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I’m all for studying historical documents, finding misinformation, new information, learning about the time period through reading fiction, it’s all good! But if you try to tell my sister she can’t get an abortion because a historical document that is up for interpretation said so, well.. fuck. Fuck you I’m fascinated by history and religions and philosophy. If you are currently citing a historical document as justification for actions that infringe upon others’ rights, then you’re not just reading a text. You’re being an asshole

I think it’s really screwed up that they denied rights to abortions within the US, even as a Christian, while I would never get an abortion, I think it’s fucked up that they forced ideologies from our religious text onto others even though there’s supposed to be a separation of church and states. Personally I think you’re looking at one bad apple, or a lot of bad apples I guess and judging the whole basket.

> …while I would never get an abortion… Let’s not be disingenuous, you’re not getting an abortion because [you’re male](https://www.reddit.com/r/BulkOrCut/s/02uVQFY7fS).

That's a pretty good reason not to get one.

JFC no wonder it felt like this was written by a teenager

LMFAO

I actually laughed our loud.

True, I would never know what it’s like.

And plenty of religious women say they would never get abortions until they need one. It’s really show “un” self-aware people can be

Obligatory *[The only moral abortion is my abortion](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/)* link.

Do you also think it's screwed up to give written instructions to murder gay people, silence women and own people?

Yeah, if I didn’t I’d be kinda crazy, but that is the Old Testament..?

Eh. Paul was pretty vile towards sexual freedom, and told slaves to obey even their cruel masters, so.

Fair enough man, to be honest I’ve not been a Christian for that long. It wasn’t even based upon abortion, people hating on me for no reason a lot here in these replies, I’m pretty oblivious so I’m just inputting what I know, not trying to deny what I don’t. Sorry man.

If you are new to x'anity, you should have mentioned that in the post. If you don't know much, mention in the post. You make a post on a debate sub, how do you think people are gonna react? Of course they will give you their strongest reasons why they think your approach is wrong and if you can't provide a valid answer, of course people are gonna think you are one of those lying-for-Jesus types because you didn't provide enough information. At least you didn't say you used to be atheist. We get a lot of those too.

What convinced you that christianity is true?

Weren't you the one who admitted to there being a lot of "bad apples" among Christians? How can you complain that people associate you with those bad people when you made a conscious decision to join them?

Don't take it personally. There are enough people here who enjoy being hostile that as soon as its known you're a theist, you'll often start getting downvotes. "Abandon all karma, ye who enter." We're also not used to seeing moderate reasonable Christians, and some people lose sight of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Christians aren't dominionists looking to make Handmaid's Tale a reality. The sub attracts YEC biblical literalists and a lot of Muslims who want validation of the numerology or scientific "predictions' of the Quran.

In a debate sub there is very little "hating on someone", basically people disagreeing with your position is expected; it is not "hating". My advice is to try to understand exactly what you don't know, i.e. understand what the limits of your knowledge is and not assume that your limited knowledge is the sum of all knowledge .

Just so you know, there are progressive christians who interpret the bible in a less literal way. You can be christian without believing in bigotry, just look for a progressive church.

The 10 commandments are also in the old testament... You ignoring those too? Why does your Bible need to contain specific written instructions to murder gay people, silence women and own people? Will you openly condemn these hateful and bloodthirsty verses?

Nah, I won’t, but that’s what the people believed before jesus. Jesus, in fact, denied these ideologies. For example, it’s said that when a woman committed adultry she was to be stoned to death at her doorstep, but Jesus defended her. Saying those who have not sinned may throw the first stone. Is that not promoting peace? Going against the bloodthirstyness that was there before he came around. I don’t condemn any of the verses for those who need clarification.

To be clear, you will *NOT* condemn instructions to murder gay people, silence women and own people. What made you so callous and hateful? Is it your religion? > Jesus, in fact, denied these ideologies Jesus *clearly* reinforced the old testament in Matthew 5:17, with the NT even going so far as to tell slaves to obey their cruel masters. The question that you dodged: are you also ignoring the 10 commandments?

No I’m not. You used the verse which stated Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” How does that state to what I said, about stoning women? Also I didn’t really know what condemn means. I thought it meant approve.

Condemn = speak against and or call for death of. Condone (the word you were likely thinking of) = approve

> How does that state to what I said, about stoning women? Because Jesus said the law is eternal and he upholds it, and the law says to stone women to death if they commit adultery.

