Quake reveals day of Jesus' crucifixion, researchers believe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Modern archaeology has helped us realize that the Bible is historically accurate even in the smallest of details. There have been thousands of archaeological discoveries in the past century that support every book of the Bible. Here are just a few examples:

Critics used to believe … the Bible was wrong because they felt that King David was a legendary, mythical character. They pointed to the fact that there was no archaeological evidence that King David was an actual historical figure.

But then … in 1994, archaeologists discovered an ancient stone slab in northern Galilee that was inscribed with the references to King David and the "House of David."

Critics used to believe … the Bible was wrong because there was no evidence (outside of the Bible) that a group of people called the Hittites ever existed. The Hittite civilization is mentioned approximately 40 times in the Old Testament, thus skeptics were convinced that this proved the Bible is a mythical creation of ancient Hebrew writers.

But then … in 1906, a German archaeologist named Hugo Winckler was excavating in Boghaz-Koi, Turkey, and discovered the capital city of the ancient Hittite empire, the entire Hittite library and 10,000 clay tablets documenting the Hittite history. Scholars translated these writings and discovered that everything the Bible said about the Hittite empire was true.

Critics used to believe … that a king named Belshazzar never really existed, thus calling into question the historicity of the book of Daniel, which mentions this Babylonian king.

But then … in 1854, Henry Rawlinson discovered an inscription in Iraq that named Belshazzar as the oldest son and co-regent of King Nebonidus, who would often leave Belshazzar in charge of Babylon while he traveled. This discovery also helped to clarify Daniel 5:29, which states that Daniel was elevated to the “third highest ruler in the kingdom.”

Critics used to believe … the book of Acts was not historically accurate. A man named Sir William Ramsay, who is well known to be one of the greatest historical scholars and archaeologists in history, decided to try to disprove the Bible as the inspired Word of God by showing that the book of Acts was not historically accurate.

But the … after 30 years of archaeological research in the Middle East, Ramsay came to the conclusion that “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy … this author should be placed along with the very greatest historians.” He later wrote a book on the trustworthiness of the Bible based on his discoveries and converted to Christianity. Sir Ramsay found no historical or geographical mistakes in the book of Acts. This is amazing when we realize that in the book of Acts, Luke mentions 32 countries, 54 cities, nine Mediterranean islands and 95 people and he did not get one wrong. Compare that with the Encyclopedia Britannica. The first year the Encyclopedia Britannica was published it contained so many mistakes regarding places in the United States that it had to be recalled.

In other words, not only does archaeology confirm that the Bible is historically accurate, but professional archaeologists actually use the Bible as a guide in their work.

The great Jewish archaeologist Nelson Glueck, who is known to be one of the top three archaeologists in history, has stated the following: "No archaeological discovery has ever contradicted a single, properly understood Biblical statement."

https://www.thedestinlog.com/story/lifestyle/faith/2017/06/15/have-you-wondered-is-bible-historically-accurate/985681007/

[Anonymous]

In 1846—before archaeology even existed as a field—an Assyrian obelisk was discovered in what is today northern Iraq. It referred to Jehu, a ninth-century BC Hebrew king. For the first time, an archaeological find corroborated what was in the Bible, and Victorian society was electrified. But this was only the first in a torrent of similar discoveries that challenged secular claims that the Bible is a collection of made-up myths and folktales.

This trend of archaeology corroborating Biblical accounts continued so consistently that in 1959 Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Since then, the evidence has kept coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

The Bible doesn't say earth is less than 10,000 years old.

It does, however, say first came water, then animals, then humans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

The Bible doesn't say earth is less than 10,000 years old.

It does, however, say first came water, then animals, then humans.

How old did Morris think the Earth was?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

This trend of archaeology corroborating Biblical accounts continued so consistently that in 1959 Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Since then, the evidence has kept coming.

Really, anyone can comment on anything. At least this poster provided information about the education and professional qualifications of the commenter.

The people posting here don’t list their degrees, they don’t tell us their jobs, they don’t tell us the number of books they have written.

Someone called themselves “doctor anon dcum poster” and completely lied, and that’s considered bright and valuable debate, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fascinating!

How does this fit in with the knowledge that Christian religious holidays were set to coincide with already existing Pagan holidays?

e.g., Christmas is set right after the winter solstice, the Yuletide festival, when days were just starting to get longer again, and Easter, whose date changes yearly, is the 1st Sunday, after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox.

Also, it's interesting that science is being used as a method to verify the Crucifixion. Faith, not science, is the basis of religion.

Faith is required to believe in the resurrection, which defies science.

The Crucifixion was an actual event recorded in history. Faith is the basis of a relationship with God and beliefs that are religious, but that doesn’t mean science can’t back up historical events.

