The Hebrew Scriptures are scientifically inaccurate

I do agree that the Bible is not a scientific book. I do not agree that it does not contain scientific elements. You believe it contains scientific elements, else you wouldn't be arguing the things you are about the nature of earth. Oh, and I'm not a Young Earth Creationist as you seem to think. That aside, you have claimed that because you believe Genesis and Exodus were invented by Josiah. That is only one possible origin to the written scriptures. You have not proven it is the correct or even the most logical one. You have just shown that there are experts who believe it. Your experts seem to believe that we have a very good idea of what the world was like 3000 years ago. They seem to leave out the Samaritans. The Samaritans had a different version of the Torah than the Jews did, but they were never under the authority of King Josiah. The Samaritans had their own temple by the 5th century BCE. http://genealogyreligion.net... http://www.spiegel.de... Of course, there are many other reasons not to believe that Josiah fabricated the scriptures. http://www.torahphilosophy.com... Peter Enns isn't looking so bad after all. ;) You allege that the Jewish people had the same view of cosmology as the rest of the world, but you did not show that they in fact did. There is evidence from the Talmud (rabbinic commentary on scripture) that the earth was spherical. "Jews had long learned from the Talmud that the world was a globe. In the fourth century, the Jerusalem Talmud (Aboda Zara, 42c) unequivocally asserted that the world was globular in form. The Zohar (Leviticus 1.3) was even more specific, declaring that the earth rotates on its axis like a ball. The great Maimonides and other medieval Judaic scientists subscribed to that concept." http://www.hebrewhistory.org... The Zohar on Vayikra p. 10a says something relevant. While one can never be sure whether the Zohar is speaking of the physical world or the spiritual world, we will quote it anyway with the reader forewarned. The Zohar says, "In the book of Rav Hamnuna Sava it is explained that all the world rolls in a circle like a ball... There are places in the world that when it is light for those on one side of the sphere it is dark for those on the other." http://www.aishdas.org... As previously pointed out, the writers used the language of the time. In English, we still say the sun rises in the morning and goes down at night. Are we all confused as to the Earth's rotation on its axis and orbit around the sun, or are we just using the language of our day? Oh, and the Hebrew word for circle may also be interpreted as sphere. http://www.blueletterbible.org... That, and more rebuttals may be found here: http://www.christiananswers.net... Your evidence that the Bible says the earth is flat is based on common cosmological beliefs of the non-Jewish people. However, if it is possible for the rabbis who were contemporaries of the Torah's writing to conclude that the scriptures indicated a spherical earth, then obviously the Torah does not assert these scientific falsies which you claim. Even if the common Hebrew people did believe in the picture which you describe, that would not mean that the Bible stated them. There are people who want to believe the Bible is flawed, and thus they will go looking for verses that confirm their bias. It isn't hard to do if you assert that a particular verse must be interpreted in a specific way, even when a scientifically correct interpretation is viable. The Tanahk actually speaks of the heavens being stretched out many times. With the discovery of the "Big Bang" we can begin to conceptualize just how stretched out the heavens really are. http://godandscience.org... 1: The Earth would be as that depicted in the picture, Earth would be covered by a Dome (firmament) which hold Heaven above it. I addressed this in my previous round. The word used indicates the sky. It need not be a solid. Is there a better Hebrew word which could have been used? 2) The moon would be another Sun, as Genesis stated that the moon is a source of light: Genesis 1:16 Thus humans would not be able to land on the moon and we would burn up trying to do so. I addressed this in my previous round. The fact that the two lights were created does not imply that they were both sources of light in the same way. It is obvious that the moon waxes and wains, but the sun does not. Genesis 1:16 simply states that there were now lights. What is interesting to me about Genesis 1:16 is that the word translated "make" is `asah http://www.blueletterbible.org... `asah almost always indicates an action. It rarely indicates creating a new object. This may indicate that the Sun and moon existed before this day in the creation story, which would be consistent with the Big Bang Theory. http://www.blueletterbible.org... 3: "There was Light and Darkness, Day and Night, before the Sun or the sister sun, the moon were created. Genesis 1: 3-5." Light is believed to have been present in the universe even before the creation of stars. It wasn't the same kind of light as stars emit, but it is believed to be present in the form of free photons. http://jwst.nasa.gov... or if you want lay-man's terms: http://en.wikipedia.org... 4) Stars glued to the bottom of the Dome that holds Gods Throne above it: Genesis 1 -17 "AAnd God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth," God must have used silly putty for this job. This reminds me of the movie "The Truman Show". -Again, you have not proven that your interpretation is how it was intended to be taken. I have provided evidence from Ancient Jewish texts that it is not. 5) There would be four legged Insects (Leviticus 11:20) I addressed this in my previous round. Do you really think that the people who wrote the text couldn't pick up an insect and count its legs? They would practically have to be Neanderthals. There are several rational explanations which I already gave and provided a link to with more detail. 6) There would be no waters in Genesis 1:2 for the spirit to hover over, the water would be Ice, as no sun = no heat. Cosmology tells us that the early universe was very hot. It had to cool off before bodies could be created. There was no need for a sun for the first sources of heat. There is an in-depth work cited review of the entire Genesis chronology as it relates to science. http://www.godandscience.org... 7: There were no waters teaming with life originally... The creation story doesn't mention the creation of single celled organisms (or angels). There explicit exclusion means nothing. The creation story does line up with the geologic column. See my previous link. Bar Ehrman is in the vast minority of historians who make the claim that Yeshua (Jesus) never existed. Eddy, Paul R. and Boyd, Gregory A. The Jesus Legend Baker Academic, 2007. pg 24-25 http://rationalwiki.org... http://www.godandscience.org... But you are free to believe what you want. You claim, "So the Bible Historically is full of massive gapes and inconsistencies." But you failed to point to even one. See my links in my previous round about the resurrection being historical fact. History does not show people who die for a lie they invented, but the apostles died in the name of Yeshua. That is one of many evidences. The fact that the women found the empty tomb, not men. The contract with the legendary accounts written 2nd century and beyond. I'm out of space to go on.