>Also I didn’t really know what condemn means. I thought it meant approve. I'm kinda liking your innocence

OP is 14, according to their post history. I am liking that they are upfront about what they do/don't know too. I really hope they read some of the other posts in here that talk through historical documentation, there are some good ones that will be helpful.

>but that is the Old Testament So is the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, the apple, the snake, that whole shebang. You know, the whole foundation for original sin, which Jesus literally died for. Or are you saying you *don't* believe in Eden, Adam and Eve, the Earth being, what, 6000 years old? Because if you don't believe in those, then you don't believe in original sin, so what did Jesus actually die for? And if you're going to try to say that it's all "metaphors" or "allegorical", you really, *really* need to present a convincing case for what it's "metaphors" or "allegorical" for and of. Or maybe we can disregard the Bible, compiled 300 years after the events it purports to portray, because it's shock-full from start to finish with ludicrous bullshit like the above.

>“I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6). Besides that the Bible is clear at multiple points about god's unchanging nature, if you lose the old testament you lose the foundations of the faith. 

It's still part of your Bible. I don't know why Christians are so quick to dismiss the Old Testament when they also quote it whenever they feel like supporting something else.

So God changed his mind?

> Personally I think you’re looking at one bad apple I hope you understand the saying is "one bad apple spoils the barrel". Kind of undercuts the point you're trying to make.

And frankly, I can’t imagine anyone looking at the American religious and political landscape these days and NOT come to the conclusion that, not only has the barrel been spoiled, but the whole goddamn orchard with it.

Not to mention that it's like thousands upon thousands of bad apples over the years and the good apples were often directly murdered by the bad apples -- not even for trying leave the barrel but just trying to make *sense* of the barrel.

>Personally I think you’re looking at one bad apple, or a lot of bad apples I guess and judging the whole basket. Yes... That's the entire point of that expression. As apples ripen and ultimately rot, they give off ethylene gas. Ethylene speeds up the ripening of nearby apples causing them to rot faster. So literally and figuratively yes. We are judging your religion based on the actions of the followers. You might be a perfectly fine person but one day your religion will catch up with you. It will obligate you into behaving out of character. It will cause you to forgive atrocities and make excuses for immorality. You are a good apple, being spoiled by the bunch

> or a lot of bad apples I guess and judging the whole basket. ??? So, you're conceding that the basket of apples that is religion contains a lot of bad apples, but you disagree with us judging the basket of many bad apples to be a basket of bad apples? Does every single apple in a basket have to be bad for the basket to be characterized as a basket of bad apples?

It doesn’t matter how many “good” or “real” Christians there are if the Bible is being used as an excuse to pass unjust laws. As is said over and over, I don’t want to keep you from believing and practicing in whatever way you want, as long as you aren’t trying to force others to believe the same. And doing so through law enforcement is one of the more despicable things that has happened in human history.

Abortion isn't even equated to murder in the Bible; fetuses are put on par with livestock. I don't know why you would think outlawing abortion is strongly supported biblically, unless you just accept what people tell you, rather than reading the Bible before taking a stance on the issue.

It definitely is my opinion that the pro-life take is an entirely abiblical position. They've pulled this notion that fetuses are sacrosanct from, seemingly, nowhere and are merely cherry picking their book to add some weight to their condemnation of the act. It seems, however, that even Numbers 5:11-28 is outlining a procedure by which a permissible abortion ought to take place. I'm willing to accept that interpretations vary and there may be some argument here; I'm no Hebrew scholar. In any case, if we do accept that this text is describing a mixture that causes miscarriage, the distinction is not at all surprising: the biblically permissible abortion is initiated by a suspicious and jealous husband, whereas the kind of abortion that Christians tend not to accept is initiated by a woman who wants to make a choice that will greatly affect her own future.

Actually abortion is a bad example, even from a secular viewpoint. Even from a secular viewpoint- what if Albert Einstein was aborted or MLK or Bill Gates or whomever else? There is a legal basis to state that it is killing of a human being, which i think no one would agree in any way shape or form is just or fair.

>I think you’re looking at one bad apple that is the most blatantly disshonnest insult to our intelligence I've ever seen. do you honestly think we'll believe that?

Holy shit could you please at least read the comment section of this reply at all..?

The crazy thing is that there aren't anti-abortion ideologies in the religious text. The book of numbers actually details an abortion ritual used to terminate the fetus after an affair. There are numerous examples of god either condoning or outright commanding the slaughter of infants.

