The same reason Don Quixote attacked windmills?
If that is how a Christian argue, perhps I should change religions.
(or maybe it isn’t how a Christian should argue)
Richard
If we take Scripture seriously, as being authoritative, then our goal must be to understand what it means on its terms, not imposing our views on it. As C. S. Lewis (among others) has pointed out, one very helpful approach is to read what others have thought, especially from significantly different times and cultures. Not that they are more inerrant than we are, but they have different biases and so may help to expose our own. Fundamentalist approaches, whether the unthinkingly dogmatic imposition of a particular theological view such as creation science, source criticism, etc. or the unthinkingly dogmatic imposition of a particular atheological view like the pretensions of militant atheism, do not do justice to the complexity of the rext and the wide scope of God’s message to us.
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it would be very intelligent of you to read the references i have provided above…surely you are not so Darwinian evolutionary stubborn minded that you cannot bring yourself to actually read them? (because if you did, you wouldnt need to ask that question as its answered in the references)
Hi Richard,
im not understanding what you mean with the above? How is it related to the quoted part of my post you have referenced there?
Are you suggesting that you believe that God wont destroy the earth and kill all humanity that remains evil (unforgiven sinners) after the second coming?
I ask that, because if my above conclusion is what you are promoting, then id suggest that there are a couple of problems there:
1. Christ said “as in the days of Noah, people were eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage and a flood came and destroyed them all…so shall it be with the second coming of the son of man”
2. The prophecy in the book of Revelation (written 60 years after christs death on the cross) says "and i saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the former things have passed away. (this is all above the complete erradication of evil from the heaven and the earth…there is no doubt about that theology)
ah…gotcha…so please explain to me this…
prior to the invention (if you will) of Darwins theory of Evolution, what was the general theology on biblical interpretation regarding the age of the earth? Was it not as written? (rhetorical question as the answer was very definately yes).
There is no point trying to argue you way around that, i have already (and can do again) posted a reference from an Islamic scholar from the 1300s AD.
So given that prior to Darwin, the concensus was the earth was about 6000 years old (going by biblical genealogies), then how can you possibly support your above complain without also implicating yourself and all of TEism in that conundrum (ie that one must not input ones own views on it)?
You need to look in the mirror, with Darwins “on the origins of species” right next to your face and then tell yourself you are not inputing your own views on the bible genealogies and Genesis chapter 2 (second creation).
If you were truly honest with yourself, you simply cant ignore that lie there.
Roy, instead of timewasting with vacuous opinion, please provide references that support your claim there.
AS usual, not a single reference in support of your claim. Honestly St Roymond, i have serious doubts that you actually are a reader of the Bible at all…you rarely if ever quote any of it that supports your claims when disagreeing with me on anything. That is seriously questionable mate…you need to really think hard about that habit of yours there as there is no credibility unless you reference from the very book you claim provides you with your knowledge of Christ and Salvation…because as it is, i dont think you actually use it for any of that.
Now to correct you on that statement about Christs parables…we know for a fact that a parable is…well exactly that…a parable!!! A parable never claims times, dates, places, names…its clearly meant to illustrate a deep meaning using a simple memorable story. Please dont timewaste with nonsense…parables have nothing to do with the the historical biblical lineages!
You know what is really interesting in all of the responses to my post…not a single response has even tried to see if the references provided support or reject my conclusions!
You know what that means…you either cant be bothered studying outside of your own narrow minded world view or, you know full well your goose is cooked there The smart TEists here know full well that if we can prove the existence of Eber (Shems Great great grandson) beyond the balance of probabilities, then its absurd to try to continue to promote the belief that Noah didnt exist and that the flood never happened.
The fact remains, because of the Arminian tablets to Amenhotep, we are able to conclusively show that the Israelites were attacking the southern area of Canaan in the 1350-1400 BC period.
BTW if any of you had actually watched the James Cameron documentary, you would also note that they offer an interesting scientific view on the 10 plagues of Egypt…the eruption of a volcano in the Mediteranian around 1500 BC!
If you are looking for biblical references that describe the controversy over what constitutes the canon of scripture, I would challenge you to produce biblical references to the table of contents of the canon.
Instead, rather than insulting Roy, make sure you have the actual facts.
Various biblical canons have developed through debate and agreement on the part of the religious authorities of their respective faiths and denominations. Some books, such as the Jewish–Christian gospels, have been excluded from various canons altogether, but many disputed books are considered to be biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical by many, while some denominations may consider them fully canonical. Differences exist between the Hebrew Bible and Christian biblical canons, although the majority of manuscripts are shared in common.
