The Bible is historical because it says so in the Bible!

It's a logical fallacy

Technically it's not.

The exodus most likely did happen. Egyptologists have discovered the presence of Semitic names in Egyptian records from the time of the Exodus. They have also found descriptions of forced laborers making bricks in order to meet quotas as well as failures to meet those quotas because of a lack of straw--details that can all be found in the book of Exodus. The famed Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner, who was generally dismissive of the historicity of the Old Testament, said "that Israel was in Egypt under one form or another no historian could possibly doubt."

One reason there may be a lack of evidence describing the Hebrew slaves leaving Egypt is that the Israelites settled in Goshen (Gen. 45:10), which lies in the eastern part of the Nile Delta. The annual flooding of the Nile into this region would have regularly covered areas with a new topsoil thus making artifacts and documents difficult or impossible to recover.

Even when past groups were known to exist in large numbers, that did not guarantee they left behind in the archaeological record abundant evidence of their existence. For example, in the 19th century, there were billions of passenger pigeons in North America, but due to overhunting they went extinct by World War I. In spite of their huge numbers and having lived for tens of thousands of years, only about 100 fossil specimens have ever been found. Should we expect to find more evidence for a much smaller group of people who lived over thirty centuries ago?

Secondly, the Israelite's nomadic lifestyle would make it even more difficult to locate traces of their existence. They probably carried water in animal skins rather than pottery and dwelled in tents instead of houses. These things were well suited to nomadic migration, but not for enduring the centuries before later archaeologists could find them.

The Bible is allowed to be the sole witness to history.

Some people will say "Even if the accounts of the patriarchs, or the exodus, or the Israelites in Canan are not anachronistic, that doesn't prove those accounts describe real events in history. They could just be pieces of historical fiction." But when people say this they are assuming that unless a historical event described in the bible is also described in a nonbiblical work, then the event either never happened or we have no way of knowing if it did happen.

This way of approaching scripture, what some call "hermeneutic of suspicion," treats the historical accounts in the bible as being "guilty until proven innocent." If a justification is given for this assumption, it's usually that the bible describes miracles, and that makes its historical accounts unreliable. But other ancient historians like Josephys, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Herodotus also record miracles, and their knowledge of the ancient world isn't deemed "suspect" unless someone else corroborates their assertions. In fact, these writers represent our only knowledge of many historical episodes.

Another point to remember is that critics who rejected the bible because it was the only witness to something have been proven wrong before. Prior to the late 19th century, the bible was the only source that attested to the existence of the Hittites. Since no other works or artifacts corroborated their existence, modern critics said this was yet another example of the bible getting ancient history wrong. But in 1880, Henry Sayce delivered a lecture demonstrating that hieroglyphics found in Turkey and Syria showed that the Hittites had actually existed.

Just as they did with the Hittites, modern scholars also doubted Belshazzar's existence because it was only recorded in the bible, but that too was disproven.

It's not circular reasoning, it's just showing consistency. If the Bible said it was ahistorical, then to argue that it's historical would be inconsistent. So it's not an argument for the historicity of the Bible, but merely an argument that such an argument is possible.

ultimately when we trace the laws of logos down the rabbit hole we come to an impasse without using any circular reasoning
something has to give

Why shouldn't the bible be considered to have historical value?

except that the dumb masses couldn't read nor write back then
which was a good thing, humans being weren't forced to read dumb things like ur post

>Why shouldn't the bible be considered a postmodern work?

The fact that the books of the bible are thousands of years old might be a good reason to believe it isn't a post modern work. What point are you trying to make by changing the question?

That guy looks pretty qt.

Pssst... Just a reminder that Jesus never actually existed.

jesusneverexisted.com/

He was trying to prove that he is retarded.

This, thankfully we have antifa to make the world full of freedom by killing all rightwing nazis and everyone that uses hate speech

What reason do you have to believe the exodus didn't really happen?

atheists btfo

He appears to be arguing that Christians can't disbelieve the exodus happens which I agree with but one of his points is very weak. He says that because Jesus celebrated the Passover this can only be if the exodus actually happened but this isn't necessarily true. For a time Jesus was living a human life and following human traditions and laws regardless of how closely they adhered to the standard of God. He was observing traditional and ceremonial laws that he didn't intend to last forever, as in they were not "correct." There's no reason to think that just because he observed a holiday it has to be true.