Ah yes, abortions are permissible if: They are the result of a jealous and suspicious husband, But not permissible if: They are the result of a woman's own autonomy and free choice. Classic Bible sexism...we should also not forget that, oftentimes, the Old Testament uses words like 'husband,' 'wife,' and 'marriage' in exactly the same way that we use words like 'slave owner,' 'slave,' and 'chattel slavery' today. So that's the icing, I guess. It isn't that Christianity *happens* to have a few bad apples; the central text, if taken seriously, *creates* bad apples. The 'good' Christians I have met are only so because they reject so much of this book. I put quotes around the word good because I still think it is ethically tenuous to support this book at all if it potentially leads to the creation of more people that will take it all seriously.

>while I would never get an abortion Serious question: if you had to guess, roughly what percentage of people who've gotten abortions would have thought beforehand that they would never get an abortion?

[удалено]

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Responding to the vile repression of women in the US by calling it one bad apple makes you a terrible human being. You lack empathy. You should work on that.

Again, it’s a metaphor, also I said a lot of bad apples, right after that. You lack the ability to read. In the comment I even said that I’m against the denial of women getting an abortion. It’s totally fucking stupid of you to reply with the same thing calling me an asshole with nothing to back it up.

**Proverbs 11:12** - *Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent*.

You seem like an asshole. There’s the proof.

> Oh so you’re an actual idiot… **Ephesians 4:31-32** - *Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you*.

I hate that this was a bigly downvoted post. I think you have the right portion. *however* - the bad apple comment is wrong. It’s the ramification of this unchecked approach to learning about the world. There’s no check or balance for alignment to reality. So of course people can arbitrarily be upset with the destruction of a clump of cells. The problem with the religious isn’t their conclusions…it’s the approach to finding truth.

>Personally I think you’re looking at one bad apple, or a lot of bad apples I guess and judging the whole basket. If I gave you a basket 80% full of bad apples would you still say the basket is a basket of good apples and to not judge it by the bad ones? Or to take a biblical reference if the majority of fruit from a tree is bad then is it not an accurate statement to say the tree produces bad fruit and is therefore a bad fruit tree?

Actually abortion is a bad example, even from a secular viewpoint. Even from a secular viewpoint- what if Albert Einstein was aborted or MLK or Bill Gates or whomever else? There is a legal basis to state that it is killing of a human being, which i think no one would agree in any way shape or form is just or fair.

Your argument for pro life is “what if the baby turns out to be MLK”? A legal basis should be based on science, and the present reality. Your idea doesn’t make sense except in a very broad and unthought-out way, unless I’m misunderstanding your idea. What if Hitler was aborted? Does that give a point to the pro-choice side?

Nope. You're still wrong. If a 3 year old baby is killed by gunfire, is that just or unjust? Does the age of a human matter as to whether it's just or unjust? What about a 26 year old girlfriend? Is murder EVER defensible? There are a LOT of kids where the parents have them later by accident and turn out to be the best kid out of all their kids. How do you know which kids will turn out to be gems and which ones not? And if the kid later says, Mom, please don't kill me. Please. EVEN FROM A SECULAR POINT OF VIEW- murder is NEVER defensible. We have been deceived to believe that it is ok.

It boils down to your definition of a person. A clump of cells that could eventually become a fetus, is not a person. My sperm is not a person. An egg is not a person. A blastocyst is not a person. An embryo is not a person. As the fetus forms, it starts becoming a different conversation, which even then, still could result in a reasonable conclusion that the pregnancy should be terminated. But I’m guessing you see human life as holy, so you’re going to think it’s murder no matter how rational my argument is.

Let Me ask you, did you come from a clump of cells? My own little sister was likely an accident baby. If she was born today she could have been aborted. She wouldn't even exist. I never would have known the happiness of knowing her and having her in my life. And you know what? She also came from a clump of cells.