Different religious groups include different books in their biblical canons, in varying orders, and sometimes divide or combine books. The Jewish Tanakh (sometimes called the Hebrew Bible) contains 24 books divided into three parts: the five books of the Torah (‘teaching’); the eight books of the Nevi’im (‘prophets’); and the eleven books of Ketuvim (‘writings’). It is composed mainly in Biblical Hebrew, with portions in Aramaic. The Septuagint (in Koine Greek), which closely resembles the Hebrew Bible but includes additional texts, is used as the Christian Greek Old Testament, at least in some liturgical contexts. The first part of Christian Bibles is the Old Testament, which contains, at minimum, the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible divided into 39 (Protestant) or 46 (Catholic [including deuterocanonical works]) books that are ordered differently. The second part is the New Testament, almost always containing 27 books: the four canonical gospels, Acts of the Apostles, 21 Epistlesor letters and the Book of Revelation. The Catholic Church and Eastern Christian churches hold that certain deuterocanonical booksand passages are part of the Old Testament canon. The Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Assyrian churches may have differences in their lists of accepted books.
Some Christian groups have other canonical books (open canon) which are considered holy scripture but not part of the Bible.[2]
The rest of the article is worth reading, as well.
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Kendel
we can go into a large number of Museums across the globe and actually see these undisputed artefacts…in answer to that enormous problem with your entire world view there, you wish to lean on the notion that the Bible canon is disputed as your evdience in support of Old Earth theology?
The Christian biblical canon was ratified over a long period of time…its been debated at length by our forefathers many many centuries ago…given these individuals mostly lived at a time far closer to the original source, its pointless trying to say we in modern times have a better understanding of what the writers intended to include in their works. The reality is that the further we get away from the source, the less accurate the message becomes (that is proven fact in academia btw…not just biblical theology).
Anyway, for the sake of addressing timewasting grumbling with some common sense and actual facts here… the following are some of the key moments (if you will) in the compilation of the Bible canon:
Council of Rome 382 AD
Hebrew Bible 2nd Century AD
Council of Florence 1442
Councils of Hippo and Carthage 393-419 AD
Council of Trent 1546 AD
The Council of Trent is the most significant in terms of the final version, obviously.
We can’t simply rewrite the bible canon because the current one doesn’t align with our modern beliefs (and make no mistake, Darwinian Evolutionary influence on Biblical theology is modern…not ancient!)
im suspecting that part of the inferred issue in the above pertains to the apocrypha as part of the canon. For me, the answer is rather simple: I’m not Catholic. If you want to talk about the apocrypha as part of the Bible canon, we had better start another thread about that i think, suffice to say, that has absolutely no bearing on whether or not the genealogies in the Bible and its various historical timelines are authentic…im providing EXTERNAL EVIDENCE that supports the Biblical timeline here…so arguing about the canon is a side issue without any relevance…its rather ridiculous actually as it completely misses the point of the evidence its supposed to be addressing!
BTW Kendel, bringing up the Jewish Tanakh…that has nothing to do with the Christian bible canon…jews did not follow Christianity. You are playing games there with that kind of rubbish. The fact remains, either you are Christian and follow the bible (as decided in the Counil of Trent) or you are not Christian and dont follow the Christian Bible. So which are you there? (and please dont get angry at me for demanding you take a side there…this is your fault for aligning yourself with a ridiculously stupid argument …attempting to cry foul of the accepted Christian church bible canon…for me, that is throwing the writings of the God we supposedly believe in under the bus! )
For me the bible canon as we have is the inspired word of God. I know that what we have is authentic because i can check out modern bibles alongside some very significant manuscripts (Sinaticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus), the dead sea scrolls, and many many fragmented pieces of ancient bible writings…of these ancient texts by far, and i really mean “by far”, the vast majority of those ancient texts that we have align very closely with modern biblical translations in use today. there are all sorts of absurd claims about errors, differences stuff like that. The truth of the matter is, its a fraction of the total where there are significant differences (not even 2%) and of these, none of them make any difference to doctrine.
Any claim to the contrary is ignorant of the actual facts. If you dont wish to believe me, then id suggest that you start studying people who actually do know…scholars such as Dr Dan Wallace (he is the foremost expert on the topic)
i will bet that few here can bring themselves to read Dan Wallace…because his expertise totally trashes most of the stupid claims on these forums on the topics of textual criticism. i would challenge any of you, if you are truly honest with yourself and with your Christianity, to study Dr Wallace.
Now before any of you misinterpret something i said earlier about “the further we get away from the source the less accuracy we have”…that is not dissagreeing with the scholarly claim that its because of the massive number of different bible translations that we have that we can know we have the accurate source writing. This simply means that somewhere contained within those various writings we do have, is the “original”!
But I’m not very intelligent. I’ve read sufficient about the Tell Amarna letters to know that my simple paraphrase of the synthesis is correct. Warranted. Justified. True. Belief. Knowledge. I have no need to read that which will not contain an antithesis to the synthesis.
We know that there is no trace of the Exodus fantasy in the C14th BCE Canaanite Tell Armana letters. You do not know otherwise. Neither does any pseudo-academic. We have known this for 138 years approximately.