That's not even remotely related, back to your containment board

Unless the Israelites were eaten or ate each other when they died, your pigeon analogy is unrelated

And nah, it's at least a million people, unless they went out of their way to clean up so archaeologists would be dumbfounded, the complete absence of evidence is a stretch

But logic is circular reasoning, as it has to rely on itself to prove itself.

truuuuuu

Well I'm sure where the "million" comes from since Exodus 12 has 600,000 men leaving Egypt, and even with this its possible that the numbers recorded in the texts are either exaggerated based on the literary genre of the time, or they are mistranslations. The latter suggestion is plausible because the Hebrew word in these passages that is translated thousand, elep, can also mean "clan" or "military unit." For example, Gideon speaks of his elep (or clan) being the weakest in Israel (Judg. 6:15), and David presented a gift to the commander of Israel's elep (1 Sam. 17:18). So, rather than 600,000 "men of foot" leaving Egypt, there may have been just 600 families or 600 groups of fighting men who left. This is a relatively small group of nomads and it's not likely that would have left a lot of evidence that would have survived 30 centuries.

The Bible is historical. How accurate or diluted it is? We should let archaeology and contemporary writings weight in as well to find out, and then let Logos do its work.

Yes, but it relies on agreeable, mundane and essential axioms in most cases. Not the same as having ridiculous premises and using those to prove more ridiculous premises

Women, children and gentiles wouldnt be included in that 600 000

what if I don't agree with those axioms and I consider them to be ridiculous

Then construct your own system of logic using axioms you like, faggot

DUDE

my point was that you said its not the same as being ridiculous but it literally is

Why do you believe the women and children aren't counted?

as an atheist if you cant acknowledge that the bible is a prescientific system of knowledge with real truth in it, you are a closed minded idiot

Not ridiculous to actual philosophers, but ridiculous to you maybe

>women and children
>part of a military unit

If Santa says it, it's true.

Why do you believe 600,000 soldiers left Egypt as opposed to 600 families?

what is an actual philosopher?

When I was a Christian it's what my pastor said, I sort of hoped for the peddlers of the religion to understand the religion

Me, not you

So if I told you that the word translated as thousand in Exodus 12, elep, can also mean clan or family would you recognize that this could also include women and children in the figure? Could you also see how the 1 million or 600,000 figure could be a gross exaggeration?

you really think someone would do that, just write the bible and tell lies?

Also the number of people leaving Egypt is not theologically or spiritually significant. This is a historical issue so it's not that surprising that a pastor wouldn't be well informed in this point.

I do acknowledge the possibility, I don't think that's the stance of most historians though

I disagree, if you knew how many were originally in Egypt then the proportion of those that managed to leave would indicate how effective the pharaoh was and how effective God was. I wouldn't be surprised if it was also genealogically important

The cities of the time were not big. I know that fairly recent archaeological evidence of a city that Joshua conquered at the end of the exodus, Jericho, contained a population of about 3,000 people. Just contrasting this with a proposed invading force of 600,000 serves to illustrate how ridiculous the proposition is that the number is true. Couple this with what we agreed about the term "elep" and it seems most likely that while the number of people leaving is uncertain, we can know that 600,000 is a gross exaggeration.

What is the stance of most historians or biblical scholars? I generally don't think that the majority opinion matters in these sorts of things but if you're going to appeal to it you should have an idea of what they think and why, especially if you believe it contradicts he evidence and arguments that I provided.

As far as the number of people leaving Egypt somehow effecting the theology of anything, I don't see it. How is God saving 600 families or clans from a larger army different from God saving 600,000 soldiers or 1 million people from a larger army?

I watched the video, where does he say that bible is historical because it says that it is?

>pic related is historical

K, guys.

Nazareth didn't exist prior to the second century AD. Its all lies.

>an historical
why is the english language so fucking shit?

if you think that more than a tenth of the OT is accurately historical than there is no hope for you.

Can you tell me how the books of the Bible differ from other ancient historical accounts?

It's boring thinking, plain and simple. If your main argument for the credibility of something resides on the existence of the idea itself, logic fails to manifest in any useful way.

>A happens because B causes A
>what causes B
>well A duh

It's the sort of childish thinking that makes people think that any correlation must be an underlying cause.

ITT: proof that an uneducated moron is better than one with little education.

You can grant the Bible everything people say about it, it is historical, Jesus really did rise from the dead and did all those miracles. That still wouldn't make the Bible THE truth. People often mix these things up.

Also, Exodus happened with Egyptians, man. Abraham was Abramelin the Mage, etc.

I used to think this but then I remembered he was an Initiated Jew.

This doesn't make any sense. If Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead then it means he is who said he was, and it would follow that the bible is the truth.

That's a literal non-sequitur. Just because he could do rituals on a molecular level doesn't mean that he was the Firstborn, especially for a false depiction of TCoATI.

I don't know what the "firstborn" is but he said he was God, and he proved it by performing miracles that should be impossible. Those miracles are a good reason to believe he actually is God. It's not a non sequitur, it's an inference to the best explanation.

is there anything funnier than referring to the bible in a southern accent?

No, it's not, not if you don't know what a raised spirit is and what Divinities could make you capable of doing. Face it, you're a charlatan.