4 Things Americans Can Learn About Faith and Evolution From Great Britain and Canada

I think you are ignoring the obvious. I proved my claim.

As for leprosy, I said it could be other diseases, but I suspect it is leprosy. Just because we are ignorant about it from other sources besides the Bible doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. In fact, since the Bible mentions it, unless the word means other diseases, that is proof that it did exist. I say this because I think you can prove Christianity is true and the Bible is true from a another line of reasoning that I haven’t mentioned here. Once you prove that the Bible is true, all your arguments fall apart. Although, I think they already fall apart from the poor scholarship.

No you didn’t. You failed to provide a single quotation from even a single “liberal scholar” denying the existence of the Hittites, or denying that they existed when the Bible said they did. Not a single one.

Why? There’s no evidence for it, and considerable evidence against it.

But we do have evidence. We have physical evidence for leprosy in other places, but not in the Middle East at this time. The physical evidence for leprosy is very obvious, and it lasts for thousands of years. We have evidence for how and where leprosy emerged in different locations, and when, where, and how it spread. There is abundant evidence for this.

How do you know the Bible mentions it here? What is the evidence that the Hebrew word here is referring to leprosy?

That is complete gibberish. I believe that the Bible is true. I am a Christian. What you are saying makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I am not criticizing the Bible, I am examining your claims about the Bible. I trust the Bible, but I do not trust what you say about the Bible, because what you say about the Bible is verifiable wrong.

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@Jonathan_Burke

@Bill_Smith is referring to the time in Western Civilization before there was any information about the Hittite Empire. The Egyptian texts were still unreadable… and I suppose the cuneiform was unreadable too.

Then they started translating the Assyrian and Babylonian references to the people in Anatolia … and voila…

Hittites! But not the Biblical Hittites. Hittites of Anatolia.

You say you believe the Bible is true, yet you say it has mistakes? That means it if false, at least in parts. If God can’t get the history right, why would you believe him about anything?

If you want to do his homework for him and try to support the claim that “liberal scholars” ridiculed the Bible by claiming the Hittites never existed, please go right ahead. But be aware I am informed on this subject. Just show me your top five quotations from liberal scholars making that claim.

No I don’t say that at all. I am saying you are making the mistakes. You are making mistakes about what the Bible actually says. This is a fundamental issue in Bible literacy, understanding the difference between what you think the Bible says, and what the Bible really says.

I am perfectly sure God gets the history right. I am also very sure that you don’t get the history right.

Do you think the Bible is wrong about the Hittites?

@Jonathan_Burke

I am certainly not agreeing with his interpretation.

I’m telling you the origin of this foolish interpretation.

There was a time … long ago… in a galaxy far away … when we didn’t know the name of the people (their own name, or the name appended to them by others) for those living in Anatolia.

That’s all there is. Then we discovered there was a people called Hittites.

But there is nothing about the Biblical Hittites that identifies them as the Hittites of Anatolia.

Period. You two can argue about all the other twists and turns as much as you like.

P.S.

Yes, @Bill_Smith. Absolutely. The Bible’s Hittites don’t appear to be the Hittites of Anatolia at all.

No I don’t. As I have made very clear repeated, I think you are wrong about what you claim “liberal scholars” said about the Hittites.

I am fully aware of how this interpretation arose.

Petronious to the Audience:

Now hush up … this is where he gets really clever… he says he agrees with what the Bible says about the Hittites. But we still don’t know exactly what he means yet!

Why, it could be anything… most dramatic and exciting…

The Bible certainly has a word that reads “like” the English word Hittites. And perhaps he is going to say that this word is certainly real enough. But that’s not the same as saying the Bible meant the Hittites of Anatolia.

Let’s see how he “mongooses” his way through the next few posts!

In contrast, Bill Smith has left himself wide open. He clearly insists that the Biblical references to the Hittites are references to the people we discovered living in ancient Anatolia. The Bible does not support that interpretation. But Bill doesn’t really grasp this yet.

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Always like to help people with their homework.

You might want to take a look at Hittites and Hethites and learn when a Hittite is not a Hittite.

Bill, the book "5 views on Biblical Inerrency " is a good place to start in understanding how one can take the Bible seriously, and even call it inerrant, yet have different understandings of what it means. Interesting read if you get a chance.
http://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/five_views_on_biblical_inerrancy_a_review

Okay, then do you think there were any errors in the original manuscripts?

Who defines what an error is? If Samson killed 3,000 with the jawbone of an ass, does that mean that he did not kill 2,999 or 3,001? Are we evaluating by modern taxonomy which stipulates that a bat is not a bird and that a grasshopper has six legs, not four? Does the Bible give us a different π? Are some things poetic and others not, or is God actually made of rock?

So…what do you mean by “error”? I hate to make it sound like I’m quibbling, but if believe that Genesis 1 does not refer to 7 literal days, am I ascribing “error” to it?

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It is not in error if it is rounding to 3000, or if we do not know exactly what the Hebrew word is and our best guess is bat which could fall under the Hebrew definition for what we translated as bird, or if we do not have a better idea of the creature that the Hebrew word refers to which we translated as grasshopper. The passage on the circumference lists values that are consistent with the value of pi, probably done by accurately measuring it. (By the way, no one can write pi since he is always off by an infinite number of decimal places.)

When you say that you believe Genesis does not teach 24 hour days, you may have convinced yourself that that is what it says. If you really believe that then you could sincerely say that you believe the Bible and don’t think it has errors. However, I think that the Bible clearly teaches 24 hour days and anyone who thinks otherwise, for varied reasons, is denying the obvious.

No I don’t.

Well, of course there are reasons for thinking that it might not be literal 24-hour periods. Just like there are reasons to believe a lot of other things in the Bible aren’t literal.

I mean, nobody takes all of the Bible literally. We just sometimes disagree on where and how the lines are drawn.

Then again, sometimes things that once appeared obvious no longer do and vice versa. Most people no longer believe the world literally has “corners.” But they used to.

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I think I was unclear with my last statement. What I mean is that the Bible clearly teaches 24 hour days and anyone who thinks otherwise is denying the obvious. There are various reasons for why they refuse to accept the obvious truth. None of their reasons for doing so are good. They should listen to God rather than foolish ideas of men( and ultimately those ideas come from Satan).

Do you believe in the documentary hypothesis?

Why are you suddenly talking about what I believe, instead of reading your evidence for your claims? You already know the answer to that question. While the classical Documentary Hypothesis has been dead for some time, it is well recognized that the Pentateuch is the product of multiple sources and writers, and I have provided some of the evidence for this myself. Before you falsely blame this on “liberal scholars”, I’ll point out that the earliest forms of this model were proposed by medieval rabbis, who were just as fundamentalist as you are, and who believed the text was completely inspired.