The practice of crucifixion is well documented, but the particular crucifixion of the supposed King of the Jews was only written about in the Bible, many years after it supposedly happened.

Reporting on Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in A.D. 64, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote:

Nero fastened the guilt ... on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of ... Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome.... Tacitus, Annals 15.44, cited in Strobel, The Case for Christ, 82.

Tacitus reports Christians derived their name from a historical person called Christus (from the Latin), or Christ. He is said to have "suffered the extreme penalty," obviously alluding to the Roman method of execution known as crucifixion. This is said to have occurred during the reign of Tiberius and by the sentence of Pontius Pilatus. This confirms much of what the Gospels tell us about the death of Jesus.

Another important source of evidence about Jesus and early Christianity can be found in the letters of Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan. Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. In one of his letters, dated around A.D. 112, he asks Trajan's advice about the appropriate way to conduct legal proceedings against those accused of being Christians. Pliny says that he needed to consult the emperor about this issue because a great multitude of every age, class, and sex stood accused of Christianity.

At one point in his letter, Pliny relates some of the information he has learned about these Christians:

They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food – but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.

Perhaps the most remarkable reference to Jesus outside the Bible can be found in the writings of Josephus, a first century Jewish historian. On two occasions, in his Jewish Antiquities, he mentions Jesus. The second, less revealing, reference describes the condemnation of one "James" by the Jewish Sanhedrin. This James, says Josephus, was "the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ." F.F. Bruce points out how this agrees with Paul's description of James in Galatians 1:19 as "the Lord's brother.” And Edwin Yamauchi informs us that "few scholars have questioned" that Josephus actually penned this passage.

As interesting as this brief reference is, there is an earlier one, which is truly astonishing. Called the "Testimonium Flavianum," the relevant portion declares:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he ... wrought surprising feats.... He was the Christ. When Pilate ...condemned him to be crucified, those who had . . . come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared ... restored to life.... And the tribe of Christians ... has ... not disappeared.

There are only a few clear references to Jesus in the Babylonian Talmud, a collection of Jewish rabbinical writings compiled between approximately A.D. 70-500. Given this time frame, it is naturally supposed that earlier references to Jesus are more likely to be historically reliable than later ones. In the case of the Talmud, the earliest period of compilation occurred between A.D. 70-200. The most significant reference to Jesus from this period states:

On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald ... cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy."

Lucian of Samosata was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his works, he wrote of the early Christians as follows:

“The Christians ... worship a man to this day – the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.... [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.”

Josephus and Lucian indicate that Jesus was regarded as wise. Pliny, the Talmud, and Lucian imply He was a powerful and revered teacher. Both Josephus and the Talmud indicate He performed miraculous feats. Tacitus, Josephus, the Talmud, and Lucian all mention that He was crucified. Tacitus and Josephus say this occurred under Pontius Pilate. And the Talmud declares it happened on the eve of Passover. There are possible references to the Christian belief in Jesus' resurrection in both Tacitus and Josephus. Josephus records that Jesus' followers believed He was the Christ, or Messiah. Both Pliny and Lucian indicate that Christians worshipped Jesus as God.

The Talmud does not reference Jesus. It references several, separate individuals named Yeshu, which was a very common name. These references refer to Yeshu decades before the birth/death of Jesus. One of these Yeshu was a sorcerer who practiced black magic, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

This trend of archaeology corroborating Biblical accounts continued so consistently that in 1959 Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Since then, the evidence has kept coming.

Really, anyone can comment on anything. At least this poster provided information about the education and professional qualifications of the commenter.

The people posting here don’t list their degrees, they don’t tell us their jobs, they don’t tell us the number of books they have written.

Someone called themselves “doctor anon dcum poster” and completely lied, and that’s considered bright and valuable debate, though.

Seems like the hydraulic engineer should have stuck with engineering.

Dude thinks the earth is <10,000 years old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

This trend of archaeology corroborating Biblical accounts continued so consistently that in 1959 Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Since then, the evidence has kept coming.

Really, anyone can comment on anything. At least this poster provided information about the education and professional qualifications of the commenter.

The people posting here don’t list their degrees, they don’t tell us their jobs, they don’t tell us the number of books they have written.

Someone called themselves “doctor anon dcum poster” and completely lied, and that’s considered bright and valuable debate, though.

Seems like the hydraulic engineer should have stuck with engineering.

Dude thinks the earth is <10,000 years old.

A lengthy, peer-reviewed paper in Nature Scientific Reports described the cataclysmic destruction of a Middle Bronze Age city north of the Dead Sea and represented years of research and technical analysis by 21 scientists, who likely never expected to author a paper in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals that mentioned the destruction of the Biblical city of Sodom. But in the end, the parallels proved impossible to ignore.

