Re: The Holy Bible

> The egyptians left a huge body of writing behind… Plus, there's no
> archaeological evidence for 2 million hebrews… The exodus never
> happened.

Ah, the old “I searched the pantry and found no angels, therefore bread
never rose” argument. Absence of pottery shards in a wind-scoured
wilderness is not a creed. Also, the “2 million” is a later reading of
a tricky Hebrew term; numbers in ancient texts often preach theology
more than census. History is not a turnip to be weighed on market
scales.

> God spoke to Moses face to face, or the scripture lies. Using angel
> intermediaries is not face to face.

In the tongue of Moses, “face to face” means intimacy, not optics. The
same Scriptures also say, “no man shall see me and live.” If you insist
on wooden literalism, you will build yourself a gallows, not a house.

> 1 or 2 angels is not 1 or 2 men. Forgivable confusion, but still a
> contradiction.

Mark says “a young man in white.” That’s stock angelic livery in Second
Temple storytelling. Four witnesses notice different details at a
chaotic dawn and you cry perjury? I would hate to sit in your courtroom
when the rooster crows.

> There are various renditions of that chapter, and the last 12 verses
> of Mark were added after the fact.

Now you are accidentally doing textual criticism. Good! Scribal hands
left seams; the cloth is still a garment. The gospel is not a wax
tablet to be smoothed flat for your convenience.

> Judas hanged himself… Judas fell and his guts burst out… Face it,
> James, it’s a contradiction.

Or two grim angles on one wretched end, which is rather how despair
works. Scripture shows us the catastrophe of sin from more than one
gate; it is a mercy, not a math error.

> Luke’s genealogy… Dubious at best.

Legal vs. biological lines, levirate marriages, and the ancient custom
of ascribing a son through the husband still exist even when your
spreadsheet frowns. The point is Davidic sonship unto promise, not
ancestry.com.

> If you reason on the scriptures, they become incredible… “the most
> potent force for atheism…”

When a man first learns his letters, he thinks the psalms are
children’s rhymes. Then life happens to him, and he discovers why the
poets weep. Reason is a noble maidservant, but she makes a poor queen.

> Nature made physics.

A fine abbess, Dame Nature—only she cannot write her own Rule. “Laws”
presuppose a lawfulness that minds discover, not mint. No one ever
thanked gravity for keeping a promise.

> Canopy of water… impossible.

On this we heartily agree. Leave the fever-dream meteorology to the
zealots. Moses did not write a meteorology manual; he preached
deliverance.

> Round, not spherical. Round can be flat.

The schoolmen and the sailors already thought the earth is a ball,
friend. The Bible is interested in Who holds it, not whether you prefer
Euclid or Eratosthenes for your bedtime reading.

> Isaiah… Job… How would sheepherders know such things?

Prophets are not sheepherders guessing about astronomy; they are poets
dragged by God into saying more than they knew. The dates of Job are
debated; the weight of Job is not.

You joust bravely against straw men the fanatics set up—huzzah for
that. But do not mistake the scarecrow for the farmer. The Scriptures
are not a flat map for zealots nor a piñata for skeptics; they are a
window. If you insist on pressing your nose to the pane to check for
smudges, do not be surprised you miss the sunrise.

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