RFC from Christians for Empirical Evidence That Supports Biblical Claims

RFC: Request for Comment.
A belief should come from a reason, which should be derived from logic which should be based on evidence.

This article is intended as a fun exercise between Christian and Atheist teams. This article is a request for Comment from Christians for items in the bible that are supported by empirical evidence.

For example some things I can think of follow.

- the four rivers in the Garden of Eden really existed.
- the egyptians, assyrians, bablylonians, persians existed
- there is corroboration from other cultures for Ba'al
- there is evidence for a 'house of david'

I heartily endorse you to get your friends to participate and take us evidence loving Atheists to task!

In another article I'll compare this list with the other teams list and see what we get!


8 comments:

David Mazel said...

OK, "the four rivers in the Garden of Eden really existed." So what? What exactly does that tell us about the "biblical claims" made in Genesis? Not much. It tells us no more about Genesis than the existence of the Mississippi River tells us about "Huckleberry Finn." The Garden of Eden story could be just as fictional, because, obviously, fiction makes use of facts all the time.

In fact, the "existence" of the Euphrates River tells us even less about Genesis than the Mississippi tells us about Twain's novel. We know at least that the Mississippi was called the Mississippi even before Twain wrote his story, but it might well be that the Garden of Eden story came first and the river was named afterward, in the same way that there was no "Hill Cumorah" in New York before Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. Smith invented the name out of whole cloth, and only afterward did Cumorah "exist."

We must be careful not to confuse the thing itself with its name! Obviously, the existence of a hill that afterward came to be called Cumorah does not "support" any Book of Mormon claims. In the same way, the existence of Genesis' four rivers does not support any biblical claims. Nor does the existence of a mountain called "Olympus" support any of the claims of Greek mythology. (Was the mythical Olympus named after a peak that already bore that name, or was the peak named after the mythical place?)

The same comments apply to your other three examples. Could you perhaps clarify what kinds of empirical evidence really do support biblical claims?

Bonus points if you can explain how the Garden of Eden could have been watered by the Euphrates even though, as I'm sure we can all agree, it was located in....Missouri!

David Mazel

Anonymous said...

Hi David,
so its a lame example.
I was just trying to help the christian team out a little bit.
I'm sure they can come up with plenty of others if they are inclined.

Unknown said...

I don't have a problem with you playing a game and having a bit of fun however do you really believe that these two lists constitute as an intelligent argument?

I'd like to submit the fact that pretty much very word in the Bible was spelt correctly - there are about 181253 words in the Bible and so that's 181253 things the Bible got right. Now it's your turn to find 181253 things the Bible got wrong :p

David Mazel said...

Hi Lee! Now I see what you're trying to do--thanks.

Anonymous said...

I was going to retire from commenting for a while, but I would like to contribute to this:

http://www.arkdiscovery.com/MtSinaiPAX.htm

The book written by Howard Blum which chronicles the search of Robert Cornuke and Larry Williams, titled The Gold of Exodus, tells the story of what the two men found as they looked for what they heard may be the real Mt. Sinai.

For those who don't have time to look as the link which gives an introduction with photos, some of the things they found:

1) a blackened mountain top...when the rocks were broken they were found to be black only on the outside, indicating they were burnt at one time.

2)a large stone structure which has the appearance of an altar and is decorated with drawings of Egyptian cattle.

3)satellite imagery which shows a path which proceeds from one side of the Red Sea and then comes out the other side and up to the mountain.

4)a springs of bitter water (Mara)

5)12 pillars at the base of the mountain.

6)the town of Al Bad, where it's inhabitants claim Moses camped there in his way to Mt. Sinai and have as their heritage the story of Moses who they believe is a Muslim prophet.

Those are some highlights.

Anonymous said...

Hi james,
thanks, I'll add your contribution to the list after this thread plays itself out. Would you like to mentioned as the contributor?

Anonymous said...

Hi jennifer,
thanks for your contribution, your tolerance and patience.

Unknown said...

Hi james,
thanks, I'll add your contribution to the list after this thread plays itself out. Would you like to mentioned as the contributor?

Only if you make it clear I was being sarcastic and pointing out the stupidity of your approach to the Bible.