For starters, the archaeologist who excavated the site had been guided there by what the Bible said about Sodom. Dr. Steven Collins knew if the place existed, this site—today called Tall el-Hammam—must be it. In 2006 he began excavating. When he and his team got down to about 1650 BC—when Sodom was believed destroyed—they uncovered a five-foot layer of soot. Randomly scattered throughout this vast "destruction matrix" were bits of melted brick, burned fragments of human bones and other baffling detritus. No volcanic eruption—or fire or earthquake—could have produced this.

The day they found it, Collins discovered the shard of a jar. A seasoned ceramic typologist, he tagged it instantly as from about 1700 B.C. But one side of it had a strange glassy green glaze. The technology to intentionally produce anything like that would not exist for another 24 centuries. What could it be? A lab in New Mexico concluded that the pottery had been melted by super-intense heat lasting a very short period of time. What would do that?

What Dr. Collins came to believe—and what the recent Nature article corroborated in extraordinary detail—is that what happened was a "cosmic airburst/impact event" very similar to what happened in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. That's when an asteroid of about 180 feet in diameter entered the Earth's atmosphere at 34,000 mph, and exploded a few miles above that largely uninhabited region. The equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs, the 1908 blast flattened 80 million trees, and so disturbed the upper atmosphere that for three days people in London could read newspapers at midnight. The Nature article says the Tall el-Hammam explosion was likely even more powerful.

The destruction it wrought is hard to fathom. The most powerful hurricanes produce winds approaching 200 mph, but this explosion may have generated winds of 700 mph. Walls 15 feet thick were utterly obliterated. The heat was such that nearly all of the thousands of inhabitants were vaporized. In fact, Nature tells us that the temperature at the center of the Tunguska explosion was 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit; the Tall el-Hammam explosion was perhaps even hotter. Whatever charred bone fragments survived—along with melted pottery, plaster, and roofing tiles—indicate that for 25 seconds the temperature was roughly 3,500 degrees, hot enough to melt stainless steel and titanium.

The only events comparable to what happened at Tall el-Hammam are the atomic bomb tests in the New Mexico desert in 1945, which melted the sands into a glaze so similar to what Collins found on the Bronze Age pottery that when he first showed the fragment to the lab scientist she assumed it was from the Los Alamos testing site.

The Nature article concludes explicitly that what happened in 1700 BC bears inescapable parallels to what the Bible says about Sodom. And indeed, they are startling: "(i) stones fell from the sky; (ii) fire came down from the sky; (iii) thick smoke rose from the fires; (iv) a major city was devastated; (v) city inhabitants were killed; and (vi) area crops were destroyed." It even says that what happened "may have generated an oral tradition that...became the source of the written story of biblical Sodom in Genesis." That a prestigious journal of science would admit these things should at least make skeptics sit up and take notice. Few people—whether religious believers or skeptical scientists—ever dreamt such a thing was possible.

https://www.newsweek.com/archaeology-proving-bible-opinion-1634339?amp=1


https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2018/12/04/new-science-suggests-biblical-city-of-sodom-was-smote-by-an-exploding-meteor/amp/

https://scitechdaily.com/sodom-and-gomorrah-evidence-that-a-cosmic-impact-destroyed-a-biblical-city-in-the-jordan-valley/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

This trend of archaeology corroborating Biblical accounts continued so consistently that in 1959 Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Since then, the evidence has kept coming.

Really, anyone can comment on anything. At least this poster provided information about the education and professional qualifications of the commenter.

The people posting here don’t list their degrees, they don’t tell us their jobs, they don’t tell us the number of books they have written.

Someone called themselves “doctor anon dcum poster” and completely lied, and that’s considered bright and valuable debate, though.

Seems like the hydraulic engineer should have stuck with engineering.

Dude thinks the earth is <10,000 years old.

A lengthy, peer-reviewed paper in Nature Scientific Reports described the cataclysmic destruction of a Middle Bronze Age city north of the Dead Sea and represented years of research and technical analysis by 21 scientists, who likely never expected to author a paper in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals that mentioned the destruction of the Biblical city of Sodom. But in the end, the parallels proved impossible to ignore.

For starters, the archaeologist who excavated the site had been guided there by what the Bible said about Sodom. Dr. Steven Collins knew if the place existed, this site—today called Tall el-Hammam—must be it. In 2006 he began excavating. When he and his team got down to about 1650 BC—when Sodom was believed destroyed—they uncovered a five-foot layer of soot. Randomly scattered throughout this vast "destruction matrix" were bits of melted brick, burned fragments of human bones and other baffling detritus. No volcanic eruption—or fire or earthquake—could have produced this.

