Originally Posted by Kurts
Hey, hold it here...........what "awesome" scientists helped write the Bible?
Firstly, the Bible you hold in your hands today has been translated, modified, re-written & changed from the first bibles hundreds if not thousands of times. The first written bibles were conceived approx. 400 years after Jesus supposedly lived. Does ANYONE's legacy maintain congruency after 20 generations have passed?
Scientists?! What men of science had a hand in writing this book? If you're talking about men interpreting it so that one thing or another sounds like the Earth isn't flat, well, I guarantee I can interpret of package of raisin oatmeal cookie ingredients to sound biblical, too! The best scientists of the time were Arab & if it wouldn't be for Islam's conquering of Spain, European scientists would've hardly existed. After all, it was a sin, punishable by death, to question anything not Bible-based. As far as contributing, I guess if you mean helping to change something in the original book to make it sound like something else, that wouldn't surprise me since the original translators of the early bibles couldn't translate Hebrew to Greek or Latin worth a darn.
The Ten Commandments - there aren't actually ten of them, it all depends on just which list you refer to: Exodus 20 or 34 or Deuteronomy 5; & then really only 3 have any significance to the human condition, the rest are just endless repeats of why this god is better than their god & why this god needs this, that & the other. Oddly too, I always hear about how wonderful these little jewels of common sense are but never hear about what their penalties are for messing with them! Let's see:
Lord's name in vain? Death (Lev.24:16). Working on the Sabbath (better make sure just which Sabbath you're choosing!)? Death (Exo.31:15). Adultery? I'll bet you're getting the idea now: Death (Lev. 20:10). I would claim that the 3 Commandments that make any sense: murder, theft & adultery, apply without the remaining nonsense.
Kurts my good friend, As usual your logic is fairly impeccable but please do not be confused about a couple of things.
Jesus may have supposedly Risen from the dead, that is for believers to deal with. But his existance on the planet is not supposed having been documented by both Jewish and Roman scribes of the time. His cruxifiction is not fiction.
As to the use of the term scientist, perhaps he meant to refer to the intellectuals of the time as they were the scribes, the Levites, who were the acedemic elite if you will. I would agree, they weren't
scientists.
The Bible is full of fiction not supportable by archeology or civil records. There is ample evidence of Noah's flood but not of the mass extinction reported. There is no evidence of Moses in any Egyption writings and they were fanatical about recording everything.
So, did Moses exist? The children of Isrreal most certainly spent time in Egypt and most certainly retook their lands in what is now Palistine. Did the great flood come and some damm fool build a big boat for his farm animals?
Much of the Bible, old testament, is (or is from) contemporainious records, much is a collecton of stories. That is what it is. The new testaments are writen accounts, not all of which are in the "official" text. Written by personal witnesses with their own biases yes, but accounts of actual events, not "supposed."
As to the science.
Science, whether theological or emperical, was and is always practised by acedemics in institutions that can fund the activity. The Early Christian church was very much involved in "science." Their pursuit was certainly biased, but not strictly so as you have suggested. By the end of the first mellinium, the stranglehold of the early church gave way to more honest, intellectual pursuit of science. Had not that happend, we would not have seen the Renaissance period in Italy.
Most all of our current institutions of higher learning got their start as religious colleges, including many that are now state universities. But as the recent Notre Dame contravercy has shown, the secular approach has become the norm in most educational matters.
To be blunt,the most secular of institutions get their funding from somewhere. A state, an industry, a philanthropist. Each has their thumb on the scale of the emperical pursuits they fund, make no doubt about it.
In other words, the answers they pursue are often found to be the answers that benefit the Benefactors.
That's a fact, and you can bank on it.
roadster with a stick