On Creationism

The Book of Hosea was written around the fall of the Kingdom of Israel. These tumultuous times are explained as a punishment from God, as usual, as a reaction to the people worshiping false gods. Hosea is the first book to liken this to prostitution. If I was cynical, I would say this was because Hosea's wife was unfaithful to him, and he wanted to mitigate his shame. He still loved her, and eventually they got through it. Thus, after a quick intro, we read: Hosea 1:2 When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. That is one bizarre command! Rather more likely, he married the girl, she was unfaithful, and he later claimed to have that command. Sad that for thousands of years, poor Gomer has been know as a promiscuous woman. It continues with a...

I have been looking at messianic prophecies a lot recently, and struggling to keep straight what happened when. This timeline was centred on the Babylonian Captivity (bold below), but goes some way either side, and a later edit extends it even further. Dates are obvious approximate, some more than others. 843 Athaliah made herself Queen of Judah, killing all the royal family except Jehoash , who was rescued by Jehosheba, sister to the old king and wife of Jehoiada the priest. 2 Kings 11 837 Joash/Jehoash from  797 Amaziah from  792 Corecency from  783 Uzziah from 783 (the time of Zechariah, son of Jehoiada) 760 Big earthquate 760 750 Corecency from 750 (when Uzziah contracted leprosy) (the time of Amos) 742 Jotham ruled from 742 740 Start of Isaiah's ministry 738 Israel forced to pay heavy tribute to Neo-Assyrian Empire 732 Ahaz ruled from 732 (he was pro-Assyria, and a bad Jew) 720 Fall of Israel (Northern Kingdom) to Neo-Assyrian Empire after three years siege, trigge...

One of the requirements of being The Messiah was to be of the seed of David. It seems highly likely that this specifically meant a descendant though the male line. Women Are Not Important Why only the male line? Because women are not important. The Bible tells us Noah's name, and his three sons. But none of their wives gets her name recorded. Who they are is not important to the narrative. In Genesis 10, we read about Noah's descendant for the next few generations. Getting on for sixty men are named. Zero women. Genesis 35:17-18 relates how Rachel died in childbirth, but the midwife reassured her that she had had a son. Giving birth to a son was regarded as more important than surviving! Exodus 23:17 and 34:23, as well as Deuteronomy 16:16, has God demanding that all the males appear before him. As for the females, he is not interested. Leviticus 1:3 has God demanding a male sheep or goat in sacrifice; a female just will not do. Leviticus 12:2,5 tells us that a woman...

Having looked at Zechariah, I thought I would look at some other minor prophets. This is a brief overview of ten of the last twelve books of the Old Testament, known as the Minor Prophets (Hosea and Zechariah being the other two). Just 39 chapters between the ten of them. All these books except Jonah have the same general theme of anger at the sinful nature of the people, the threat of God visiting terrible calamities if it goes on, but the promise of greatness for Israel if they live according to God's laws. We can see the beginning of the Pharisaic position here; they believed that following God's laws were vital too, but the greatness for Israel had evolved into the messianic age, the coming of the kingdom of God including the resurrection of the dead. There is, however, very little to suggest The Messiah, as opposed to a messiah, a new king. Today, Christianity gives us the carrot and stick, where the carrot is the promise of heaven, and the stick is the threat of hel...

Zechariah chapters 1 to 8 are generally believed to be authentic, i.e., actually written by Zechariah around 518 BCE. The later chapters, 9 to 14, are considered later additions, though perhaps not much later, possibly added by a disciple of Zechariah a generation or so later. Background In 539 BCE, the Persians conquered Babylon, and the following year a decree by Cyrus allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem. Between 520 and 515, under the rule of Darius the Great (son-in-law of Cyrus), the second temple was built - the Persians believed in keeping their vassals happy to prevent them rebelling. Darius was considered a messiah for his actions. At this time, the High Priest was Joshua, and the Jews were ruled by Zerubbabel, who was the grandson of Jeconiah, the king who had ruled for just three months before capture by Babylon. Although Zerubbabel was of royal descent, he was not king, but rather he was governor of that province. Note that both Joshua and Zerubbabel were considered m...

Christianity is adamant that the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 52-53 is a prophecy about Jesus. The alternative position is that it is about the nation of Israel. Note that there is some evidence that Jews also took the position this was a messianic prophecy, only abandoning that when Christianity became strong. However, that certainly does not indicate it was originally intended in that way. Isaiah lived shortly before the Babylonia captivity, and many scholars believe chapters 1-39 date from that time. Chapters 40 to 55 appear to have been written much later, during the captivity, and 56 to 66 after the captivity. The evidence for this is largely internal. Only the earlier chapters mention the name "Isaiah". The part we are interested presents itself as written during the Babylonia Captivity, and it is generally accepted that that is the case. It does, however, look to a time when the Jews are free to return to Jerusalem (not relevant here, but worth noting for completene...