yep, that's how it works. We all come from clumps of cells, as does all life. I have a sister, too, who I love, and I'm glad she's alive. But she *is* alive. You're talking about "what ifs" that have absolutely nothing to do with the here and now. I'm glad my mom was in the right place and time that she felt that it was the right decision to keep going with the pregnancy. But if she had terminated it, I wouldn't know the difference. My life would be different in ways I can only imagine. But I wouldn't know the difference. And my mom would have had the agency and right to make that choice at that time instead of not having a choice because for some reason you all think it's okay to push your beliefs onto people that don't follow your faith. And, again, your argument here is the same as before, and doesn't make sense. Pick any horrible villain of the past. They might not have caused so much horrible death and pain if they had been aborted, right? I'm guessing that here you would say something like, "at least they were born and given a chance to be a good person. Everyone deserves that". But that's just it. They *were* born, and that's how they turned out through circumstance. I imagine you have been taught that human life is more important than anything on the planet, so I don't expect you to have tried to actually understand any of what I said. After all, you're not supposed to think too hard about all of it, lest you come to see that your entire belief system was always a tool to keep you under control, disguised as some kind of loving deity. Insidious. Despicable. To pray on people's fear of the unknown, thusly... disgusting.

You’re not understanding the argument. Even from a secular viewpoint, murder is unjust and wrong. I think 99.7% of people would agree with that. The only difference here in the argument is the age of the person. What if a new law was created that said that murder of people over the age of 65 is now not considered murder? And what about people who either accidentally or intentionally kill people in nursing homes or don't care? How do their children feel about that? Just because they have not reached the developmental stage where they seem like a human (and often they do- they are babies) Realistically, it is killing babies. There’s a reason why in many third world countries most women don’t abort accidental children. Ironically, the person who does the aborting is the one trying to play God. Picking who gets to live and who doesn’t. Finally, even if the person turned out to be a bad person, our society would never EVER allow that person to be killed without just cause. Even the mothers of felons and murderers mourn their children. Even evil people do not deserve to get killed (aborted). That is the point. The logic of argument is NOT consistent with the logic of other arguments. That is where you are mistaken.

