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Did you know that if you go to the Holy Land, and visit sites mentioned in the Bible, and stand there, then go home and say "I have seen where Jesus walked, and I have seen what he saw, and what is said in the Bible" ......... you have done no such thing for a very large number of sites?
I know a man who has made a hobby of determining the truth of such sites as now believed.
He has worked closely with the Israeli department that governs such things, and they have accepted everything that he tells them, because he has evidence.
For example, he will go to a hilltop where the bible and every tourist book says Jesus stood and saw such and such a thing in the distance. He looks and looks and can see no such thing, nor anything that indicates that such a thing could have been seen 2000 years ago.
These sites are often described in the archaeology world as "according to tradition". This means that there is no true historical evidence to prove that the location is a valid biblical site.
Much of the controversy about biblical sites is based on the actions of the so-called St Helen, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great , who visited Palestine during the 4th century. ........ ie, at least 300 years after the events happened.
She would declare a place to be the location of a key Bible event. She had the power and money to not only establish her word as fact in the religious world, but to order a church built on that site.
She claimed to find Jesus' cross and even the nails from it, a piece of His tunic and pieces of the rope that were used to tie Him to the cross. Was she indeed credibly educated to make such important decisions?
The man I know looks around very carefully, and sees a similar hill a few metres or kms away, goes to that one, stands on the top ............. and can see exactly what is described
He has done this for dozens of sites, and there is apparently a small book or booklet been published although I have never seen it and cannot tell you what it is called.
This is just one small example of how things have changed through oral history.
I know many scientists who are also religious, just as I know many who are not and who may find it impossible to defend the bible because of the lack of tangible evidence.
I'm not religious although I went to a CofE school from the age of 4 to 11, and also had the usual religious education common in all schools in the UK in the 1950s, so had a very good indoctrination at an early age.
I used to find it very hard to accept that God created the world in 6 days and then rested on the seventh, hence why Sunday is the "day of rest" in the Christian church.
One explanation to help explain this is to think of a "day" as being thousands or millions or years, in other words an eon. Most people were uneducated until about 200 years ago, and even educated people knew little about time spans.
So it was easier for the story teller to use a word that would be understood by everyone .................. hence a day.
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Thank you for your contributions
Any real or perceived Bible Code would be of no use to those that penned it as it seems to relate to hundreds of years in advance. It would only reveal itself to those that had a Bible, the inclination to read it, mostly historic, and the ability to find something encoded beyond the literal.
Come a long way from a name revealed to one man to an ineffable name to a name that is used often by proselytes knocking on your door.
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How about this to ponder over. In the OT a man wrestled all night with an angel.
The angel put his hip out.
Two men would be exhausted wrestling all night, but a man and an angle ?
The angle would possess strength to destroy its opponent immediately. All it does is put his hip out.
Imagine a couple of anagrams for angel and hip. Angle and Phi.
Another anagram for night would be thing (or thought)
Phi is the Divine Proportion.
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Enough David! I wouldn't waste my time pondering over anything such as that while life passed me by.
Some people just have a book to sell or a programme or film to push. Others may see pictures in a slice of bread - it's crazy.
Read Sylvia's post of 17 Feb at 19:22 - it's worth a second read as so much of it is right in my opinion.
Then, when you've read it, go and be nice to your nearest and dearest, it'll make them happy and give you a good feeling.
However, if you're training for ordination, you may wish to pick holes in all the theories yourself. :-0
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As an atheist (although raised C of E) nobody could believe that any of the 'stories' were written contemporaneously.
With regards to hidden codes, you look hard enough in any book you'll find something, however obscure, to claim your 15 minutes of fame.
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My last posting on this and the previous was certainly not to earn one second of fame SC. I was merely pointing out something I'd noticed and wished to share.
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I wasn't referring to you David, so please accept my apologies if you thought I was.
I was talking about countless academics who are given huge sums of research money in order to try and prove something that cannot be proven.
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what about ..............
Nostradamus
Mother Shipton
Edgar Cayce
et al
all people who made predictions about the future, that's if you can decipher what they said :-D
Mother Shipton lived in a cave in Knaresborough .............. a great tourist attraction at one time :-D . I remember going with my parents sometime in the 1950s
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Is sc talking about global warming?
Alternative facts?
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