Just cut and paste a single sentence from the Tell Amarna letters that even has a wisp of a rumour of the devastation of Egyptian civilization a century before. Without culturally based chronology of course. As discredited by Santorini in 1628 BCE for example. Nearly two centuries before the C5th BCE fantasy, C15th BCE setting of the Exodus.
As Barth said, the answer is always Jesus. I agree, but, not in the way he meant any more.
Does it say that this is a restoratation?
Richard
From ChatGPT: “Here’s a compact toolbox you can use on BioLogos (pick what fits your lane):”
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omg…so let me get this straight…the Habiru, who are now proven to have lived in Avaris in Egypt at the time of the Israelites slavery, who are then noted in authentic Canaanite writings…pleadings to pharaoh Amenhotep for help in dealing with the Habiru who are ransacking and taking over the very same canaanite cities mentioned in the Bible…these are Southern cities btw which is the same direction that the Bible says the Israelites enterred the promised land…that this is not evidence of the Exodus given all of the other evidence that we have which is outside of the Biblical account?
Your statement that there are no evidences of the Israelite story in the 1400’s BC is not even consistent with the usual argument. The usual argument from YOUR side is that there is no evidence in the 1200’sBC of the Exodus…however, it is now increasingly evident that the earlier date of 1450 is laden with lots and lots of evidence there.
BTW none of the above evidences that i provided in my earlier post have even been refuted here…not a single claim has been debuncted with any references at all from this forum. That tells me that no one here has any credible counter responses to those evidences.
Again, even the evidences for Eber…Noahs great great grandson…no one has any references refuting that claim…especially as i have also provided a 13th century Islamic scholar (Abu al-Fida) reference about Eber and the the tower of Babel…given Islam does not follow Christianity, this scholar certainly did not get that from Luke Chapter 3!
BTW, here is the really dumb thing about the naysayers and their crap about Bible ancient history being largely wrong or a myth…it wasnt until the 19th century that the existence of the Hittites was even considered fact. Prior to that, the anti bible groups claimed that the bible account of the hittites was a fable! Now the very same tablets that support the existence of the Hittites (the Amarna letters) also support the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites! On both accounts the bible is proven to be correct!
Quote it. Why would I watch movie publicity about it? Substantiate every claim you make from historical documents.
1350 BCE is no where near 1446 BCE. So is the Bible chronology wrong?
“the Habiru, who are now proven to have lived in Avaris in Egypt at the time of the Israelites slavery”
The claim that the Habiru (or Apiru) lived in Avaris during the period traditionally associated with Israelite slavery is a fascinating and much-debated intersection of archaeology, linguistics, and biblical interpretation. Here’s a nuanced breakdown of what we know:
Who Were the Habiru?
- The term Habiru (also spelled Apiru, Hapiru) appears in numerous second-millennium BCE texts across Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Canaan.
- They were not an ethnic group per se, but rather a social designation—often referring to marginalized people: laborers, mercenaries, fugitives, or semi-nomadic groups.
- The linguistic similarity between Habiru and Hebrew has led some scholars to propose a connection, though this remains unproven and controversial.
Avaris and the Semitic Presence
- Avaris (modern Tell el-Dab’a) was the capital of the Hyksos, a Semitic-speaking people who ruled parts of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650–1550 BCE).
- Excavations at Avaris have revealed:
- Semitic-style architecture and burial customs
- Evidence of large-scale labor and population growth
- Infant burials evocative of Exodus 1:22
- These findings suggest a Semitic population living under Egyptian rule, possibly in servitude, which aligns broadly with the biblical narrative2.
Habiru in Egyptian Texts
- Egyptian texts from the New Kingdom period (especially 15th–13th centuries BCE) mention Apiru as laborers and sometimes troublemakers in Canaan.
- A tomb painting from c. 1470 BCE shows men at a wine press, labeled as Apiru, possibly indicating their role as manual laborers.
- This overlaps with the proposed timeline of the Exodus (often dated to c. 1450 BCE by early-date proponents), though no direct link to the biblical Israelites is confirmed.
Interpretive Caution
While some scholars and enthusiasts argue that the Habiru were the Israelites in Egypt, most academic consensus holds that:
- The Habiru were a diverse, socially fluid group, not a single ethnic or national identity.
- The archaeological evidence from Avaris supports a Semitic presence, but not a definitive identification with the Israelites.
- The biblical narrative may reflect historical memory of these Semitic laborers, but it is not a direct historical record.