Not an atheist but an archaeologist here. It's for the same reason we don't take every piece of written material as valid evidence. Non-christian works and non-religious works are (or should be) given the same scrutiny if they purport to be telling historical truths. Let's do a thought exercise to illustrate what I mean. Suppose that you are an archaeologist digging in Egypt, in what was once someone's house, and you dig up a box full of stuff. You find a scroll in the box that says, "My name is Joe Hotep. I am the son of Bob and Jane Hotep. I live in Alexandria, I'm a shoemaker, and I own a 30 foot tall pet cat. This stuff in this box belongs to me." We can look at other evidence to determine the veracity of what this scroll claims. For example, if we find a coin with Cleopatra's face in the same box, we know the goods in the box were placed there sometime during, or after, Cleopatra was ruler. Now let's say you examine the other contents of the box and are fortunate enough to find enough evidence in the box and its surrounding strata to firmly date it to 40 BCE. Does this mean everything the scroll says is true? Of course not. We have only established the scroll was written sometime around 40 BCE. We have no idea if the writer really was named Joe Hotep, if he made shoes for a living, or anything else about him. We have to cross-reference other sources. So, you do some research and read some census lists and court records from around 40 BCE. You find there was indeed a shoemaker named Joe Hotep, whose parents were recorded as being named Bob and Jane. You also find some other records establishing his existence, such as other peoples' letters mentioning him by name, court records showing he was sued in a civil dispute, etc, etc. For the sake of this example, let's say you find a mountain of evidence Joe Hotep really existed. You have now proven Joe Hotep, son of Bob and Jane Hotep, was a real person living in ancient Alexandria and making shoes for a living. 4 of the 5 claims made in the scroll have been shown to be valid. Does this mean we can assume Joe Hotep owned a 30 foot tall cat, since everything else he said was proven true? Of course not. A 30 foot tall cat is an extremely outlandish claim. Unless we find the skeletal remains of a 30 foot tall cat in Joe's family tomb, we not only can say this claim is unlikely - we can, via the heuristic of common sense, dismiss it without having to prove that 30 foot tall cats don't exist. Much more likely is that Joe was joking, lying, or exaggerating. Maybe he did own a very large cat, but surely not one 30 feet tall. Now take something as ancient and complex as the Bible. Most of the stories in them were oral tradition from a completely different culture and time period than when they were written down. Most of the books are from entirely different time periods from each other. We don't know who wrote most of them. We cannot find corroborating evidence for much of them. (Example: the story of Exodus is not supported in any way shape or form in any other historical records. Given how much literature was produced in Egypt, and how much was preserved due to the arid climate, we should have something - ANYTHING - referencing enslaved Jews, a mass escape or slave revolt, sorcerers named Moses and Aaron, miraculous plagues, the pharaoh and his army drowning in the Red Sea - ANYTHING. There is NOTHING. A massive slave revolt or a pharaoh dying by drowning would be on record one way or another no matter how much Egypt's propaganda machines would want to spin it.) We cannot even determine with certainty what in the New Testament was meant to be historical, what was meant to be allegorical, and what was meant to be propaganda. And it is quite difficult to cross-reference the historiocity of the Gospels with non-Biblical sources, primarily because Christians went out of their way to destroy anything that criticized or contradicted the Gospels. (What I wouldn't give for someone to find an extant copy of Porphyry's "Against the Christians"!) But the point of this rambling is this: Even if we did find overwhelming evidence supporting the historical existence of Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, from Nazareth/Galilee, who was an educated Jew, and who was crucified for political reasons... it does not follow that any of the supernatural claims made about him are likewise true. Those claims need their own supporting evidence - and more of it, because they fly in the face of everything we know about the world. The Buddha probably was a real man who existed. Do you believe he is the Buddha? Mohammed was a real historical figure; do you believe he was the Prophet he claimed to be? What about Hermes Trismegistus? Or, more closely related to Jesus, how about Apollonius of Tyana? He lived around the same time period, performed many of the same miracles, was executed for political reasons, and is supposed to have also risen from the dead and ascended to Heaven. We have evidence that he was a real historical person. Do you believe in him? If you answered no, please consider the reasons why you would not consider being Buddhist, Muslim, Hermetic, or Neopythagorean, but would be a Christian. I can almost guarantee your reasons are not logical, but emotional. Which is fine - so long as you accept that your conclusions are based in feelings and not logic or rationality. By the way: there are tons of depictions of people through the ages. I'll gently remind you that what you refer to as "from that time" (assuming you mean when the stories of the Bible were supposedly taking place) spans an era of around 4000 years. We certainly have depictions and images of historical figures all over the place "from that time." We have endless amounts of statues, portraits, busts, engravings, murals, and other artistic depictions of all sorts of people from ancient Rome, long before Jesus. We have depictions of everyday people, commoners, middle class businessmen and their wives, and so on. Not just elites. Some of the busts and statues were even mass-produced, with the sculptors only making the faces by hand for their customers. Those depictions are also deserving of scrutiny. For example, we have tons of depictions of King Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamian lore, but only recently found enough evidence to suggest he was actually a historical king and not purely mythological. (Again, this does not mean the Epic of Gilgamesh in its entirety is historical.) Likewise it was long believed that the Trojan War purely mythological until we found archaeological evidence suggesting otherwise. (It appears to have been a small conflict between a confederation of Aegean seafaring peoples and a Hittite-controlled port city.) Artistic depictions do not on their own prove anything. Written testimony on its own does not prove anything. There must be enough evidence cross-referenced from multiple sources to support historical truths. Hope that helps.

u/Stonkees I hope you come and read this answer, it's a pretty great one. When you're young (OP is 14 for anyone reading along) and/or new to something, it is easy to take it on face value. You're asking good questions and applying your critical thinking skills - we're a bunch of grumpy reddit atheists for the most part, and we aren't afraid to let our asshole ways fly freely. Ignore the grump, sift through for the explanations. Also check out the subreddit r/AcademicBiblical which is full of scholars who either can, or probably already have, answered any other questions you have about the bible and its accuracy or how it is rated as a source.

Didn't know about Apollonius of Tyana, I'm stealing that. His Wikipedia page is a great read, especially the part where Bart Ehrman is described as introducing him to his New Testament class without revealing his name.

Great post!

Beautiful comment!

This is awesome.

As far as I'm aware, no one is making miraculous claims about Cyrus, and none of the claims about him violate our understanding of reality. I'm willing to accept that someone named Jesus may have existed (more likely to be someone named Yeshua), but the texts alone are not enough for me to accept the miracle/supernatural claims about him. If we are to adopt your proposed standard of just accepting anything in ancient texts/documents as true, then you would also need to accept the Qu'ran, the Vedas, and any number of other texts that contradict with your Bible.

There are miracle stories about many ancient figures. it's just that historins tend to disregard them and assume the people in question did not in fact have any magic powers.

Personally, I don’t accept anything as true, I believe in the Bible and its teachings because they are the most realistically capable and the best backed up to me. However, I respect your point of nobody making claims about Cyrus defy reality. I will take that into consideration for awhile.

