Science In The Bible

[unlearnfaith]

Once again we're back to these crazy fallacies of the Bible. If we are to assume that the Bible was written by God, and God is a perfect being, then he should have known better than to write these errors that have been scientifically proven to be false.

This will only help to prove our case that the Bible is NOT the word of God, and it was written

Comments

[iieeeme]

For 1, the Bible does not say "flat", as you can see, you actually added that in your own parentheses. Just look it up. It does say circle, which shows God knew it was round before man did. And the "four corners" of the earth is using figurative language.

For 2 and probably lots of other areas, if you use a Strong's Concordance or even just another translation of the Bible, you will see that the word fowl can mean bird or insect in the original Hebrew, but it was translated by man and so man translated it incorrectly.

[imlac]

"It does say circle, which shows God knew it was round before man did."

The earth is not a circle. It is a sphere. There is a difference (hint: one is flat).

"And the "four corners" of the earth is using figurative language."

Well isn't that convenient! Any time the bible says something demonstrably false it must be figurative language! I think we found an unbeatable hermeneutic here.

[prufock]

It does say circle, which shows God knew it was round before man did. And the "four corners" of the earth is using figurative language.
"Circle" is just as likely to be figurative as "four corners." There's no reason to think that either was meant to be more literal than the other.
But the idea that the earth is round certainly predates Copernicus. By like a thousand years.

The Bible isn't consistent on the shape of the earth. In Isaiah, the literal word for circle (which would be a flat shape) is used, but also (in another passage) the word for sphere is used.

fowl can mean bird or insect in the original Hebrew
Yet neither birds nor insects have four legs. Insects have six, birds two.

[unlearnfaith]

A circle is flat. Geometry 101.

In case you missed this one

[imlac]

http://community.livejournal.com/challenging_god/745168.html

[mmoa]

Erm, perhaps I'm being slow but, why does the fallibility of the Bible throw out the core of the Christian faith? I had always assumed that as the Christ is the core, any fallibility one would want to find would be with the identity (in any and all meanings of the word) of that particular persona.

[mmoa]

I'm slightly more intrigued by the non-mythological creatures that are said to exist (the birds with four legs, for example. I mean, if that's the basis for an actual dietary law rather than merely a mythological entity for a good story, then I wonder what they were actually getting at on that one.) In fact, those descriptions make absolutely no sense to me, especially considering they are likely to be descriptions of real every-day creatures that the Hebrews couldn't eat. What on earth are they talking about?

Any Orthodox Jews/Biblical Hebrew scholars around?

[imlac]

If nothing else, it does prove we can't take the bible literally. That might not be much of a concession for some, but for others it's a huge issue.

Fundamentalists generally stick to the 'literal' interpretation because (they reason) if the story of the creation isn't literally true, then that infects everything else. If it's not literally true, then there was no fall; no fall, then there's no need for salvation; no need for salvation, Christ died for no reason and then the whole faith is bankrupt.

[torbenite]

Not true,

The prophetic books cannot be taken literally.

Others, like Acts, and Genesis, can be.

[geeky_collector]

This argument is just ridiculous. You can't expect to throw down a whole religion based on the fact that the sacred text is inaccurate. The text is not the basis of the religion, the faith is. The text is just a means of communication, and even if it is claimed that it's the word of God, that doesn't mean the interpretation and translation is infallible.

This line of reasoning is as faulty as fundamentalists who interpret the text as factual truth.

[imlac]

"The text is not the basis of the religion, the faith is."

Says who? Liberal religious perspectives can take this route perhaps, but there are a lot of people who insist that the bible (or the Torah, or the Koran) is the EXACT word of God.

"This line of reasoning is as faulty as fundamentalists who interpret the text as factual truth."

This argument agrees with the fundamentalist when they say 'if the text isn't literally true then the faith is bankrupt.' It just asserts that the antecedent is true, hence the conclusion must be as well, whereas the literalist thinks it's the other way around.

[geeky_collector]

"there are a lot of people who insist that the bible (or the Torah, or the Koran) is the EXACT word of God"

That very well may be, but it doesn't mean the entire religion can be thrown out along with just one article of faith. Interpretation of text is one of the most contended issues in religion, even among practitioners, I don't see how pointing out inaccuracies brings down any religion.

[imlac]

"I don't see how pointing out inaccuracies brings down any religion."

Perhaps that, in and of itself, is an indictment of religion. If there were such obvious inaccuracies in, say, a scientific theory, or a political ideology, or a philosophical frame work then surely this would be at least a major objection to these would it not? The very fact that religion is so immune to the facts seems to make it less relevant.

Science!

[exodus31]

Let's talk about the science of translation, how one takes a language foreign to a group of readers, and attempts to translate it into a common tongue that the translators audience can easily understand and interpret

Re: Science!

[torbenite]

Great comments, The four corners of the earth can also mean west, east, north and south.

Re: Science!

[exodus31]

Thanks, basically, all I'm saying is that the use of language says a bit about the time period in which the text was translated.