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biblicalarchaeology.org

Hershel Shanks, editor of BAR is on record as agreeing much of the OT is myth and legend, not history. BAR has been for years a rather major player from time to time in the field. Shanks was instrumental in getting the Dead Sea scrolls made public after decades of inaction by the scholars who sat on it, blocking the public's view, and other scholars, more important.

I subscribed for years but eventually drifted away as it rarely had much to do with anything of real importance to me.
 
There have been people wandering around the Middle East for a couple hundred thousand years, so if you dig on any hilltop, you're likely to find something. The problem is, one pot shard looks as much like any other and a mud brick from 3000 BCE looks pretty much like one from last year. There are many more dig sites than there are place names in the Bible, so when wishful thinking sets in, there is so much from which to choose.

Inerrantists know better than to stake a claim on Biblical Archaeology. They've been burned so many times.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
Hershel Shanks, editor of BAR is on record as agreeing much of the OT is myth and legend, not history. BAR has been for years a rather major player from time to time in the field. Shanks was instrumental in getting the Dead Sea scrolls made public after decades of inaction by the scholars who sat on it, blocking the public's view, and other scholars, more important.

I subscribed for years but eventually drifted away as it rarely had much to do with anything of real importance to me.
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And yet, Shanks and his staff were instrumental in promoting the bogus 'James, brother of Jesus, Ossuary' as genuine and thereby encouraged the illicit trade in dubious archeological artifacts without provenance. Shanks should have been pilloried and exiled from the archeological community.

I advise against giving the noted site uncritical credence of any kind.
 
Bronzeage said:
There have been people wandering around the Middle East for a couple hundred thousand years, so if you dig on any hilltop, you're likely to find something. The problem is, one pot shard looks as much like any other and a mud brick from 3000 BCE looks pretty much like one from last year. There are many more dig sites than there are place names in the Bible, so when wishful thinking sets in, there is so much from which to choose.

Inerrantists know better than to stake a claim on Biblical Archaeology. They've been burned so many times.
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You would be wrong.

I still deal with posts from people who cite this or that paper from Biblical Archaeology as evidence that "the Bible has been proved by archeology."

Christians and Muslims think that if even one fact from their holy book[ent]mdash[/ent]even the name of a place[ent]mdash[/ent]is corroborated by an external source, that means that the entire holy book is proved true.
 
Meh. Pot/kettle.
If the bible got just one minor (archeological) detail wrong, bible skeptics would use that as justification to trash the entire book. You can't have it both ways.
 
Lion IRC said:
Meh. Pot/kettle.
If the bible got just one minor (archeological) detail wrong, bible skeptics would use that as justification to trash the entire book. You can't have it both ways.
Click to expand...

Luckily, there are a shipload of minor details 'wrong', which makes it ever so easy to trash an 'inerrantist' source that is filled with contradictions and egregious inaccuracies.

The best known source is probably the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, but, for this purpose, we can start with https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/contradictions.html...
 
Much of the supposed history in the OT is nothing of the sort. It is all faux history. Decades worth of people have tried to square this hard earned knowledge with the supposed inspiration of the Bible. There have been quite number of books written to date explaining the fact that the faux history of the Bible is just that, and telling us what we know about the rise of Israel in the Middle East. The Egyptian captivity, the Exodus, the invasion of Canaan by Moses and Joshua are not history. None of it happened. Israel's history was not recorded by anyone.
 
whollygoats said:
Lion IRC said:
Meh. Pot/kettle.
If the bible got just one minor (archeological) detail wrong, bible skeptics would use that as justification to trash the entire book. You can't have it both ways.
Click to expand...

Luckily, there are a shipload of minor details 'wrong', which makes it ever so easy to trash an 'inerrantist' source that is filled with contradictions and egregious inaccuracies.

The best known source is probably the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, but, for this purpose, we can start with https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/contradictions.html...
Click to expand...

That's not a contradiction because I arbitrarily redefined "up" to mean "down"! Something something ad hoc context!
 
Lion IRC said:
Meh. Pot/kettle.
If the bible got just one minor (archeological) detail wrong, bible skeptics would use that as justification to trash the entire book. You can't have it both ways.
Click to expand...

Nope.

If we get extra biblical verification that there was a real place called Jerusalem, then that one fact has been corroborated by an independent source. Not one single person ever said "There's no such thing as a talking donkey, therefore Jerusalem doesn't exist!" but there are plenty of Christians claiming "Jerusalem is proved to be a real place, therefore the talking donkey was real!"

I'm sorry, but even if we ignore the  tu quoque fallacy behind your excuse, the excuse fails.
 
Is it really a tu quoque?

I thought I was pointing out that it's a double-edged sword.

If one claims that partial archeological corroboration helps validate the overall truthfulness of a historical document, then one must accept that archeology might have the opposite effect.

Now if you claim that no bible skeptics would ever use such a double-edged sword to discredit something like...oh I don't know...maybe... the Noachian Flood? Then I don't think you are qualified to speak for bible skeptics.
 
the main difference is the amount and quality of evidence.

For example the flood has been disproven in so many different ways, any one of which would be sufficient to a reasonable person. The biblical archaeology people are trying to build a biblical empire off vague and circumstantial evidence. For example: A seal on a wine jug mentioned "the House of David." A stela mentions the same. Both are dated from quite a long time after the supposed life of David. To me, they confirm the existence of something called 'the House of David' at the time. However, they are not necessarily evidence of David himself, because people make up ancestors all the time.

Similarly, a burn strata in Jericho is used as proof of the Exodus, when in fact it only means the city experienced a fire at some point. What are the odds a city can exist in such a war torn region for 6,000 years and NOT be sacked once in a while?

While the evidence against the flood is conclusive (if the flood happened, certain things would be true, but they aren't, QED) the so called archaeological support of bible are not conclusive, as any one has alternative explanations, and none are as direct evidence for the thing claimed as is the flood dis-evidence.

To compare the two is not honest.
 
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