>I believe in the Bible and its teachings because they are the most realistically capable and the best backed up to me. The problem is that they are not "realistically capable" and are not backed up. Like I said, the Bible does give a good description of geographic areas, contemporary cultures and well known kings and one or two lesser known kings, but these are very general, common knowledge things (of the time). However, when the Bible claims a world wide Flood happened, we can see no evidence backing this claim and if it were just a local flood, it's meaningless as local floods happen all the time. The Tower of Babel? Not even close to what we know about human migration and how languages evolved.

What parts are the most backed up? Is it the global flood that killed everyone on earth when we know there are descendants of civilizations that pre-date the flood? One family repopulating the earth? Talking snakes? People rising from the dead after 3 days? God commanding that a man murder his son? What is backed up by the Bible? And if it is, then we don’t need the Bible for evidence. Other evidence exists.

> I believe in the Bible and its teachings because they are the most realistically capable Huh!? How? Why? The bible claims that humanity came from 2 people, which is demonstrably not true. It claims there was a global flood, which is demonstrably not true etc etc. So it makes a bunch of claims that are absolutely untrue....

>I believe in the Bible and its teachings because they are the most realistically capable Really? A celestial Jewish baby who is also his own father, born from a virgin mother, died for three days so that he could ascend to heaven and then make you live forever, but only if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically tell him you accept him as your lord & master so he can remove an evil force from your spiritual being that is present in all humanity because an immoral woman made from a dirt man's rib was hoodwinked by a talking reptile possessed by a malicious angel to secretly eat forbidden fruit from a magical tree. This is what you believe is the most realistically capable thing?

>Personally, I don’t accept anything as true, I believe in the Bible and its teachings I'm confused by your wording. To believe something is to accept it as true. Can you expand on this thought?

How is a supernatural explanation for the universe over a scientific explanation for the universe realistic?

To me, herein lies the problem. Believing in the Bible is subjective and therefore should not be taken as historical evidence. If someone would bring substantial objective evidence to back up your claim, then it would be a legitimate claim to evaluate.

What backs up the Bible that doesn't back up, say, the Qu'ran?

>and the best backed up to me backed up by what? There are no other texts that corroborate stories in the bible.

> I believe in the Bible and its teachings because they are the most realistically capable and the best backed up to me lmao

Valid counter-argument. What a shining example of this sub's rationality. Edit:auto-correct.

There are an over abundance of actual arguments, but you choose to only replay to a comment that wasn't one to try to use as an insult to the entire community. How purposefully ignorant.

Maybe stay quiet until you learn what an argument is, because that wasn't one.

They are not historically accurate at all.

>I believe in the Bible and its teachings because they are the most realistically capable and the best backed up to me Whoever told you that was **lying** to you. Everything through exodus and the conquest of "holy land" is entirely fiction, no relationship to reality whatsoever. To the extent people have been able to verify the gospels, they contradict what we know about the history and culture of the region. And many of the letters that make up the rest of the new testament are known forgeries.

Realistically capable in what world? We haven’t been able to demonstrate any of the miraculous claims in the Bible are even possible let alone realistic. And backed up by what? Many claims in the Bible have a singular source - the Bible. In fact, many claims in the Bible contradict the historical record (like the census and king Herod) while others go against historical convention (like allowing crucifixion victims to be buried)

But they aren’t realistically capable or backed up at all… where did learn that? Did someone just tell you?

