There is an appalling lack of historical evidence backing the Bible's veracity

I'm not sure why Cavediver would cite evidence for David's reign (the Tel Dan Stele) and then later say that anything pre-captivity is pure myth. That seems contradictory.Cavediver's intent was to reply to Berreta's claim that there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than for Julius Caesar, and this claim is most certainly not true. We even have a book written by Julius Caesar, his Commentaries.So I think the point that Cavediver was trying to make is that the evidence supporting the historicity of the Bible is much more sparse than is commonly acknowledged.--Percy

Cavediver was somewhat inconsistent in his opening post, but as he later indicated, his primary point is that the lack of supporting evidence for many Biblical accounts is rarely acknowledged or even understood by many conservative Christians.Staying with the House of David example, very few if any Biblical scholars outright reject the existence of a House of David, but there is much less consensus concerning the dating and events of David's reign. Some are convinced by archeological evidence that the great works attributed to David actually took place during a later reign, and that David's must have been a very tiny kingdom (see the historicity section of Wikipedia's article on David).But whatever your personal views about the historicity of David, that non-Biblical evidence for his reign is exceedingly sparse cannot be disputed.--Percy

Hi Bambootiger,I'm going to focus only on the portions of your message that address the historicity of the Bible. Even if it were true that in 70 AD the Jews were safekeeping detailed genealogical records stretching back a thousand years (have any non-Biblical forms of the records of kings survived?), you still don't know the accuracy of those records, and you can't even be sure that genealogies in the Bible are based upon them. That there are two differing genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament does not lend confidence, and it is known that the core of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, was not recorded until after the exile, which was at least several hundred years after David. The rest of the Old Testament is even newer. Which is pretty much what happened. Most interesting of all is that though Matthew and Luke agree from Abraham to David, the older portion of the genealogy, they differ markedly from David to Jesus. Wikipedia has an article on the Genealogy of Jesus that describes a number of discrepancies and explanations for them. All we really know is that whoever wrote the account believed that David's remains lay buried in that tomb. Two points. First, this thread isn't about how emotional some people become when their cherished beliefs are challenged. It's about the historicity of the Bible.Second, Cavediver has now clarified several times that he isn't challenging the existence of personages like David. He's pointing out how unaware most Christians are of the lack of corroborating historical or archaeological evidence for many accounts in the Bible. Again, two points. First, the psalms were not written down until hundreds of years after David. There is no way we can know the accuracy of the attribution of authorship to David by scribes in the 6th century BC.Second, about the number of times David's name appears in the Bible, high frequency of mention cannot give reality to fiction. We have a relatively high level of confidence that King Herod was real because of the historical and archaeological evidence. But outside of the Bible there is only the most sparse and ambiguous evidence for David.And that's what this thread is about. It isn't trying to argue that the Bible is fiction, but that corroborating evidence for many Biblical accounts are either very sparse or do not exist. Those who accept the Bible because they've been told that there is more evidence for Jesus than for Julius Caesar have been sold a line. Most of the accounts in the Bible have to be accepted on faith.--Percy

I can only add parenthetical comments to Rahvin's post (Message 61) and PaulK's post (Message 62).Concerning a random genealogy, from the point of view of attempting to accurately and scientifically reconstruct history I don't think having no reason to doubt its accuracy is a legitimate basis from which to conclude it is possibly or probably true. I think corroboration with other sources or with archaeological evidence is the only way to establish the degree of accuracy.Concerning the topic itself, I think we're beginning to drift. This thread is not trying to show the Bible unreliable. Certainly each participant here has an opinion on this, but it's not the topic of this thread, which is only trying to show that the non-Biblical evidence for the Bible is lacking in most areas. Whether any particular Biblical account is true or not, for most of them the Bible is the only source of information.--Percy

Imagine you're an archaeologist in the distant future and you've just unearthed an ancient library and are reading two brief texts, both set in New York City, which is known to have been a real place. One text describes a giant ape climbing the Empire State Building, the other describes two planes flying into the World Trade Center towers. By your criteria, the fact of New York City's existence lends "credible support" to both texts. Not in this thread, you don't. You're the first person to mention "absolute truth", which is an ideal with no real existence. Evidence is what counts, and that's what this thread is focused upon.--Percy

You may be missing PaulK's point. I think he was only trying to steer you away from the fallacy of appeal to authority and toward a discussion focused on evidence.--Percy

Avoiding the argument from authority does not mean ignoring evidence uncovered by experts. In many cases that's the only evidence available.The fallacious argument from authority: "This guy's an expert, he says I'm right, therefore I'm right."A valid argument from evidence: "The tablets found in the desert by renowned archaeologist Professor Smith and translated by the renowned scholar Professor Jones and dated to the relevant period using multiple methods by the renowned Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory clearly support my position and render your own position untenable."--Percy

Am I completely misinterpreting you, or do you really believe Rahvin invokes the supernatural in his arguments?--Percy

It continues to appear to me that you are misinterpreting Rahvin. He is not invoking miracles. He is rebutting arguments that invoke miracles.You also continue to misunderstand the fallacy of argument from authority, as is made clear here: You've got it exactly backwards. An appeal to authority *is* an appeal to status, not evidence.--Percy