Cold-Case Christianity is a book by J Warner Wallace. Wallace is (was?) a detective, and he uses the techniques he learned as a cop to look at the resurrection of Jesus, among other things (a PDF of the book can be found on-line). The first 35 pages of the book are about thinking like a detective. How to look at clues, how to be logical, and how to avoid presuppositions. On page 40, we get to Jesus: An Ancient Death-Scene Investigation Now it’s time to apply this form of reasoning to a death scene that has been the topic of discussion for over two thousand years. What happened to Jesus of Nazareth? How can we explain His empty tomb? Did His disciples steal His body? Was He only injured on the cross and later recovered? Did He actually die and resurrect from the dead? We can approach these questions as detectives, using abductive reasoning. And right from the first paragraph, we see the author has presupposed something! He is assuming an empty tomb. In fairness, he goes on to...

Some Christians argue that the Gospel of Luke was written early because (among other things) it is cited by Paul. The labourer is worthy of his reward 1 Tim. 5:17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. 18 For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward. Here it is in Luke: Luke 10:7 And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house. This argument has a number of issues... The Epistle was not written by Paul Most modern scholars believe 1 Timothy to be pseudographa, written later first century or even second century. This gives it plenty of time to quote Luke. A Compilation The author of Luke makes no claim to be an eye witness, but instead is a compiler. He has collected various texts and accounts and woven them into one ...

Daniel is written from the perspective of someone living at the time of the Babylonian Captivity, and the first half is about the author keeping his faith despite many tribulations. The second half, from chapter nine onwards, are a supposed prophesy detailing what will befall Israel in the next five centuries. This prophesy is amazingly accurate up to a point, then suddenly gets a lot wrong, and most modern scholars date the book to that point, about 167 BC. Context At the time Daniel was written (assuming a later dating), Israel was ruled by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, of the Seleucid Empire. The Jews were split between those who embraced Hellenisation and those who did not. Rumours had circulate Jerusalem that Antiochus had died in battle in Egypt, and the traditionalist Jews took the opportunity to seize power. The rumours were untrue, and when Antiochus returned, he sided with the Hellenised Jews, and set about stopping the traditional practices of Judaism, and among other things ...

The Book of Daniel was one of the last written in the OT, and in many ways one of the most important. Many Christians say it prophesises Jesus, and according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus himself referenced it (also Mark 14:15, but without explicitly saying Daniel): Matthew 24:15 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’[a] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. There are two schools of thought on the dating of the Book of Daniel. It is written from the perspective of a man living through the Babylonia Captivity, seeing a vision of the future. He is told to seal up the words until they are needed: Dan 12:4 But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.” Accordingly, the text was unsealed around ,164 BC, and the book became well known. This then is the earlier dating. ...

How much of this planet is habitable? Without building a boat, plane or platform, we are limited to dry land, and a zone about about 2 m high - and even some of that is not habitable. According to here , the habitable land is slightly over 100 million km 2 , which is 10 8 km 2 or 10 14 m 2 . The habitable volume is then about 2x10 14 m 3 . But hey, we will be generous, and suppose mankind can spread across the entire world (5x10 14 m 2 ), and build up to a 1000 m up (highest building is 828 m, but still). So there is a living volume of 5x10 17 m3 on Earth. Sounds like a lot, right? Compared to how much of the solar system we cannot live it, that is nothing. The nearest star is slight over 4 light years away, so we can safely consider the solar system to be contained in a sphere of radius 2 light years (in fact that stil allows plenty of empty space between star systems). That is nearly 2x10 16 m. This gives a volume of: 4/3x3.142x(2x10 16 ) 3 3x10 49 m 3 The per...

Having spent years posting at CARM, I have come to realise a few things about certain Christians. These obviously will not apply to all Christians, but it gives some insight in to how some Christians think, and allows us to understand how the earlier gospels became embellished and accepted. ETA (18/Jun/20): CARM has crashed and lost every post, so the links will no longer worker. Some of the posters may use new names now. Dealing with Evidence I started a thread about who the author of the Gospel of Matthew is, presenting evidence that it could not be the disciple Matthew. This thread went on for nine pages, and 132 posts, and spawned two further threads. At no point did any Christian discuss the evidence in the OP at all. No Christian mentioned Markan priority or the Papias text or anything. No Christian post offered any alternative evidence. Christians just do not like evidence that might challenge their beliefs, and so just ignore it. Proof I own a certain book The cle...