Re: The Holy Bible

Hello, Mr. Sins!  The Internetz has become less sinful, and
less entertaining, without your loquacious literary lilts and
ardent AI attestations.  To say nothing of us kuss kriminals
running the looney bin.


Internet Sins wrote:

> > 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.

Bread rose!... just like Christ.  AI says that's why yeasty
bread was served at the Last Supper.


>  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.

The burden of historic evidence is on exodists to corroborate
the scriptures.  After 7 years in the Sinai, an army of
Israeli archaeologists couldn't do it.

You'll probably counter that the whole exodus adventure was
an allegoric device to provide context for The Law... or
something.  Good point.  How, then, do you tell the
allegorical parts from the historic facts?  Should you honor
the allegory and ignore the cold hard details?  How can the
entire OT and NT not be one big ongoing allegory, with your
life's mission resting on whatever you find appealing?

There are contradictions in scripture, and between scripture
and observation.  You are not fazed.  You may as well not
contest that the resurrection was just another metaphor, and
whether it happened or not is irrelevant.

> 
> > 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.

Not that it will matter to you, but there are many verses in
the OT and NT that unmistakeably point to a flat earth
cosmology... immovable foundation, see all kingdoms from high
mountain, so on.  These clearly betray a flat earth,
geocentric cosmology.


> 
> > 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.
> 
> Internet Sins