The Bible is a reliable historical document.

"However, he has not presented anything, so we must assume there is no evidence that contradicts the Bible. " The impossible occurring in the Bible is not sufficient evidence that the Bible is not a reliable historical document? In order to rationalize the impossible, God must be brought in. Belief in God is faith based. Historical evidence needs hard evidence rather than faith for something to be reliable, at least in my view. I could pick any number of impossible events to use as an example here. What if we learned of an account in the Revolutionary War of soldiers in a certain battle getting wings and flying away? Does such an event coincide with our scientific understanding? No. Is it possible if the source brought in the idea of an infinitely powerful God who intervenes in human affairs? Yes. But in doing so, the latter undermines the natural understanding of human possibility. Usually, historical analysis starts a step after this in that the possibility of these events is already acknowledged and we can therefore find evidence for the claims. In this case, we've failed to satisfy the first principle, and this occurs in numerous instances in the OT and NT. If I'm not mistaken, we both agree that there are a large number of divine inspired events in the Bible that cannot be ignored. "The fact that there are several viewpoints only confirms its validity. " It's difficult for any historical document to capture the "full truth. " It may present several viewpoint at certain cases, but to claim a full complete analysis of every event is just not something that you see. I'm sort of arguing details here and even getting a little nit picky, but it's just presenting an underlying skepticism of viewing anything of a completely objective historical account. For example, when Moses brought down the ten commandments he saw the Israelites worshipping an idol. Who's idea was it to make the idol? Were there divisions in the tribe? "Well actually my opponent takes the first chapter of Genesis out of context. " I'm not even going to address this since you've never adequately addressed my first concern that the impossible occurring is a major stumbling block for considering something reliable. We could have turned this into an existence of God debate, which was likely it's proper, logical end - but when I extended the invitation you refused. I was arguing the premise the entire time that "the bible is a reliable historical document. " The idea that it may be the most reliable historical document in the ancient world is irrelevant, and not the topic. Anyway, in conclusion I feel this discussion was limited because Pro insisted on focusing on archaeological or historical evidence rather than ever confronting the view that the impossible supposedly happened. To address this honestly, Pro would have had to bring up God which I was entirely happy to discuss with him. Pro repeatedly dodged this invitation claiming that the debate was not about God (because God clearly has little to do this with the Bible? ). I refused to get side tracked onto whether there was evidence for such and such event and insisted on staying focused on my core argument.