That doesn't tell us how big the "entire world" was to someone in ancient Mesopotamia. How long was it before people in the Eastern Hemisphere learned of the existence of the Western Hemisphere?
Lazarus was "buried" in cave, not underground. Also, people did wake up underground, that's why it became such a big thing that people invented the safe coffins. The fear of being buried alive was massive during cholera outbreaks.
I have researched the topic. My university even required us take courses on the Bible. Not pontificating at all, just trying to have a discussion about religious text vs. the historical record.
Yes! I have heard of this event as well. I am a believer in syncretic religion... That cultures blend and religions blend along with them, so you get flood stories either from the same event that gets carried around or from separate events that are combined over time. Either way, the event occurred in some form or fashion, and God can be attributed to it.
Agreed.
It seems that the fall of Jerusalem was foretold several times and each time they got that dead on.
That accusation could be leveled as a slight against most of the Bible, as it is missing primary source accounts.
One could, but understand that I am not taking a cynical view of the book, but rather a critical one. To me, there is a difference.
To me, looking at it from the perspective of someone who went to uni and grad school to study history, I don't take it as the people in the OT lied... They simply didn't know what else existed. That's not their fault, they were just looking through a different lens than we are.
Haven't you already found it?
Interesting that you bring up the "wise men" as it is something I have pointed to as evidence of religious syncreticism before. The "wise men" (Magi) were most likely Zoroastrian priests searching for an answer to a prophesy of their own religion.
I don't know but it has always seemed a bit obvious to me. Another thing is the accuracy of time periods when 40 days and nights is supposedly an ancient way of saying 'a really long time', that and the ease of of the phrase use in the bible. I'm not someone who believes the bible literally in all cases but then you get hammered by the atheists either way. It would be childish though to believe that there had been no unscrupulous adaptations and unfortunately we've nothing to contradict, no base line.
) I was obviously taught about the bible but the question that always struck me was around the number of discrepancies, changes and basically mistakes in the most-read holy book of all. I just wasn't sure if Christians accepted this or were offended if brought up, so I never really asked. As you probably know, or not, Muslims have the opposite view i.e. not a single mistake in the holy book, traced back to original scripts via a still used living language, etc. So that's what piqued my curiosity and am relieved no one was offended. No other reason.Sure, its just that as a Muslim living in a Christian country (well the UK was pretty much Christian in the 80s
Ps. Muslims believe in the Bible too, it forms part of the 7 beliefs Muslims must hold to be a, well, Muslim: 1. One God, 2. All the Prophets (Moses, Jesus, Muhammad pbut), 3. Angels, 4. Holy Books (Torah, Bible, Quran, Book of David), 5. Destiny, 6. Day of Judgement 7. Life After Death (heaven/hell/eternal life/etc).
