Why the bible is true

Mykytiuk agrees with most scholars that Christian scribes modified portions of the passage but did not insert it wholesale into the text. In chronicling the burning of Rome in 64 A. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius.

As a Roman historian, Tacitus did not have any Christian biases in his discussion of the persecution of Christians by Nero, says Ehrman. No one thought he was made up. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you.

Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Among other things they found there were vessels containing burned wheat grains. This fire is exactly congruent with the Book of Joshua, says Ben-Tor. If not people from outer space, there are a limited number of options," he says. Not one single pottery fragment suggests as much. Maybe some other Canaanite city did it?

No, they were all in bad shape. Who is left? The ones who have a tradition of having done it. They are guilty until proven otherwise. His partner in the dig, Zuckerman, who died in , proposed that the fire was caused by inhabitants of lower Hazor rebelling against the elite who dwelled in the palaces at the top of the mound. Ben-Tor shrugs off this argument, pointing out that if it were an internal uprising, there is no explanation for why the city remained in ruins for years afterwards and was only rebuilt in the 10th or 9th century B.

Timna: Who ran the copper mine? Five hundred kilometers south of Hazor is Timna, a desert site featuring zero monumental structures, but mainly shafts for mining copper ore, remains of furnaces, and vast piles of rocky rubble. Originally Timna, where excavations began in the s, was attributed to the 10th century B. Rider Haggard. Then the excavators became convinced that Timna had been mined by the ancient Egyptians, and moved its date to the 13th century B.

Now, use of more advanced scientific tools led to a third postulation: that most of the activity at Timna indeed took place in the 10th century B. Okay, that's King Solomon's era, but what about King Solomon? The head of the excavation team at Timna, Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef, has a complex answer. The first excavator at Timna was American archaeologist Nelson Glueck, among the fathers of biblical archaeology. Then in the archaeo-metallurgist Prof. Beno Rothenberg discovered a large Egyptian temple at Timna, which led to the thesis that it was controlled by Egypt.

Nine years ago, along came Ben-Yosef and sent date pits and scraps of cloth for carbon dating, and the picture changed dramatically. The site indeed turned out to be 10th century B. More and more tests showed that the height of copper mining activity at Timna occurred during that period of the United Kingdom, which may or may not have existed in Jerusalem, kilometers to the north. Timna was also contemporary with Qeiyafa. Timna was an important source of copper in the ancient world.

Items of copper that originated in Timna have been found as far afield as Greece. But who mined there? Who controlled it? The story gets more complicated because on the other side of the Arava Valley, across the Jordan River, is another large and sophisticated copper production site called Feynan.

So was there some large, sufficiently powerful kingdom that could manage this enterprise? The problem is that in the 10th century B. No serious archaeologist today thinks that if there was a King Solomon, his rule reached as far south as Timna.

Invisible nomads. Ben-Yosef suspects that very search was born in sin. He postulates that Timna was mined by nomads, who left behind no trace for archaeologists. They were invisible to history. The 10th century B. In short, Ben-Yosef thinks the desert area had been ruled by nomadic Edomite kingdoms that operated huge copper mines but left behind no significant cities. Wouldn't there be evidence even if nomads?

No: "From the perspective of archaeology, nomads are always a simple society, sort of early Bedouin. It is true that this is an anomaly but it has happened in history.

Thus, he cautiously postulates, the solution to certain anomalies between Scripture and science could be the archaeological invisibility of nomads. And perhaps nomadic forces enabled whole kingdoms to flourish, including the Kingdom of Israel. Typically, archaeologists discount nomads, says Ben-Yosef — but they don't realize the nomads could have "played a winning game" because they look only at stone.

Shaka Zulu and the charisma factor. So, 18 years after the original article in Haaretz, who has won the debate? That still depends who you ask. Discoveries since then have lent a little more credence to the biblical tales. Answers that once seemed clear have become more nuanced. But in the case of Jerusalem, the bible and the United Kingdom, identity and politics get involved.

Israel embarked on peace talks with the Palestinians and withdrew from the security zone in Lebanon. Optimism rose. The Israeli public turned rightward.

