The Hebrew Scriptures are scientifically inaccurate

I'm disappointed that you continue to try to debate history instead of science. In college, my history professor told me that there are three kinds of lies, "Lies, damned lies, and history." Obviously, he was trying to make a serious point in a humorous way. But the serious point to make is that knowing objective history is challenging at best. http://plato.stanford.edu... "This topic divides into several different problems, as noted by John Passmore (1966: 76). The most studied of these within the analytic tradition is that of the value-ladenness of social action. Second is the possibility that the historian's interpretations are themselves value-laden"raising the question of the capacity for objectivity or neutrality of the historian herself. Does the intellectual have the ability to investigate the world without regard to the biases that are built into her political or ethical beliefs, her ideology, or her commitments to a class or a social group? And third is the question of the objectivity of the historical circumstances themselves. Is there a fixed historical reality, independent from later representations of the facts? Or is history intrinsically "constructed," with no objective reality independent from the ways in which it is constructed? Is there a reality corresponding to the phrase, "the French Revolution," or is there simply an accumulation of written versions of the French Revolution?" However much of Israel's history is corroborated by archaeology according to writer Peter Enns. http://www.patheos.com... "3. Biblical archaeology basically supports the historical veracity of the Bible. Biblical archaeology has helped us understand a lot about the world of the Bible and clarified a considerable amount of what we find in the Bible. But the archaeological record has not been friendly for one vital issue, Israel"s origins: the period of slavery in Egypt, the mass departure of Israelite slaves from Egypt, and the violent conquest of the land of Canaan by the Israelites." Much of what we know about history is inferred from what we observe. Two historians can disagree on what took place when presented with the same evidence. I cannot be bothered to watch almost 3 hours of documentaries on why some people believe the origins of Israel are historically inaccurate. Even if they are historically inaccurate, that wouldn't at all matter. This debate is not over whether or not the Hebrew scriptures are perfectly accurate in every detail. It is a debate on whether or not they are scientifically accurate. To argue that something did not take place because we do not find archaeological evidence for it is absurd. We cannot use archaeology to prove that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were not mythological characters, yet it is an accepted fact that they existed and wrote what we believe they did. In fact, if you use modern historical criteria for evaluating the texts written about Yeshua (Jesus), treating them as any other ancient manuscript, you will come to the conclusion that Yeshua rose from the dead. I have no trouble with the Bible not being 100% historically accurate. But this debate is over whether or not it is scientifically accurate. So I will quote your statements from comments you left on: http://www.debate.org... 1) "Genesis doesn't tell us that snakes were originally lizards." The Bible doesn't tell us that our atmosphere is composed of several different gases. In fact, there's a lot of things the Bible doesn't tell us. You probably meant to say that Genesis *does* tell us that snakes were originally lizards. It seems to me that this passage does not refer to evolution whatsoever. The passage in Genesis 3:14 doesn't even say that ALL serpents are cursed. It could have been just that one serpent in all of history. 2) "Could go on for months with the stupidity of the Bible, when it comes to misconceptions of reality, such as 4 legged insects in Leviticus." There are several answers to that. It is rare that I would quote from the Institute for Creation Research, but they do have a valid point. But I will add another link to support it. http://www.icr.org... http://www.tektonics.org... 3) If the Bible Creation Story was Truth, we would burn up trying to land on the moon as according to Genesis 1, the Moon is a light source like the Sun. You are reading into the passage things that aren't there. "Genesis 1:16: And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day." The passage does not say that the moon produces the light it gives off. If we observe the monthly lunar cycle, we notice that the moon waxes and wains. It would be strange to think that of all the lights in the sky, the moon would be the only one to stop giving off light from part of its body. The Sun doesn't do that. The Jewish people based their calendar on lunar cycles, and were very familiar with them. 4) "If the Bible Creation story was true, ships would fall off the Edge Of The Earth" I didn't know what you were talking about. I had to look it up. http://www.trueorigin.org... "The programmatic text for this section is Genesis 1:10: "And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good." By itself this verse tells us virtually nothing about the nature of the earth and seas. It is so equivocal that one may read into the text either a flat earth or a round one." Another answer to that problem is here: http://www.christiananswers.net... 5) "If the Bible Creation Story was Truth, Rockets Would Smash Into Heaven and Fall Back To Earth, like the stars in the Bible if they are shaken free." You might have gotten this idea from P.H. Seely, The firmament and the water above. Part I: The meaning of raqiya" in Gen. 1:6"8, Westminster Theological Journal 53:227"240, 1991. Seely writes: "The basic historical fact that defines the meaning of raqiya""the Hebrew word in Genesis 1 which the King James Bible reads as "firmament," but many modern translations render "expanse"""is simply this: all peoples in the ancient world thought of the sky as solid." There are several answers listed here: https://answersingenesis.org... One point made here is that the author was writing in Hebrew, and there wasn't a better word to use that would not imply a solid sky. Of course, it could pre-date the origin of the belief in a solid sky too... In any case, a solid sky is not the only valid interpretation of the verse.