assuming) is that this story was eliminated just because it even suggested the existence of a "real-life" pagan deity, even as false of one as it could be. And this kind of judgment as to what should or should not be included in the Bible is just silly.

And don't even get me started on the New Testament Apocrypha...

"You also come across as if you believe that all ancient evidence refutes or contradicts the Bible, do you believe this?"

No. I think there is plenty of fictional history depicted in the Bible. Places and people mentioned (maybe not all, but some, or in one form or another -- there may be temporal skewing) were likely real people from past events. What I do suggest is that viewpoints may have been changed to fit a certain perspective, one that shines a good or better light on the story trying to be told. For instance, the previously explained Moses coming from down the mountain scenario, or the attempt to further vilify Herod, when in fact, the act of killing "Innocents" wasn't likely a one-time deal, but a tradition. But by making a story in which Herod is scared of losing his through based on prophesies made in the Bible, there is more of a story to tell, when in fact, Herod had nothing to do with the call for the slaughter. Or if he was, it wasn't a great surprise or novel idea for anyone of the time.

All I'm saying is that it might pay to cross-reference the Bible with other sources that depict the traditions and stories of the people of the same time period. All of your suggested readings are, not surprisingly, Biblically related. But why would you want a different perspective on something when you "know" that all you have to do is turn to others who have committed their lives to furthering this mindset?

"Surmise with me, IF the God of the Bible exists and judges you at the end of your life, would you be good enough to go to heaven?"

I may live by my own moral standards -- which are also suggestively formed by local and federal law, but I don't think they would be much different than what the God of Moses suggested (although I'm not much for an eye for an eye and all of the other antiquated rules on how to live. I suggest to you A.J. Jacobs' "A Year of Living Biblically" http://www.ajjacobs.com/books/yolb.asp).

As for going to heaven, well, if I don't believe in it, why would I want to go? Sure it would be nice, but really, there is exactly a 50/50 chance that it doesn't exist at all. Let me ask you this, though I'm sure I already know the answer. Would you be happy with your life if you knew that you dedicated it nearly in its entirety upon an ideology that was invented to simply mark celestial cycles and to form a cohesive congregation of people to further someone else's position of power?

That sounds like you're being told what to think and not thinking for yourself. You can believe that God exists, I'm perfectly cool with that. But all I'm saying is that in order to fully understand it, you need to question it and think outside of what is thought to be common knowledge on the subject. Be a cynic rather than a blind follower. I know this goes against Biblical teaching (for some odd reason), but if you really want to understand the Bible, I think it's the best way to do it. Even though you "know" it's "true", presume it to be false and you'll discover a lot more answers.