Tolerance of the critical position weakened. At an event marking 50 years of settlement a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not dwell on the nuances of the archaeological debate. Near here, in Bethlehem, King David was born.

Maybe not. Nir Hasson Nov. Get email notification for articles from Nir Hasson Follow. Open gallery view. The fortress at Qeiyafa only survived some 20 or 30 years, but turns out, based on dating olive pits, to have coexisted with the purported United Kingdom. Credit: Gil Eliyahu. The roughly year old skeletons found in the Philistine graveyard in Ashkelon have clear hallmarks of Aegean customs, not Canaanite. Credit: Philippe Bohstrom. Herod's winter palace in Jericho Credit: Moshe Gilad.

Tell Hatzor, aerial view Credit: Yuva Gesser. The main cause of this cruelty was the Christian doctrine of eternal punishment. Other historical examples of violent and unjust acts supported by biblical teachings include: the Inquisition; the Crusades; the burning of witches; religious wars; pogroms against Jews; persecution of homosexuals; forceful conversions of heathens; slavery; beatings of children; brutal treatment of the mentally ill; suppression of scientists; and whippings, mutilations, and violent executions of persons convicted of crimes.

Those acts were a regular part of the Christian world for centuries. Humanists believe that those claims are both wrong and harmful. As a result of human observation and experience, a fundamental principle of science is that the laws of nature do not change, cannot be violated, and have acted uniformly over time. According to paleontologist Stephen J.

Indeed, without the assumption that the physical world operates according to unchanging natural laws, there would be no use studying the world, conducting experiments, or otherwise learning from experience. In a world not operating under unvarying natural laws, those acts would be useless because knowledge of past events would not provide guidance about what will happen in similar situations in the future.

There would always be the possibility of supernatural forces intervening to alter outcomes from what would otherwise be expected to occur based on past experience.

Overwhelming evidence shows that physical events occur according to immutable natural laws. By claiming that supernatural beings intervene in the world, the Bible opposes the scientific principle of natural laws operating uniformly and unvaryingly.

As a result, the Bible discourages a scientific approach to problems. The Bible has stories about a talking snake Genesis ; a tree bearing fruit which, when eaten, gives knowledge of good and evil Genesis ; ; another tree whose fruit bestows immortality Genesis ; a voice coming from a burning bush Exodus ; a talking donkey Numbers ; rods turning into serpents Exodus ; water changing into blood Exodus ; water coming from a rock Numbers ; a dead man reviving when his corpse touched the bones of a prophet II Kings ; and other people rising from the dead e.

These biblical myths support the belief, which has been held by primitive and illiterate people throughout history, that supernatural beings frequently and arbitrarily intervene in this world. Our experience is that the natural world operates according to principles of regularity — which are never violated. We also know from experience that many people are often mistaken or dishonest.

Because of believing that supernatural beings control the world, people have often misdirected their energies in attempting to solve problems. Instead of studying the world to discover scientific solutions to problems, they performed religious activities in an effort to obtain the assistance of benevolent supernatural beings or thwart the influence of malicious ones.

This misdirection of energies is seen, for instance, in the history of the attempts to prevent the outbreak and spread of diseases in Europe. The historian Andrew White relates that, during many centuries in the Middle Ages, the filthiness of European cities repeatedly caused great plagues that sent multitudes to their graves. Based on biblical teachings, Christian theologians during those centuries thought the plagues were caused by the anger of God or the malevolence of Satan.

It contains numerous instances of God punishing people by means of pestilence e. Those teachings led the early church leaders to promote the idea that demonic activity is the primary cause of disease. For example, St. With the coming of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, there was little change in the Christian attitude toward the causes of disease. As a result of believing in supernatural causes of disease, theologians taught that plagues could be averted or stopped by seeking supernatural assistance.

These included repenting from sin;[20] providing gifts to churches, monasteries, and shrines;[21] participating in religious processions;[22] attending church services which often only increased the spread of disease ;[23] and killing Jews and witches since it was thought Satan used them as his agents in causing illness. White states that despite all the prayers, rituals, and other religious activities performed throughout the centuries, the frequency and severity of plagues did not diminish until scientific hygiene made its appearance.