The day they found it, Collins discovered the shard of a jar. A seasoned ceramic typologist, he tagged it instantly as from about 1700 B.C. But one side of it had a strange glassy green glaze. The technology to intentionally produce anything like that would not exist for another 24 centuries. What could it be? A lab in New Mexico concluded that the pottery had been melted by super-intense heat lasting a very short period of time. What would do that?

What Dr. Collins came to believe—and what the recent Nature article corroborated in extraordinary detail—is that what happened was a "cosmic airburst/impact event" very similar to what happened in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. That's when an asteroid of about 180 feet in diameter entered the Earth's atmosphere at 34,000 mph, and exploded a few miles above that largely uninhabited region. The equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs, the 1908 blast flattened 80 million trees, and so disturbed the upper atmosphere that for three days people in London could read newspapers at midnight. The Nature article says the Tall el-Hammam explosion was likely even more powerful.

The destruction it wrought is hard to fathom. The most powerful hurricanes produce winds approaching 200 mph, but this explosion may have generated winds of 700 mph. Walls 15 feet thick were utterly obliterated. The heat was such that nearly all of the thousands of inhabitants were vaporized. In fact, Nature tells us that the temperature at the center of the Tunguska explosion was 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit; the Tall el-Hammam explosion was perhaps even hotter. Whatever charred bone fragments survived—along with melted pottery, plaster, and roofing tiles—indicate that for 25 seconds the temperature was roughly 3,500 degrees, hot enough to melt stainless steel and titanium.

The only events comparable to what happened at Tall el-Hammam are the atomic bomb tests in the New Mexico desert in 1945, which melted the sands into a glaze so similar to what Collins found on the Bronze Age pottery that when he first showed the fragment to the lab scientist she assumed it was from the Los Alamos testing site.

The Nature article concludes explicitly that what happened in 1700 BC bears inescapable parallels to what the Bible says about Sodom. And indeed, they are startling: "(i) stones fell from the sky; (ii) fire came down from the sky; (iii) thick smoke rose from the fires; (iv) a major city was devastated; (v) city inhabitants were killed; and (vi) area crops were destroyed." It even says that what happened "may have generated an oral tradition that...became the source of the written story of biblical Sodom in Genesis." That a prestigious journal of science would admit these things should at least make skeptics sit up and take notice. Few people—whether religious believers or skeptical scientists—ever dreamt such a thing was possible.

https://www.newsweek.com/archaeology-proving-bible-opinion-1634339?amp=1


https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2018/12/04/new-science-suggests-biblical-city-of-sodom-was-smote-by-an-exploding-meteor/amp/

https://scitechdaily.com/sodom-and-gomorrah-evidence-that-a-cosmic-impact-destroyed-a-biblical-city-in-the-jordan-valley/

To which I say, Interesting, but so what? It doesn't prove, or attempt to prove, anything supernatural that is in the Bible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

This trend of archaeology corroborating Biblical accounts continued so consistently that in 1959 Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Since then, the evidence has kept coming.

Really, anyone can comment on anything. At least this poster provided information about the education and professional qualifications of the commenter.

The people posting here don’t list their degrees, they don’t tell us their jobs, they don’t tell us the number of books they have written.

Someone called themselves “doctor anon dcum poster” and completely lied, and that’s considered bright and valuable debate, though.

Seems like the hydraulic engineer should have stuck with engineering.

Dude thinks the earth is <10,000 years old.

A lengthy, peer-reviewed paper in Nature Scientific Reports described the cataclysmic destruction of a Middle Bronze Age city north of the Dead Sea and represented years of research and technical analysis by 21 scientists, who likely never expected to author a paper in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals that mentioned the destruction of the Biblical city of Sodom. But in the end, the parallels proved impossible to ignore.

For starters, the archaeologist who excavated the site had been guided there by what the Bible said about Sodom. Dr. Steven Collins knew if the place existed, this site—today called Tall el-Hammam—must be it. In 2006 he began excavating. When he and his team got down to about 1650 BC—when Sodom was believed destroyed—they uncovered a five-foot layer of soot. Randomly scattered throughout this vast "destruction matrix" were bits of melted brick, burned fragments of human bones and other baffling detritus. No volcanic eruption—or fire or earthquake—could have produced this.

The day they found it, Collins discovered the shard of a jar. A seasoned ceramic typologist, he tagged it instantly as from about 1700 B.C. But one side of it had a strange glassy green glaze. The technology to intentionally produce anything like that would not exist for another 24 centuries. What could it be? A lab in New Mexico concluded that the pottery had been melted by super-intense heat lasting a very short period of time. What would do that?

