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Last edited by nat4200 on 19 Apr 2012, 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Because I care about whether or not arguments make sense. It doesn't matter what you think, it matters how you think.



Does this really happen? If it does, you should offer the "innerant bible" people my counterarguments. It's important to help your opposition if you know about a counterargument that they don't. After all, the point is to find out what's true, right? Not to point-score?

I think that my counterarguments make perfect sense, and show that none of your three points conflict with the idea that God dictated every word in the Bible. If you don't think so, say why not.

The Bible was written by Late Bronze Age dudes who had less knowledge of the natural world than we have today. It is a Book of Stories.

ruveyn

As Yoda would say, "Thoroughly chastized, I am..."






"... not!"

*sigh* Okay, here's another way of looking at the "pi" thing, that I just thought of. How accurate would the measurements have to be before you would concede that it was the correct value of pi?

Suppose that the actual dimensions of the circle were such that the diameter really is 10. Then the circumference is actually 10*pi = 31.415926...

The Bible says that the circumference is 30. Clearly it is rounding to the nearest ten, which makes you think that the claimed value of pi is 30/10 = 3.

Suppose that it instead rounded to the nearest one. Then it would say that the circumference is 31. But then you would say that it is claiming that pi is 31/10 = 3.1! But that isn't pi, either!

Suppose that it instead rounded to the nearest tenth. Then it would say that the circumference is 31.4. But then you would say that it is claiming that pi is 31.4/10 = 3.14! But that isn't pi, either!

Suppose that it instead rounded to the nearest hundredth. Then it would say that the circumference is 31.41. But then you would say that it is claiming that pi is 31.41/10 = 3.141! But that isn't pi, either!

What are you expecting? Are you actually expecting the Bible to say "It was 10 across, and 10*pi in circumference"?

Let's all assume for a moment that God in fact does not exist, or at least, that he had nothing to do with the Bible, and accept your theory that the "bats" thing is a mistake. (I don't actually accept this.) In this case, you need to account for the fact that whoever wrote these passages thought that bats go into the category. You accept that, right? Somebody made a "mistake", and put bats into the category even though they're not supposed to go into the category.

Well, ask yourself, why would anyone make such a mistake? I think it's pretty clear. Just like with modern English, there may have been a technical distinction that means that bats don't belong in the category, but whoever the writer was, he didn't know about, or didn't care about, this technical distinction. And this writer was a Jew, fluent in Hebrew. So, it must be a technical distinction that the "common man" doesn't care much about, just like the word "insect" in modern English.

Now, if God was speaking to the common people of Israel, why wouldn't God speak in a language that everyone could understand? In other words, if it is believable that a common Jew might not care about this technical distinction, then why would God care about it? He's trying to be understood by the person that he is speaking to.

You might have a point when it comes to Deuteronomy 14, which uses the Hebrew word "owph". According to some OT scholars, owph means fowl, but others claim that it means "any creature with wings".

However, Leviticus 11 lists bats as "tsippowr" (also transcribed as tzipor and sippowr), which all Bible scholars agree means bird. The word still exists in modern Hebrew. If you ask any Israeli if bats are tsippowr he will strongly disagree, even if he's not a biologist.

Which means that bats are not part of a Hebrew category called birds. It is hard to believe that the ancient Hebrews would have had two different words for "flying thing, probably a bird but then again perhaps not, who can tell all these winged critters apart anyway".

Really? You might be surprised at how many modern-day English-speakers would call an orca a "shark", or call a spider an "insect".

But more to the point, I wrote some stuff just above your post that I think is relevant to your point. If it is a mistake, how did it happen?

EDIT: I just thought of something else. Your evidence is that the category only means birds in modern Hebrew, right? Well, it's not exactly implausible that such a word might narrow its meaning over time, especially in the face of new biological evidence. Try flipping this situation on its head. Instead of using the modern Hebrew definition to say that the Bible passage is a "mistake", you could use the Bible passage to prove that the word has changed meaning!

What's more implausible, that a fluent speaker somehow made a bizarre mistake in his own native language, or that a word has changed meaning over two thousand years?

Last edited by Declension on 17 Feb 2012, 11:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bird or fowl, it's not the same category of birds that you're thinking of from a modern scientific view.

No one's arguing that the ancient Hebrews' classification system was scientific. We're just saying it's not wrong.

Local taxonomies are neither wrong nor right. It's all based upon agreements.

In that case, the Torah was only meant for the ancient Hebrews. Yahweh is all-knowing according to the Bible, so he should have foreseen the translation problems of European Bible scholars in later centuries. But he simply didn't care, because he was only speaking to his chosen people. The Torah was never meant for the eyes of gentiles. This means that Jesus' "Go forth and teach all nations" was not in accordance with Yahweh's will. Ergo, Jesus is a false prophet and modern orthodox Jews are the only true believers

Yes, the Bible is full of contradictions and is a big mess. Doesn't change the point of what's being argued.

If that specific passage was for the Hebrews only, then it's not wrong.

If I decided to class you as a wombat, how many people would have to agree with my personal arbitrary taxonomy to render it "not wrong" or "neither wrong nor right"?

Come to think of it ... the whole Bible seems to be about Jewish history (Who'd've thunk it?), and not about Gentile history. So why should the Bible even be relevant to Non-Jews at all?

After all, we already had our own gods and religions, why should one lonely Jew who was executed by Imperial Rome (which no longer exists) make any significant difference to anyone but other Jews, and maybe a handful of Greeks and a few Latin scholars?

Um... what? Do you really not know this? It's because he's the Son of God, and his life is the most important event to happen in human history. He has provided a way for every person to be reunited with God. That's what Christians say. Whether or not you know about Jesus is often said to be what determines where you go for eternity after you die. That's pretty important, wouldn't you say?

You can label me a wombat, but you'd have to provide a good basis for that first. What is this "just for arguing" classification system are we using here?

Evidence, please?


Evidence, Please?


Evidence, Please?


Only if it's true.