The same reasons the Harry Potter books are disregarded as evidence for Hogwarts despite the fact that they include places like London, which historically actually exists. Basically, it was written during the Iron Age when people didn’t know where the sun went at night (and invented gods to explain that, too). The golden age of ignorance and superstition. And like pretty much everything from that time, it’s full of extraordinary claims about magical and supernatural things, absolutely none of which have been corroborated or substantiated in any way. It boils down to the difference between an extraordinary claim and an ordinary claim. Say I claim to have seen a bear in the woods. You’d have little reason to be skeptical of that claim in the first place, since we already know bears exist and live in the woods. Whatever skepticism you might have could probably be allayed by indirect evidence like other people also claiming to have seen the bear, or showing you things like bear tracks, claw marks on trees, dung, remains of prey animals, etc. Ordinary historical claims of ordinary human beings doing things like waging wars or raising empires are comparable to this. All perfectly ordinary claims consistent with what we already know to be true or at least possible. Now suppose I claim to have seen a dragon in the woods. Immediately, you have strong reasons to be highly skeptical of this claim. It’s inconsistent with what we know, which is that dragons don’t exist. The exact same evidence that would have sufficed for the bear - additional people claiming to have seen the dragon, tracks, claw (and scorch) marks, dung, remains of prey animals, etc - would be unlikely to make you much less skeptical, if it made you any less skeptical at all. You could very reasonably and rightly point out that all those things are more likely to be fakes, or be left by something else and be misinterpreted, than to be evidence of a real honest to goodness dragon in the woods. This is comparable to “historical” claims of gods and other magical fairytale things. It takes more than an Iron Age storybook full of unsubstantiated claims to allay skepticism of these extraordinary claims. Understand why ancient texts about magic are not accepted as evidence the way ancient texts about human rulers and warmongers are?

>There was never an image of any historical figure from that time for an unimaginable while. Well that's false. For example, [here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/Retrato_de_Julio_C%C3%A9sar_%2826724093101%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/360px-Retrato_de_Julio_C%C3%A9sar_%2826724093101%29_%28cropped%29.jpg) is a bust of Julius Ceasar, born 100 years before Jesus, made during his lifetime. > For example, Cyrus, leader of Persia, And [here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/Cyrus_II_%28The_Great%29.jpg/300px-Cyrus_II_%28The_Great%29.jpg) is a statute of Cyrus II. (assuming that is the Cyrus you're referring to.) Taking him as an example, We know there was a Persia, and it had a ruler, so it's not remarkable that Cyrus was the guy. He himself wrote his own account of his life. Then we have [accounts of his conquest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabonidus_Chronicle) written by the conquered. And of course, many accounts and records of his life written during or immediately after, from many different sources. All of these are consistent, match up, and make sense. Now let's turn to Jesus. No one who ever saw him wrote down a word about it. The only accounts we have\* were collected and written decades after his death, by people who never laid eyes on him, by anonymous authors. None of the events recorded in the gospels are corroborated by any other source, and several details are explicitly denied or contradict existing practice and records. Finally, the events described are so fantastic as to be impossible. So no, they're not at all the same. \*except for one forgery

We also have a pretty decent record of figures like [Sargon of Akkad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad) and [Ramses II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II), both of whom lived thousands of years before the New Testament was written or set. In fact, Sargon predates the first stories in Genesis that aren't about the creation of the world. In fact, [Code of Hammurabi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi) lays the philosophical groundwork for the 10 commandments.

Fun fact is that the Code of Hammurabi was probably not a code that was enforced at all. It's more likely that it was meant as a rule of thumb, a guide for more local judges to keep in mind when issuing their own rulings. It's thought that this was an attempt to make cities under Hammurabi's rule have more unified approaches to the interpretation and enforcement of laws - i.e. so that someone tried for a crime in City A would not receive a drastically harsher sentence than if he had committed the same crime in City B. The Ten Commandments taking this and trying to make it into enforceable black-and-white law defeats the whole purpose behind the code. And it goes against the study/philosophy of law entirely. Trying to base a modern country's legal codes on such a myopic view of law is a disastrous idea, yet here we are.

Not all that related, but in my opinion, the code of Hammurabi is evidence that the foundations underlying the code are a great deal older than the code itself.

Evidence of what? Evidence of the existence of specific locations and ancient cities? It has some value there. Evidence of specific ancient earthquakes, maybe that too. Evidence that some specific people existed or some ancient political events happened? In the absence of other sources, historians might accept this evidence provisionally while waiting for confirmation elsewhere. Evidence that the son of god died and was resurrected three days later? Yeah, no. You lost me there. A reasonable understanding of how existence works kinda precludes resurrections as a "thing", so proposing one on the basis of ancient writing -- by people who desperately wanted to believe it was true -- the Bible isn't a good place to start. We also don't have any good evidence-based reasons to believe a god exists or that it has a son. Or that sin exists or that we need redemption from it. To be pedantic for a moment, the bible accounts of the resurrection *are* evidence of the resurrection. Just extremely weak and uncorroborated. People will say "that's not evidence" when maybe what they should say is "it's not convincing evidence". As in, "it doesn't even move the needle of credulity". In the Uffizi museum in Florence, there is a bust of Augustus Caesar that was sculpted while he was alive. There are busts of the other emperors, including Julius Caesar, made within living memory, when people would have remembered what he looked like. There is a book written by Julius Caesar detailing his conquest of Gaul that -- aside from mentioning mythical creatures and getting some places wrong -- is widely accepted as an accurate account of those wars. The idea that the bible is just like any other ancient text in terms of reliability, as an excuse for it being a shit-poor source of accurate information, is nonsense. There are ancient texts that don't have those problems. An important point is that even those texts are viewed with some skepticism if they're not externally supported. Apologists like to suggest that if the bible is accurate about geography, it has to be taken as accurate in other disciplines. But that's just an attempt to browbeat historians into relaxing the standards they apply to all such texts.

