why adam and eve of course, no matter how gross that sounds

Doesn't matter, that won't work. The amount of incest required to populate even a small village would quickly lead to widespread birth defects that would kill newborns pretty quickly, thus leading to humanity's extinction.

Whats YEC? I'm just talking about people at my school who aren't well versed in Genesis.

The usually proposed explanation for this, is that, regardless of the actual timeframe (6,000 years, 100,000 years, somewhere in the middle), if Adam and Eve were a historical couple, than humans were most likely created specially some time after God had put everything else together, and that if God created them from dust, rather than guided their creation through natural processes, than he would have created them with perfect genes, and the lethal mutations usually brought out by inbreeding wouldn't have had time to develop until many generations had passed.

Which is a crap explanation. God: "Hey, I think I'm going to let humans to evolve in a natural process, but only after a couple generations of massive inbreeding that would normally kill off the species. I'll just get around that by making their genes be perfect for a couple hundred years or so! Yeah, lets see those a figure out this brilliant move"

Of course, the counter to that is obvious. Survival of the fittest makes it so that beneficial mutations survive, so natural evolution would continue to improve a species. Since you can't improve perfection, obviously we never had perfect genes

It's only crap if you don't believe that humans were the result of a special act of creation.

Obviously He wasn't holding our genes in stasis for a couple hundred years, but it takes multiple generations for mutations to occur, so at least 3 or 4 generations could pass without harmful inbreeding, and by that time, the population could easily be large enough, that it wouldn't be an issue. Say Adam and Eve had a baseline of 20 kids (and with the lifespans required by a literal interpretation of Genesis, it could easily be much higher). That's an average of 10 kids per person (or 20 per couple). Keep that up for 4 generations and you have 2 + 2 * 10 + 20 * 10 + 200 * 10 + 2000 * 10 = a population of more than 22,000, or half the size of VT's largest city. I'm largely leaning the other way on this one, but its not an unreasonable explanation given the presuppositions.

So your growth is something along the lines of:
2 (adam and eve)
10
50
250
1250

At which point you'll still be able to have stable reproduction without mating with your siblings.

Also, most theories involving a historical Adam and Eve would also involve an actual Garden of Eden, and thus significantly lower mortality rates.

Obviously you disagree with the premise that there were a historical Adam and Eve, but you're awfully quick to say "that's dumb" without offering your own alternative based on the same premises (historical Adam and Eve who were the result of a special act of creation). Like I said, this isn't the theory that I subscribe to, but I'm also willing to acknowledge that there isn't any other reasonable theory based on the same premises.

An out-of-hand dismissal without either
a) saying "I disagree because your premises are likely inaccurate based on the following evidence"
b) "Your reasoning is invalid, and here's where, and here's the correct conclusion than can be drawn from these premises"
just makes you look like an a.

If you read Genesis, you would realize that Adam and Eve weren't incestuous, other people just kind of showed up to marry their children. Just take Cain's wife for example. Where the hell does she come from? Anyway, trying to take the beginning of Genesis literally just leads to a mess.

Except for the whole "got kicked out thing", sure

Trying to take *ANY* part of the bible literally leads to mess.

Like you said, 4 generations is nothing, and several more could have passed successfully inbreeding before they really had to worry about picking up lethal mutations. And no, it wouldn't be 1250 siblings....it would be 1250 cousins, and second cousins.

We have no frame of reference for how long it took for that to happen

You clearly haven't read enough of it to even realize that the poetry sections (which are the ones people usually try and interpret too literally) make up a tiny minority of the text compared to all the history sections, literal interpretations of which have been confirmed by archaeological findings. Obviously Song of Solomon isn't meant to offer deep theological insight, or any sort of insight at all, it was written as a love poem. Psalms is a whole collection of worship music (basically a hymnal), and trying to interpret the imagery of one of Daniel or John's prophetic visions literally isn't gonna get you anywhere, especially when must of us can't read the original Hebrew. On the other hand, the 4 Gospels were written as biographies of Jesus, by people who knew him, within a couple decades of his death.

Sure we do. Adam and Eve get kicked out, then cain and able show up.

For one, the gospels were written by people who *didn't* know Jesus, and went through common sources.

And you clearly don't know how history sources work.

White: You discussed the length of time that exists between the writing of Paul’s letter to the Galatians and the first extant copy, that being 150 years. You described this time period as “enormous”. That’s a quote. Could you tell us what term you would use to describe the time period between, say, the original writings of Suetonius, or Tacitus, or Pliny and their first extant manuscript copies?

Ehrman: Very enormous... ginormous. Ginormous doesn’t cover it. (For) the New Testament we have much earlier attestation than for any other book from antiquity.

which is *not* a historical text, despite your repeated claims that it is. The bible provides *at most* a very rough, vague estimate at what happened.

As for the crap about the "poetry sections" being the ones interpreted literally, this thread is proof that you are wrong. We are arguing over the Pentateuch here, which is definitely not poetry and tries to portray itself as accurate.

There were enough people around by the time Cain killed Abel that he was worried about someone taking revenge. Who says they were the first kids born?

