Penn & Teller on the Bible

No, but then again I have never had to protect two angels from a mob of angry sodomites. My arguement was with your charictarization as the passage of condoing rape. That is not accurate.

First I never said that everything in the Bible is factual. A great bit of it is not. However, there are scores of ancient historical documents that corroborate the occurrences in the Old Testament. Egyptian histories are ripe with examples. None of the Bibles histories (1&2 Samual, 1&2 Kings 1&2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, 1&2 Maccabees) have ever been proven to be in error by archeology

And we know the Hebrews where a real tribe of people because they left proof. The Old Testament books are, in part, their written history. There are also many archeological sites that corroborate the historical aspects of the OT.

The great flood is probably just a story. It is parabolic in nature but contains a kernel of truth that is taught through the story. As far as the events of Exodus a quick google search will show that even secular historians agree that it was a real event. There may be no proof that Moses parted the Red Sea, or that the Jews ate Manna for 40 years, but there is plenty to prove they escaped bondage in Egypt.

The histories included in the Bible are a completely cromulent source of historical data.

 

A lot of these events did happen (somewhat). I saw a documentary on Noah (I think it was on Disc. Channel). I beleive it was the Tigris river (but could have been a different one) did flood at about the time of Noah. That flood was large enough to cover most of that area (which people of that time thought was the whole world). He probably would have sailed into what is now know as the Persian Gulf. In which he would have seen nothing but water everywhere, leading him to beleive that the whole world had been flooded.
Also, as far as Moses parting the Red Sea, there are actually naturally occuring phenomenon that could have possibly been the real cause of the Sea "splitting".
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What most people forget is that the times in which the Bible stories took place, man was nowhere near as educated as we are. When they saw things, they pretty much had to take wild @$$ guess at what they just saw, and why it happened. Because of this, interpretations of events varied greatly from one village to the next.

An example of this: Suppose you and your neighbor each saw thick black smoker ising in the sky nearby. But neither of you had any way of finding out for sure what was causing it. You may think "probably the school is burning", while your neighbor thinks "I'll bet someone burnt down the local church". By the time news of this event reaches neighboring towns,half of the people will beleive that the school burned down, while the other half beleive it was the church.

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This is why the Bible contains some discrepancies (sp?). This would also explain why some of the events seem to be to big (Biblical Proportions) to be true. Any world wide tragedy, like the great flood, took place in a world that in reality was much smaller than the one we know exists today.

P.S. ok martin, what is your armcahir psychological evaluation of me now?

 

I am not saying that these events did not happen in some form or another. The proably did because even a LIE has some bits of truth.

The problem I have is the people who will defend to the death that the Great Flood took place and YES it was the entire plant as we know it today.

Did the flood happen YES, the Tigirs and Euphrates has a LONG history of flooding, hell it is refered to as the birthplace of civilation because it was lush and fruitful because they did flood their banks and enrich the land.

But dont try to sit there are tell me that the flooding on the Tigirs and Euphrates River contained enough water to flood the entire world, and that Noah was able to get 2 of ALL the Animals in the world and then after the flood placed Black Bears in North Louisiana, Moose in Canada, Zebras in Africa, and Sloths in the Amazon.

 

I'm not gonna tell you that. The point was in your reply. People THINK the flood happened to the world that we know exists today. We now KNOW that the flood was probably contained to that region of the world. Which to the people who wrote the Bible, was all they knew existed.
Most people forget that this book was written by men. Men who by todays standards were rather un-educated. Which is why I disagree with anyone who takes it to be 100% accurate, and unflawed.

 

you are making a lot of sense, but since you havent come to a conclusion yet i cant pronounce you sane yet. if you keep it going and say "so we have concluded that the bible is parables and interpretations and folklore...therefore it is stupid to have faith in any of it", then you will be declared rational. i wish you luck.

i would bet my armchair psychology degree that nothing was parted, the whole story is made up.

if you are willing to have faith, it doesnt seem very tough to believe that god guided the men who wrote the book. that would be a crazy thing to believe, but once you decide that faith is good enough to believe something, there is really no limit to how crazy you can be.​

 

I'm not one to make statements that broad. To say that the entire thing is fraudulent folklore and made up stories is just as irrational as saying the whole thing is legitimate and 100% accurate. Chances are, some of it is true, some of it isn't.

Some scientist believe it was actually an earthquake. Where the higher parts of the sea floor actually protruded above the surface. Hence the appearance of the sea "parting"

According to faith, God gave man free will. Meaning that even though God led him to do something, he still had the choice to embellish on stories if he wanted. He also didn't make man infallable, so man does make mistakes.

 

would it be accurate to say that about all holy books? is it possible to dismiss anything? what about the parts that directly oppose the bible? is fair that i can say that scientology or wiccan is made up? is that too broad a statement?


all urban legends are often given real life locations and such that make them sound real. that is the nature of folklore. take any local false urban legend, take it to another part of the country, and they have the same story, with different locations. they have a chinese place that got shut down for serving dog, and they have a lunatic that sliced people's achilles from under a car in the local mall parking lot. their local hospital admitted a patient with bugs burrowing into their skull. having real historical locations in your myth doesnt mean anything.

because the bible accurately describes that historical king x is at real historical place Y, that doesnt mean all the magic is somehow true.

so you are saying moses has the power to summon earthquakes? or are you saying he got lucky and happened to be summoning his sorcery at the time of this earthquake? i dunno where you are going with this.

 

if the bible were unique, that would surely be true. wouldnt you prefer histories that are not laced with spellcasting and silly miracles? how does it help you to have to parse out reality from fantasy?

there is no excuse for the bible being any more popular than a myriad of ancient myths and texts. why is the bible mroe relevant than a random sumerian or babylonin record or whatever? why is it that these particular writings that were selected are better than the ones that were not?

plus, we are talking about two different things here. these people here do not appreciate the bible as a historical document, they dont care about history, they care about jesus. none of the christians here are making claims about the historical value of the koran. the religion is the issue. the miracles, the lies, the magic, that is why the bible is popular. if the bible were merely a noteworthy historical document, you probably would have never heard of it. i think it is unlikely that anyone here is researching the koran with the same voraciousness that they are putting into their bible reading.

if you only care about history, names, places etc, i am sure there are numerous places to find your info. but that has so little to do with the bible's popularity. of course i acknowledge the historical records in the bible are significant if you are into that sort of thing. but that has almost nothing to with why people care about the bible. for what most people use it for,(guidance from above about the true nature of the universe) it is truly an embarassment, worthy of nothing but mocking.

 

I'm not farmiliar with mant others, but I would assume that yes you can say that about them.

You can guess either way, but without any type of proof, you really can't dismiss anything. Likewise, you can't garauntee it.

Faith leads people to beleive that maybe God did speak to him, and informed him of when it would happen. Did God speak to him? I have no idea, I wasn't in the room. Did he get lucky? Maybe, lots of people get lucky a pull the arm of the right slot machine at the right time.