You think that invoking miracles and rebutting miracles are the same thing? You're saying that if you argue that the Loch Ness monster exists and I argue that he doesn't that I am therefore assuming the possibility that he exists. This is both wrong and contradictory.First, it's wrong because accepting the possibility of something as a hypothetical is not the same thing as thinking there's evidence supporting that possibility. For example, I might say that I accept the possibility of miracles but am not aware of any evidence in their favor and so I don't believe any have ever happened.And second, it's contradictory because arguing against something doesn't automatically mean you think it's possible. You could argue that exceeding the speed of light is possible and someone else could argue that it isn't, and the fact that they're arguing it's not possible does not mean they think it is. If they did that would be a very clear contradiction.And third, it's wrong because most people of a scientific bent understand that you can't prove a negative. You can never prove that something doesn't exist, you can only point out that the current evidence does not support its existence at the current time. Hence, most people here accept the possibility of almost anything, and it has nothing to do with whether they're arguing for or against it.Offering miraculous explanations is called invoking miracles. Rebutting such explanations, which means arguing that such miracles are not supported by evidence, is the opposite of invoking miracles.--Percy

I don't have to reread your old posts because you're clearly confused, and you've already revealed your confusion in your Message 118 to PaulK where you make clear you understand that Rahvin is not invoking miracles: Claiming a miracle happened is the same thing as invoking a miracle. PaulK tells you the exact same thing in his Message 121. One of the definitions of invoke is to call upon a higher power, and Rahvin is definitely not claiming a higher power performed a miracle.You go on to say in the same message: Much of this defies unambiguous interpretation and I won't attempt it, but it does appear that you're claiming that evidence of God would somehow also be evidence of miracles. I don't agree, but this is drifting well off the topic. I was only trying to help you understand that Rahvin wasn't invoking miracles, but it appears the problem runs far deeper than that. It isn't Rahvin you misunderstand but language itself.This thread is about the fact that most Christians are not aware of the lack of historical/archaeological evidence for many of the accounts in the Bible. This lack of evidence extends not only to worldly events like marriages, journeys, sermons, prophecies and wars, but to miracles, too.--Percy

I fear we're drifting far off-topic in this thread. Instead of discussing historical evidence for Biblical accounts we're trying to explain rational thinking. I'm going to take the position that this is a hopeless exercise. For example, if Bertot still believes what he believes about axioms after an entire thread trying to help him out of his error then nothing we say here is going to change his mind, and the same would be true of all his other misconceptions. You can't explain how to complete a connect the dot puzzle to someone who continually argues with you about the order of integers.In other words, if Bertot believes what he's presented is historical evidence supporting Biblical accounts beyond the more significant people, places and events, there's nothing we can say that will change his mind. All we can do is explain why it isn't evidence for the larger audience and not allow ourselves to be distracted by the undeniably odd thinking.--Percy

I think you misunderstand what I was saying, as you have misunderstood much else in this thread, such as believing that the fallacy of appeal to authority is an appeal to evidence, or that Rahvin was invoking miracles. I was only noting that when you were unable to follow rational arguments or even language itself the discussion turned to how to properly interpret rational arguments, and that I believed this to be a hopeless exercise.My expectation is that you'll misinterpret this post too, but anyway, this thread is not about how to think or how to assess evidence, and it's especially not about the theory of evolution or the existence of God. My position is that this failure to rationally engage with you should be taken into account by directing responses about the problems with your arguments to the broader audience and not worrying about whether you comprehend them or not.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Since I'm in Percy mode I'm only suggesting, not moderating, but what I was actually pointing out is that when someone demonstrates they can't think or argue rationally, you can't remedy this with rational arguments about how to think or argue. After all, such arguments are of the exact same type that the person has already demonstrated they don't understand. You'll only tie yourself in knots.So what I was trying to suggest was that it would be better to explain Bertot's errors to the broader audience, who might understand them, rather than to Bertot himself, who obviously does not.--Percy

Hi Bertot,I think you misunderstand the underlying premise of this thread. Cavediver opened the thread by quoting Beretta: Cavediver went on to say that statements of this sort are often accompanied by claims like that there's more evidence for Jesus than for Julius Caesar.In other words, the thread isn't about the historical/archeological evidence for the Bible. It's about the mistaken Christian belief that the Bible is well supported by historical/archeological evidence when that is definitely not true. There is not more evidence for Jesus than for Julius Caesar, there is not more evidence for the events at Jericho than for the Prussian War, and there is not more evidence for Noah's Flood than for Alexander's conquest. In its lack of corroborating historical/archeological evidence for most of its accounts the Bible stands in stark contrast to most events, people and places of known history.It is the typical Christian's unawareness of this fact, indeed his mistaken belief that the exact opposite is the case, that this thread is about.The fact that you're deep into the details about obscure inscriptions of ambiguous interpretation with Brian only makes the fact of the lack of historical/archeological support for Biblical accounts more clear.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar and punctuation.