What Dr. Collins came to believe—and what the recent Nature article corroborated in extraordinary detail—is that what happened was a "cosmic airburst/impact event" very similar to what happened in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. That's when an asteroid of about 180 feet in diameter entered the Earth's atmosphere at 34,000 mph, and exploded a few miles above that largely uninhabited region. The equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs, the 1908 blast flattened 80 million trees, and so disturbed the upper atmosphere that for three days people in London could read newspapers at midnight. The Nature article says the Tall el-Hammam explosion was likely even more powerful.

The destruction it wrought is hard to fathom. The most powerful hurricanes produce winds approaching 200 mph, but this explosion may have generated winds of 700 mph. Walls 15 feet thick were utterly obliterated. The heat was such that nearly all of the thousands of inhabitants were vaporized. In fact, Nature tells us that the temperature at the center of the Tunguska explosion was 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit; the Tall el-Hammam explosion was perhaps even hotter. Whatever charred bone fragments survived—along with melted pottery, plaster, and roofing tiles—indicate that for 25 seconds the temperature was roughly 3,500 degrees, hot enough to melt stainless steel and titanium.

The only events comparable to what happened at Tall el-Hammam are the atomic bomb tests in the New Mexico desert in 1945, which melted the sands into a glaze so similar to what Collins found on the Bronze Age pottery that when he first showed the fragment to the lab scientist she assumed it was from the Los Alamos testing site.

The Nature article concludes explicitly that what happened in 1700 BC bears inescapable parallels to what the Bible says about Sodom. And indeed, they are startling: "(i) stones fell from the sky; (ii) fire came down from the sky; (iii) thick smoke rose from the fires; (iv) a major city was devastated; (v) city inhabitants were killed; and (vi) area crops were destroyed." It even says that what happened "may have generated an oral tradition that...became the source of the written story of biblical Sodom in Genesis." That a prestigious journal of science would admit these things should at least make skeptics sit up and take notice. Few people—whether religious believers or skeptical scientists—ever dreamt such a thing was possible.

https://www.newsweek.com/archaeology-proving-bible-opinion-1634339?amp=1


https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2018/12/04/new-science-suggests-biblical-city-of-sodom-was-smote-by-an-exploding-meteor/amp/

https://scitechdaily.com/sodom-and-gomorrah-evidence-that-a-cosmic-impact-destroyed-a-biblical-city-in-the-jordan-valley/

To which I say, Interesting, but so what? It doesn't prove, or attempt to prove, anything supernatural that is in the Bible.

And doesn’t actually “prove” anything non-supernatural either.

Everyone likes a good story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

This trend of archaeology corroborating Biblical accounts continued so consistently that in 1959 Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Since then, the evidence has kept coming.

Really, anyone can comment on anything. At least this poster provided information about the education and professional qualifications of the commenter.

The people posting here don’t list their degrees, they don’t tell us their jobs, they don’t tell us the number of books they have written.

Someone called themselves “doctor anon dcum poster” and completely lied, and that’s considered bright and valuable debate, though.

Seems like the hydraulic engineer should have stuck with engineering.

Dude thinks the earth is <10,000 years old.

A lengthy, peer-reviewed paper in Nature Scientific Reports described the cataclysmic destruction of a Middle Bronze Age city north of the Dead Sea and represented years of research and technical analysis by 21 scientists, who likely never expected to author a paper in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals that mentioned the destruction of the Biblical city of Sodom. But in the end, the parallels proved impossible to ignore.

For starters, the archaeologist who excavated the site had been guided there by what the Bible said about Sodom. Dr. Steven Collins knew if the place existed, this site—today called Tall el-Hammam—must be it. In 2006 he began excavating. When he and his team got down to about 1650 BC—when Sodom was believed destroyed—they uncovered a five-foot layer of soot. Randomly scattered throughout this vast "destruction matrix" were bits of melted brick, burned fragments of human bones and other baffling detritus. No volcanic eruption—or fire or earthquake—could have produced this.

The day they found it, Collins discovered the shard of a jar. A seasoned ceramic typologist, he tagged it instantly as from about 1700 B.C. But one side of it had a strange glassy green glaze. The technology to intentionally produce anything like that would not exist for another 24 centuries. What could it be? A lab in New Mexico concluded that the pottery had been melted by super-intense heat lasting a very short period of time. What would do that?

What Dr. Collins came to believe—and what the recent Nature article corroborated in extraordinary detail—is that what happened was a "cosmic airburst/impact event" very similar to what happened in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. That's when an asteroid of about 180 feet in diameter entered the Earth's atmosphere at 34,000 mph, and exploded a few miles above that largely uninhabited region. The equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs, the 1908 blast flattened 80 million trees, and so disturbed the upper atmosphere that for three days people in London could read newspapers at midnight. The Nature article says the Tall el-Hammam explosion was likely even more powerful.