The four canonical texts are the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Luke and Gospel of John, probably written between 65 and 100 AD.[1][2] They appear to have been originally untitled; they were quoted anonymously in the first half of the second century (i.e. 100 - 150) but the names by which they are currently known appear suddenly around the year 180.[3]

1 Marcus J. Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally, (HarperSanFrancisco, 2002) page 189.
2 Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.
3 E P Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, (Penguin, 1995) page 63 - 64.

Be aware that Bart Ehrman's reputation as a debater and critic of Christianity is based on his claims that New Testament is an unreliable source.

Despite Ehrman's outspoken claims of being unable to be absolutely sure of the text of the New Testament, he has unvoiced claims that we must be less sure of all other books from antiquity! To paraphrase Ehrman: You name it, if it's a book from antiquity it is less reliable than the New Testament. That's Ehrman's position.

White: Peter Williams of Cambridge suggested that if you were to edit an edition of the Greek New Testament using all your own decisions regarding textual variants, then it would differ less from the Nestle-Aland UBS platform than the Textus Receptus does. Would you agree?

Ehrman: Yes.


What Ehrman is essentially agreeing to is that his critical edition of the Bible, the one with all his changes and insertions and deletions, would be less different from today's New American Standard Bible than the King James Version!

I dare you to find a single event recorded in the Bible from the time of Abraham through John's exile on Patmos that has in any way been shown to be false based on archaeological evidence. For introductory evidence on the other side of the coin:

The Ouija Board is an occultic device designed primarily to contact spirit entities.

Interestingly enough, I just found out that the first few chapters of Genesis, were, in fact, written in a poetic format rather than a prosaic format.

My point is that there is no mention of them until after adam and eve get kicked out. There is no basis for children in the garden of eden.

Sorry, did you not already know that? Its not exactly a secret, and I figured someone who appears to study the bible would know trivial information such as that.

Origin of the canonical Gospels
Main article: Synoptic problem

The dominant view today is that Mark is the first Gospel, with Matthew and Luke borrowing passages both from that Gospel and from at least one other common source, lost to history, termed by scholars 'Q' (from German: Quelle, meaning "source"). This view is known as the "Two-Source Hypothesis". [10].John was written last and shares little with the synoptic gospels.

The gospels were apparently composed in stages. Mark's traditional ending (Mark 16:9-20) was most likely composed early in the second century and appended to Mark in the middle of that century.[11]

The birth and infancy narratives apparently developed late in the tradition.[12] Luke and Matthew may have originally appeared without their first two chapters.[12]

The general consensus among biblical scholars is that all four canonical Gospels were originally written in Greek, the lingua franca of the Roman Orient.

[edit] Dating

Estimates for the dates when the canonical Gospel accounts were written vary significantly; and the evidence for any of the dates is scanty. Because the earliest surviving complete copies of the Gospels date to the 4th century and because only fragments and quotations exist before that, scholars use higher criticism to propose likely ranges of dates for the original gospel autographs. Scholars variously assess the consensus or majority view as follows:

* Mark: c. 68–73,[13] c 65-70[2]
* Matthew: c. 70–100.[13] c 80-85.[2] Some conservative scholars argue for a pre-70 date, particularly those that do not accept Mark as the first gospel written.
* Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85,[13], c 80-85[2]
* John: c 90-100,[2] c. 90–110,[14] The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.

Traditional Christian scholarship has generally preferred to assign earlier dates. Some historians interpret the end of the book of Acts as indicative, or at least suggestive, of its date; as Acts does not mention the death of Paul, generally accepted as the author of many of the Epistles, who was later put to death by the Romans c. 65.[citation needed] Acts is attributed to the author of the Gospel of Luke, and therefore would shift the chronology of authorship back, putting Mark as early as the mid 50s. Here are the dates given in the modern NIV Study Bible (for a fuller discussion see Augustinian hypothesis):

* Mark: c. 50s to early 60s, or late 60s
* Matthew: c. 50 to 70s
* Luke: c. 59 to 63, or 70s to 80s
* John: c. 85 to near 100, or 50s to 70

Such early dates are not limited to conservative scholars. In Redating the New Testament John A. T. Robinson, a prominent liberal theologian and bishop, makes a case for composition dates before the fall of Jerusalem.

It would seem you don't know your source very well. Taking the bible and editing it to line up with what we know doesn't make the bible suddenly become an accurate source of information :roll

Two major themes run throughout nearly all of his books and lectures. First is the desire to analyze the historicity of claims made by ancient texts used in the creation of the New Testament, as well as many books left out of the Christian canon, and subject them to a series of criteria. Second is the desire to reveal the thousands of differences and changes in the texts some people take to be the inerrant and literal "Word of God," who it was that changed the originals (none of which have survived), and what motivations or theological benefit could lie behind such changes being made.

Perhaps you should check your sources. A quote from another page on the *SAME SITE*


Right, I am totally going to them for reliable, scientifically verifiable information

Will_W

Your dates are all wrong, and enough information is missing from that quote as to be deliberately misleading, nor do the generally accepted dates support your hypothesis that they were written by people who didn't know him personally.