“The Habiru, who are now proven to have lived in Avaris in Egypt at the time of the Israelites slavery, who are then noted in authentic Canaanite writings…pleadings to pharaoh Amenhotep for help in dealing with the Habiru who are ransacking and taking over the very same canaanite cities mentioned in the Bible”
This synthesis—linking the Habiru in Avaris with their disruptive presence in Canaanite cities during the Amarna period—is compelling, evocative, and still debated. Let’s unpack the archaeological and textual threads that give this narrative its resonance:
Habiru in Avaris: Semitic Presence in Egypt
- Excavations at Avaris (Tell el-Dab’a) reveal a thriving Semitic population during the Second Intermediate Period and into the early New Kingdom.
- Material culture—burials, architecture, and pottery—suggests West Semitic origins, possibly including groups later remembered as Habiru or proto-Israelites.
- While no inscription directly names the Habiru in Avaris, their social profile as laborers, outsiders, and semi-nomads fits the population described in Exodus-like narratives.
Amarna Letters: Canaanite Pleas to Pharaoh
- The Amarna Tablets (c. 1350 BCE) are clay diplomatic letters written in Akkadian from Canaanite rulers to Pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhenaten.
- Multiple letters describe cities under siege, disorder, and raiders called Habiru threatening the political order.
- Cities mentioned—such as Jerusalem, Shechem, Gezer, and Lachish—are also named in the biblical conquest narratives.
- These rulers plead for Egyptian military support, painting the Habiru as destabilizing forces, possibly taking over cities or aligning with rebellious factions 2.
Interpretive Possibilities
- Some scholars propose that the Habiru were early Israelites, or at least cultural cousins, emerging from Egypt and settling in Canaan.
- Others argue they were a broader social class—displaced peoples, mercenaries, or landless laborers—whose movements coincided with the biblical timeline but were not ethnically Israelite.
- The convergence of Semitic laborers in Egypt, Habiru raiders in Canaan, and biblical conquest geography is striking, though not conclusive.
Chronological Tensions
- The Amarna letters date to c. 1350 BCE, while some biblical chronologies place the Exodus around 1450 BCE.
- This has led to early-date Exodus proponents suggesting the Habiru in the Amarna letters are remnants or echoes of the Israelite conquest.
- Others see the letters as evidence of ongoing social upheaval, with the Habiru representing a multi-decade migration and infiltration process.
No grandiose Exodus fantasy.
I think the answer to that question is found in Daniel 9
25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One,[f] the ruler, comes
Daniel 9…in fact all of the dreams/prophecies in the book of Daniel, relate to times in the then distant future. Some related to the coming of the Messiah who would die on the cross for the sins of humanity (as illustrated by the Old Testament Sanctuary Day of Atonement Service), and then into the now distant future…the Second Coming.
Because the prophecies in Daniel delve into the times of the end (the Second Coming), we known that the command to rebuild and restore Jerusalem has the same meaning as the prophetic narrative describes in the book of Revelation after the final judgement.
I think the book of Daniel 9 “time of the end statement” above is further explained in Revelation 21
21 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
The Ahmose or Tempest Stele obviously dates from the (95%) 1627-1600 BCE Santorini eruption climatic effects. Putting the medically attested start of his otherwise chaotically undetermined reign within 30 years. All within natural reach.
Where are the Habiru on it? The Hyksos maybe. And he re-conquered Canaan. Did he do that while they were still on leave in Sinai? 150 years before the Bible sez?
Ooh, and, how does this C17/16th BCE artefact relate to the C14th Tell Amarna Letters? With the C15th set Exodus fantasy in between?
From these Bronze Age fragments, mere myth and legend by then (we know far more), the Jews made up the Exodus fantasy over a thousand years later.
And Christianity needs this how? The fantasy invalidates Jesus’ full humanity how?
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Is a C2nd pious (at best) fraud.
Seeing this:
immediately after this:
leads me to wonder why calling someone literarily deficient is unacceptable but calling them deluded is fine.
Either that, or some-one doesn’t know why Don Quixote attacked windmills.
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I do not think that is the same sort of restoration. It is talking about the restoration of Israel, not the restoration of the whole world in terms of sin or goodness.
Daniel is often seen as refering to the Macabean revolution rather than the distant future. The apocalyptic interpretations has been down played.
Not necessarily. it still does not claim that there was ever a time when God was on this earth in the same maneer.
Firsst heaven and first Earth?
That would not suggest a major change since conception.
I thinnk you are allowing you wishful thinking and human view of Eden to tarnish your undrstanding of Scripture.
Sorry.
Richard
But you/ he do not.You claim that His view is somehow childish or insufficient.
Perhaps there is a differnece between wilful and instinctive or uncontrollable urges and understandings.
You would not insult a madman. You would have sypathy. Neither would you expect to change a madman. You would understant that even madness has a place, especially when no one else is directly affected or injured. You might even play along or humour them.
Maybe not the best comparison i could have connjured but there you go. I have never claimed perfection or being 100% right, unlike some here.
Besides, you seem to derive pleasure for trying to catch me out, and who am I to deny pleasure?
Richard
Richard