The destruction it wrought is hard to fathom. The most powerful hurricanes produce winds approaching 200 mph, but this explosion may have generated winds of 700 mph. Walls 15 feet thick were utterly obliterated. The heat was such that nearly all of the thousands of inhabitants were vaporized. In fact, Nature tells us that the temperature at the center of the Tunguska explosion was 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit; the Tall el-Hammam explosion was perhaps even hotter. Whatever charred bone fragments survived—along with melted pottery, plaster, and roofing tiles—indicate that for 25 seconds the temperature was roughly 3,500 degrees, hot enough to melt stainless steel and titanium.

The only events comparable to what happened at Tall el-Hammam are the atomic bomb tests in the New Mexico desert in 1945, which melted the sands into a glaze so similar to what Collins found on the Bronze Age pottery that when he first showed the fragment to the lab scientist she assumed it was from the Los Alamos testing site.

The Nature article concludes explicitly that what happened in 1700 BC bears inescapable parallels to what the Bible says about Sodom. And indeed, they are startling: "(i) stones fell from the sky; (ii) fire came down from the sky; (iii) thick smoke rose from the fires; (iv) a major city was devastated; (v) city inhabitants were killed; and (vi) area crops were destroyed." It even says that what happened "may have generated an oral tradition that...became the source of the written story of biblical Sodom in Genesis." That a prestigious journal of science would admit these things should at least make skeptics sit up and take notice. Few people—whether religious believers or skeptical scientists—ever dreamt such a thing was possible.

https://www.newsweek.com/archaeology-proving-bible-opinion-1634339?amp=1


https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2018/12/04/new-science-suggests-biblical-city-of-sodom-was-smote-by-an-exploding-meteor/amp/

https://scitechdaily.com/sodom-and-gomorrah-evidence-that-a-cosmic-impact-destroyed-a-biblical-city-in-the-jordan-valley/

To which I say, Interesting, but so what? It doesn't prove, or attempt to prove, anything supernatural that is in the Bible.

“A lengthy, peer-reviewed paper in Nature Scientific Reports described the cataclysmic destruction of a Middle Bronze Age city north of the Dead Sea and represented years of research and technical analysis by 21 scientists, who likely never expected to author a paper in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals that mentioned the destruction of the Biblical city of Sodom. But in the end, the parallels proved impossible to ignore.

For starters, the archaeologist who excavated the site had been guided there by what the Bible said about Sodom. Dr. Steven Collins knew if the place existed, this site—today called Tall el-Hammam—must be it. In 2006 he began excavating. When he and his team got down to about 1650 BC—when Sodom was believed destroyed—they uncovered a five-foot layer of soot. Randomly scattered throughout this vast "destruction matrix" were bits of melted brick, burned fragments of human bones and other baffling detritus. No volcanic eruption—or fire or earthquake—could have produced this.”

So you are just ignoring this, why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

This trend of archaeology corroborating Biblical accounts continued so consistently that in 1959 Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Since then, the evidence has kept coming.

Really, anyone can comment on anything. At least this poster provided information about the education and professional qualifications of the commenter.

The people posting here don’t list their degrees, they don’t tell us their jobs, they don’t tell us the number of books they have written.

Someone called themselves “doctor anon dcum poster” and completely lied, and that’s considered bright and valuable debate, though.

Seems like the hydraulic engineer should have stuck with engineering.

Dude thinks the earth is <10,000 years old.

A lengthy, peer-reviewed paper in Nature Scientific Reports described the cataclysmic destruction of a Middle Bronze Age city north of the Dead Sea and represented years of research and technical analysis by 21 scientists, who likely never expected to author a paper in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals that mentioned the destruction of the Biblical city of Sodom. But in the end, the parallels proved impossible to ignore.

For starters, the archaeologist who excavated the site had been guided there by what the Bible said about Sodom. Dr. Steven Collins knew if the place existed, this site—today called Tall el-Hammam—must be it. In 2006 he began excavating. When he and his team got down to about 1650 BC—when Sodom was believed destroyed—they uncovered a five-foot layer of soot. Randomly scattered throughout this vast "destruction matrix" were bits of melted brick, burned fragments of human bones and other baffling detritus. No volcanic eruption—or fire or earthquake—could have produced this.

The day they found it, Collins discovered the shard of a jar. A seasoned ceramic typologist, he tagged it instantly as from about 1700 B.C. But one side of it had a strange glassy green glaze. The technology to intentionally produce anything like that would not exist for another 24 centuries. What could it be? A lab in New Mexico concluded that the pottery had been melted by super-intense heat lasting a very short period of time. What would do that?