The superior results of using science instead of religion can be seen in many other fields. Humanists therefore accept the scientific view that this world operates under unvarying natural laws that cannot be suspended by religious rituals or other means. And Humanists esteem highly those who study this world and provide a better understanding of it. Unlike the theologians who focus on influencing supposed supernatural powers, persons using a scientific outlook have enabled great progress to be made in reducing misery and increasing happiness.

Humanists also repudiate the Bible because of its mistaken ideas about the structure of the physical world. In the sixteenth century, Copernicus proposed this theory about the double motion of the earth. To oppose the Copernican doctrine and show that the earth remains stationary while the sun moves around it, the Catholic Church pointed to the tenth chapter of the book of Joshua.

For generations the major branches of Protestantism — Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican — denounced the Copernican doctrine as contrary to scripture. The Bible supports the primitive notion of a flat earth. In the sixth century, a Christian monk named Cosmas wrote a book, titled Topographia Christiana, describing the structure of the physical world.

Basing his views on the Bible, Cosmas said the earth is flat and surrounded by four seas. The prophecy at Revelation was a basis for his conclusion. Because of such Bible teachings, most of the early church fathers thought the earth is flat. These verses reflect the belief of the ancient Hebrews that the earth rests upon pillars.

The Bible promotes the idea that the sky is a solid dome covering the earth. This concept of the sky was common in the ancient Near East and taken for granted by the Bible writers.

Orthodox doctrine also contained the related idea that the firmament has windows — which are opened by angels when God wants to send rain upon the earth. Cosmas believed that when the windows are opened, some of the waters contained above the firmament which are mentioned at Genesis fall to the earth. Bible stories led the Christian world to believe — for centuries — that God sends humankind signs in the heavens.

Christians thought comets warn of divine anger and imminent punishment;[42] stars and meteors portend beneficial events such as the birth of heroes and great men;[43] eclipses signify divine distress in response to events on earth;[44] and storms and other destructive weather result from the anger of God or the malice of Satan.

The Bible has verses mentioning dragons Jeremiah , unicorns Isaiah , and cockatrices Isaiah These passages led many naturalists in the Middle Ages to think such mythical creatures actually exist. White summarizes the historical results of relying on the Bible for answers about the physical world. Being so greatly in error regarding the tangible and observable universe, the Bible cannot be considered a reliable guide for spiritual and ethical issues.

Prophecies in the Bible further strengthen the Humanist view. Because many of the prophecies turned out to be false, they prove the Bible is not inerrant. The Bible itself contains a test for determining whether a prophecy was inspired by God. Applying this test to the Bible leads to one conclusion: the book contains many statements that were not inspired by God. Genesis says the Lord warned Adam and Eve about the fruit contained on the tree of knowledge.

And he said, Here am I. Isaiah prophesies that Damascus would cease to be a city, become a heap of ruins, and remain forever desolate.

Yet some 27 centuries after the prediction was made, Damascus is one of the oldest cities in the world and is still going strong. Jeremiah predicts the Jews would be captives in Babylon for 70 years, and II Chronicles views the prophecy as fulfilled. But the Jews were taken into captivity by the Chaldeans when Jerusalem fell in B. And Cyrus of Persia issued an order in B. Thus, the Babylonian captivity lasted about 48 years. For example, he was wrong in predicting the world would end within the lifetime of his followers.

Similarly, Jesus is depicted at Mark as listing signs that shall accompany the end of the world. These include the sun becoming darkened, the moon not giving any light, the stars of heaven falling, the son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and angels gathering the elect.

Jesus also erred in predicting the amount of time he would be in the tomb. But Mark and Matthew tell us he left the tomb sometime on Saturday night or Sunday morning. Either way, the amount of time was less than three nights. Another significant false prophecy is at John If ye ask any thing in my name, I will do it. And the graveyards are full of people who prayed to him for health. As is the case with other incorrect statements in the Bible, false prophecies cast doubt on all biblical claims.

Historians have long known that the biblical story of a worldwide flood is a myth. For instance, Andrew White says nineteenth-century Egyptologists found that Egypt had a flourishing civilization long before Noah, and no flood had ever interrupted it.