And yet.....he still acknowledges that we have better attestation for the textual integrity of the New Testament than any other writings of antiquity.

Rather than resorting to an ad hominem attack, actually refute the archaeological findings they wrote about. My challenge stands.

I realize that you aren't very good at deductive reasoning (hence this debate)

Even your dates support that. Jesus died ~36AD, gospels weren't written for another 30 years. Average lifespan during that time was around 30-40 (if that). I realize that you aren't very good at deductive reasoning (hence this debate), but seriously. Put 1 and 1 together. Even if the people who wrote the gospels met jesus, they wouldn't be old enough to have known him or really remember him by the time they were written.

So you are both backing me up and disagreeing with me. I'm pretty sure that guy doesn't know what he thinks.

I just did a google search for historical accuracy of the bible. After flipping past a couple pages of Christianity sites (obviously biased), I got bored and stopped caring. I really don't feel like validating your source - a source that is obviously crazy.

A ouija board, also known as spirit board or talking board) is any flat board with letters, numbers, and other symbols, used to supposedly communicate with spirits.

Here, let me give you a challenge. Find me proof that Noah's flood covered the planet, or that people lived for hundreds of years.

3For I passed on to you first of all what I also had received, that Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for our sins in accordance with [what] the Scriptures [foretold],(A)

4That He was buried, that He arose on the third day as the Scriptures foretold,(B)

5And [also] that He appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the Twelve.

6Then later He showed Himself to more than five hundred brethren at one time, the majority of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep [in death].

Potshots like this at people of faith (I realize you're targeting me specifically, but the "hence this debate" line opens it up a little) are a good way to make a fool of yourself given the number of MIT, Dartmouth, Cornell, Princeton and Yale (not to mention Middlebury) educated Christians I'm related to and/or close friends with, most of whom have strong backgrounds in science, mathematics, and deductive reasoning, and none of whom would agree with your earlier stated hypothesis that reason and faith are somehow inherently separate entities.

Luke at least freely admits that his Gospel was a compilation of first hand accounts from other people, but more relevantly to your point about lifespan, was that he died at age 84.

Mark was an eyewitness, and died very nearly around the same time we first have evidence of a completed Gospel of Mark. Acts, and most of the epistles, were completed even earlier.

The gospel itself is anonymous, but as early as Papias in the early 2nd century, a text was attributed to Mark, a cousin of Barnabas.[2], who is said to have recorded the Apostle's discourses. Papias' authority in this was John the Presbyter. While the text of Papias is no longer extant, it was quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea:

This, too, the presbyter used to say. ‘Mark, who had been Peter's interpreter, wrote down carefully, but not in order, all that he remembered of the Lord’s sayings and doings. For he had not heard the Lord or been one of his followers, but later, as I said, one of Peter’s. Peter used to adapt his teachings to the occasion, without making a systematic arrangement of the Lord’s sayings, so that Mark was quite justified in writing down some of the things as he remembered them. For he had one purpose only – to leave out nothing that he had heard, and to make no misstatement about it.[9]

well, actually we have more evidence that the New Testament still says the same thing it did when it was written than we have for any other ancient writing

This almost as entertaining as the debates on the Islamicity forum. "All the sources I can find disagree with me, so they must all be biased or lying about easy to check facts."

Furthermore your only basis for the claim that they are crazy stems from the fact that you yourself do not believe in anything spiritual.

Interestingly enough, the stated purpose of a Ouija board, is to communicate with spirits, something expressly forbidden in the Bible.

If I remember correctly, wikipedia also happens to be a site which both prides itself on NPOV, and which you frequently use for reliable, scientifically verifiable information.

Should anyone suspect that these accounts are merely a product from the minds of overzealous 'fundamentalist evangelical Christians', it should be noted that even non-Christians and those who are actively involved in the occult, recognize the dangers of the ouija board.

What should be done if someone has been involved with a Ouija Board? The individual should renounce this practice before God, repent, and turn to Christ. Jesus Christ is more than able to destroy the work of any evil power. Next, the individual should seek comfort and assistance from an understanding church, with believers who are willing to offer prayer support and comfort.

Here's the thing, the only historical fact necessary to prove the truth of Christianity is the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The Gospels, Acts, and the writings of Paul provide first hand historical evidence for that event, because, lets be honest, if I told you I saw somebody executed and then they were up and walking around 3 days later, you'd most likely call bs, so if I told you that I had more than 400 eyewitnesses spread out over a week or so, you'd want to interview them. Here's a quote from Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth (dated to 57 AD, so 20 years or so after Jesus's death).

Most people are smart enough not to write stuff like that, if they don't have 500 people ready to back them up as eyewitnesses.

Obviously a committed atheist like yourself is gonna find issue with this, and I'm not naive enough to think that most people will ever come to faith through reading it, however I'm also willing to say that once you arrive at a belief in God, Christianity offers the only explanation of how we interact with Him that makes any sort of sense

Really? Is that why Christian beliefs vary wildly from one church to another? Because contradictions are the only ones that make any sort of sense?