What Dr. Collins came to believe—and what the recent Nature article corroborated in extraordinary detail—is that what happened was a "cosmic airburst/impact event" very similar to what happened in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. That's when an asteroid of about 180 feet in diameter entered the Earth's atmosphere at 34,000 mph, and exploded a few miles above that largely uninhabited region. The equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs, the 1908 blast flattened 80 million trees, and so disturbed the upper atmosphere that for three days people in London could read newspapers at midnight. The Nature article says the Tall el-Hammam explosion was likely even more powerful.

The destruction it wrought is hard to fathom. The most powerful hurricanes produce winds approaching 200 mph, but this explosion may have generated winds of 700 mph. Walls 15 feet thick were utterly obliterated. The heat was such that nearly all of the thousands of inhabitants were vaporized. In fact, Nature tells us that the temperature at the center of the Tunguska explosion was 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit; the Tall el-Hammam explosion was perhaps even hotter. Whatever charred bone fragments survived—along with melted pottery, plaster, and roofing tiles—indicate that for 25 seconds the temperature was roughly 3,500 degrees, hot enough to melt stainless steel and titanium.

The only events comparable to what happened at Tall el-Hammam are the atomic bomb tests in the New Mexico desert in 1945, which melted the sands into a glaze so similar to what Collins found on the Bronze Age pottery that when he first showed the fragment to the lab scientist she assumed it was from the Los Alamos testing site.

The Nature article concludes explicitly that what happened in 1700 BC bears inescapable parallels to what the Bible says about Sodom. And indeed, they are startling: "(i) stones fell from the sky; (ii) fire came down from the sky; (iii) thick smoke rose from the fires; (iv) a major city was devastated; (v) city inhabitants were killed; and (vi) area crops were destroyed." It even says that what happened "may have generated an oral tradition that...became the source of the written story of biblical Sodom in Genesis." That a prestigious journal of science would admit these things should at least make skeptics sit up and take notice. Few people—whether religious believers or skeptical scientists—ever dreamt such a thing was possible.

https://www.newsweek.com/archaeology-proving-bible-opinion-1634339?amp=1


https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2018/12/04/new-science-suggests-biblical-city-of-sodom-was-smote-by-an-exploding-meteor/amp/

https://scitechdaily.com/sodom-and-gomorrah-evidence-that-a-cosmic-impact-destroyed-a-biblical-city-in-the-jordan-valley/

To which I say, Interesting, but so what? It doesn't prove, or attempt to prove, anything supernatural that is in the Bible.

And doesn’t actually “prove” anything non-supernatural either.

Everyone likes a good story.

“A lengthy, peer-reviewed paper in Nature Scientific Reports described the cataclysmic destruction of a Middle Bronze Age city north of the Dead Sea and represented years of research and technical analysis by 21 scientists, who likely never expected to author a paper in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals that mentioned the destruction of the Biblical city of Sodom. But in the end, the parallels proved impossible to ignore.”

Impossible to ignore, except by the dcum anti-theist troll crew. They’ll ignore science that doesn’t agree with their own views.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The terms “religion” and “mythology” refer to two completely different things.

Mythology is traditional stories associated with a particular culture that have been passed down from generation to generation and have profound cultural and/or religious significance to the members of that culture. Myths can sometimes be religious in nature, but they can also be important to other aspects of the culture.

Religion is complicated. The term “religion” generally encompasses some kind of worldview, which usually includes some sort of mythology, but also the attitudes, ritual practices, communal identity, and moral teachings associated with the worldview.

If you have ever been religious, then you probably already know that there is more to a religion than just a bunch of stories; a religion also involves an array of actions, practices, and attitudes.

So the Bible is a collection of Christian myths. Equivalent to the Greek myths we read about today.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

Unlike mythology, the Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Unlike mythology, the Bible is written as history. Luke wrote his Gospel as “an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . . . just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.” Luke claims that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and so wrote “an orderly account . . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (see Luke 1:1-4). Did Luke include miracles in his account? Yes, many of them. But they were miracles verified by eyewitnesses. Two thousand years later, a skeptic might call Luke’s account a “myth,” but the burden of proof rests with the skeptic. The account itself is a carefully investigated historical document.

