The Bible shouldn't be taken literally.

Throughout your argument, you kept saying that I don't understand how history works. I am a very avid student of history, and I know exactly how it works. You are the one who is accepting invalid historical evidence. I realize that the Smithsonian Institute is a secular institution; however, the Old Testament is literally their ONLY source of information on the ancient Hebrews so they really have no choice but to use the Old Testament as a historical source. If the Hebrews had consistently written down their historical records, historians would be more keen to use those than the collection of Hebrew folklore that is the Old Testament. The Egyptians probably did lie about their victories, but ALL civilizations did, the Hebrews included. What makes you so sure that the authors of the Bible were completely honest? The Bible is also full of improbable victories that the Israelites may not have actually won. You claim that the Bible is God's word, but when looking at it from a historical point of view, it is nothing more than a bunch of fables belonging to the ancient Hebrew culture. The only reason that I would accept the Bible as God's word would be if Jesus himself had written it. The Dead Sea Scrolls just sound like a rough draft of the Old Testament. Just because someone bothered to write all those fables down doesn't make them anymore true. The inscription would serve as proof that a king named David existed, but if you hadn't noticed, I already accepted that because, like I said, the Bible DOES have historical basis, even if it is not totally accurate. The Amulet scroll is just proof that people followed Hebrew teachings... I'm not sure how this makes the Bible anymore true. as many people today follow Christian teachings without taking the Bible literally. The only reason people were copying down New Testament stories was to help spread Christianity. How does people making copies of a document make it more true? If I have various people write my "hippos swimming in pianos" statement over and over again thousands of times, should I expect future historians to believe it? No. Because logical people do not think that multiple copies of a document make it more valid. You named 4 factors that historians use to validate a document and the Bible falls short on all of them -Multiple Attestation: this factor doesn't even make sense (see above paragraph) -External Evidence: the evidence that you provided (Dead Sea Scrolls, David inscription) at most show that the Bible has some historical basis -Internal Evidence: just because the Bible's stories show a correspondence with known historical events doesn't suddenly make all the scientifically impossible details true. All those details are exaggerations that were added on through the ages as the stories were passed down. -Motivation for Fabrication: there was LOTS of motivation to do some lying while writing the Bible. The first people who were compiling Bibles were trying the PROMOTE Christianity. They would obviously try to paint themselves, their ancestors, and Jesus in the best light possible, leading to plenty of lying and false statements. Genesis TOTALLY contradicts science. Humans did NOT exist on the 7th day of the universe being created; they existed 500,000 years ago at the most, and Earth has been PROVEN to be 4.55 Billion years old. The story of Noah's arc insinuates that all the "kinds" of animals alive back the same ones alive right now, basically saying that extinct animals never existed and that Evolution, a theory which DOES have evidence behind it, is false. In addition, if a flood really did cover the entire Earth at one point, surely there would be geologic evidence to support it. All you did to defend the validity of the story of the flood was describe Noah's ark, which doesn't really make a difference if it didn't EXIST. You also said that more versions of the flood story validate the Bible's account. However, all of the other versions are OLDER than the Bible's account, so it is actually more like the ancient Hebrews COPIED Mesopotamian mythology to use in their stories. Once again, I will give a rebuttal to each of your points in the order that you made them -Yes, I am dismissing your "evidence" because all you said was that it's impossible to find evidence for the Tower of Babel, so you are just going to assume it's true. -I am not an atheist. I am very religious, and I understand God's unconditional love for us all very well. The reason I am doing this debate is to prove to all atheists that the Bible is invalid and can't be used as evidence disproving God's existence. Many of them claim that since the Bible is "God's word", and the Bible is full of scientific and historical inconsistency, God can't exist and all religious people are idiots. If I eliminate their premise that the Bible is God's word, then one of their major arguments disproving God's existence becomes invalid. I don't expect you to agree with me, but I just wanted you to know that I'm not doing this to bash on Christianity like some annoying atheists do. -I'm not really sure where I was going with that either... -You can't use Bible quotes to prove that another Bible quote is true. Simple. It doesn't have anything to do with my understanding of history. It just seems logical to use sources outside of the Bible when trying the prove the Bible's validity. I guess that as the contender you get to have the last word in, but before you do I would just like to summarize my points: -The Old Testament is ancient Hebrew folklore and has become outdated in face of modern science -The New Testament is early Christian propaganda and has obvious fabrications that were meant to help promote and spread Christianity as a religion -The Bible DOES have historical basis in all its stories, but it also has blaring contradictions with science - In conclusion, based on the above 3 points, the Bible is NOT God's word; it is just a collection of stories that do a good job of collectively portraying Christian teachings. The Bible should not be taken literally word for word. Back you, Con