Unlike mythology, the Bible contains an astounding number of fulfilled prophecies. Myths do not bother with prophecy, but fully one third of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible contains over 1,800 predictions concerning more than 700 separate subjects found in over 8,300 verses. The Old Testament contains more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ alone, many with amazing specificity. Numerous prophecies have already been fulfilled, and they have come to pass precisely as foretold. The mathematical odds of someone making this number of predictions and having every one of them come to pass are light-years beyond the realm of human possibility. These miraculous prophecies could only be accomplished with the supernatural guidance of Him who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Unlike mythology, the Bible has transformed a countless number of lives. Yet many people allow the views of others—who have never seriously studied the Bible—to shape their own opinions. Each of us needs study it for ourselves. Put it to the test. Live by the Bible’s precepts and experience for yourself the dynamic and transforming power of this amazing Book. Apply its teachings on forgiveness and see how it can mend a broken relationship. Apply its principles of stewardship and watch your financial situation improve. Apply its teaching on faith and feel a calming presence in your heart even as you navigate through a difficult trial in your life. The Bible works. There is a reason Christians in various countries around the world risk their lives daily to expose others to the life-giving truth of this remarkable Book.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-mythology.html

Oh dear, what a lot of wasted words. Not the PP, but I am the PP who explained that the word "myth" is used by scholars to indicate any sacred story that is believed to be true. By anyone. You are going in circles if you try to distinguish one religion's sacred stories from another religion's sacred stories based on which ones YOU believe to be true or important. That is not how anthropology works. Every sacred story falls into the same category of sacred story - if anyone believes it to be true, and it is a sacred story to those people, then it is called a "myth." You could call it something else, and probably they should, because that word means "false story" to most people who don't have PhD's in anthropology. But whatever you call it, all those stories are in the same category objectively. You cannot attempt to create a scholarly definition based on your own religious beliefs - it is the definition of bad scholarship.

The Edict of Milan was the Western world’s first known government document to proclaim the freedom of belief. At the time, Christianity probably made up 7 to 10 percent of the population of the Roman Empire. A mere hundred years later, half the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed allegiance to the Christian tradition.

How did Christianity triumph? Christianity was something new on this earth. It wasn’t closed to women. It was so concerned with questions of social welfare (healing the sick, caring for the poor) that it embedded them into its doctrines.

Christian believers go from roughly 1,000 in A.D. 60, to 40,000 in A.D. 150, to 2.5 million in A.D. 300.

There was no Christian secret police forcing pagans to convert: The empire was too large and diffusely governed to make such an effort feasible.

we do not see every religion grow, and I don't believe there has been much to parallel the growth of Christianity.

Everyone likes a good story. Look at how many millions of people have gotten sucked into the Q-anon theories.

Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

Dr. Anon DCUM Poster has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be correct at any point.”

Known among followers and friends as Dr. Henry, Dr. Morris was a hydraulic engineer and taught at several universities before developing his critique of evolution and a history of Earth that spans 4.5 billion years in the 1961 work "The Genesis Flood." The book, written with the theologian John C. Whitcomb, was the first to take a scholarly approach to proving the Old Testament creation story, and it argued that Noah's flood, rather than eons of erosion, sculptured the earth.

"It was a groundbreaking work in that he basically, in this culture, in this day and age, showed that there were scientific answers to be able to defend the Christian faith and uphold the Bible's account," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a group based in Kentucky.

After graduating in 1939, Morris served as a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission (1939–1942).[1] He returned to Rice, teaching civil engineering from 1942 until 1946.

From 1946–1951, he studied at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in hydraulics (1948)and a PhD in hydraulic engineering (1950).

In 1951, he became a professor and chair of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and served as the Acting Dean of Engineering in the fall of 1956. Morris then served as a professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University in 1957.

In 1959, Morris moved to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to serve as Professor of Civil Engineering in the area of hydraulics, and to serve as department chairman for civil engineering. There, Morris co-authored an advanced text on engineering hydraulics with J.M. Wiggert that was used in many universities, and under a decade of leadership the department became one of the country's largest civil engineering departments. While Morris' religious views and writings were controversial among university biology and geology faculty, and in the broader debate, it has been reported that Morris "kept his own counsel on [them], unless... pressed", such that his university engineering colleagues respected Morris as "a good administrator" and his religious views "because they never influenced his [administration]".

Again, people who believe that the earth is <10,000 years old shouldn’t be commenting on archeology.

This trend of archaeology corroborating Biblical accounts continued so consistently that in 1959 Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Since then, the evidence has kept coming.

Really, anyone can comment on anything. At least this poster provided information about the education and professional qualifications of the commenter.

The people posting here don’t list their degrees, they don’t tell us their jobs, they don’t tell us the number of books they have written.

Someone called themselves “doctor anon dcum poster” and completely lied, and that’s considered bright and valuable debate, though.

Someone calling themselves an atheist but who doesn't list their degrees, tell us their job, or tell us the number of books they've written, expects to be taken seriously.

[Anonymous]

News flash: stuff happens in antiquity (floods, thunder, quakes, wars, etc) that gets woven into oral histories.

There are spiderman comics with NYC historical events in them. That doesn't make spiderman real. Or the characters in The Iliad. Or any other old book.