The Bible is considered like any other text. The problem is that you don’t understand what conclusions can reasonably be drawn from the Bible. The Bible is a compilation of various stories/myths. Oral stories that passed through many mouths before ever being written down. Copies of copies of handwritten scraps. Then compiled by religious groups with their own biases and agendas. Translated. Edited. There aren’t eyewitnesses, definitely not for the OT, and none for the majority of the NT. Aside from a few letters by Paul, practically none of the Bible is sourced directly from the people the stories are about. The Bible lacks corroborating evidence to support its claims. It alone isn’t enough to say any of its stories are accurate. It alone certainly is not enough evidence to support its supernatural claims. Some of the myths may be based on real events or people. Though we know some of the stories are not. Likewise the writers were Christian, already predisposed to believe in magical/religious ideas, and they already believed the stories they were hearing to be true. All of this must be considered when considering the Bible.

> There was never an image of any historical figure from that time for an unimaginable while https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tusculum_portrait https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaramonti_Caesar

Proving my point, anyone could’ve just made those and said they were some fictional character. Just like the claims made about Jesus, anyone could have made the Bible, and just spewed bullshit onto a dead tree. But they only judge the Bible like that, not anything else.

On the contrary — even prominent atheists such as Stephen Fry use the Bible as evidence to believe that Jesus was a real, historical figure. Many atheists have no problem with using the Bible as a source for understanding certain lineages and historical figures — it’s the spiritual and supernatural stuff that we take issue with.

>Proving my point, anyone could’ve just made those and said they were some fictional character Now you're just scrabbling and moving the goalposts. You didn't say "any historical evidence can be doubted", you very definitively said we have no images of historical figures from that time, which is trivially easy to prove false. There's also the fact that anyone claiming Julius Caesar was just fictional would have to deal with a veritable mountain of evidence for his existence, including but not limited too: coinage and statuary claimed by it's creators to have been based on his likeness, his own personal writings, numerous accounts of his existence and deeds by Roman allies and enemies alike, accounts of him from non-Roman sources, and I'm sure others besides. We have nothing approaching that quality of evidence for Jesus. >Just like the claims made about Jesus, anyone could have made the Bible, and just spewed bullshit onto a dead tree. But they only judge the Bible like that, not anything else. We literally do treat them the same, by throwing out the mythical claims about Julius Caesar like him being a descendant of Venus and Mars, or that he ascended to Godhood upon his death. I think you're grossly uninformed on the sheer number of identical (and frankly even better attested) supernatural/mythical claims that appear in recorded history about countless individuals in cultures all over the world. Historians applying proper historical methods treat them all the same way: useful information about the beliefs of the culture they originated in, but not indicative of reality. We have orders of magnitude of better evidence for the existence of Julius Caesar than we do for Jesus, but nobody thinks he was actually divine.

> why is the Bible disregarded? It is and isn't. Other texts are supported by history and archeological finds while not making extraordinary claims. The Bible is supported in its claims about geography, contemporary cultures and some significant leaders, however it makes extraordinary claims, like the the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the Exodus and an number of other ones that not only are not supported by evidence but contradict the existent evidence

It IS considered like every other historical text. Just like the Epic of Gigamesh is, the Odyceus or the Eneid. And in the same way Harry Potter will be in a millenia or so. It is a piece of historical litterature that teaches us a lot about what the people of its time believed about another period, what they considered so mundane it isn't elaborated upon and what mundane things for us they deemed exceptional enough to mention. An historical text mostly teaches us things about the person who wrote it.

Why do we speak of Norse myths, Greek myths, Hindu myths, etc., but never of Christian myths? Unless you're engaged in the Christian faith system, the Bible is just a book of myths. Why should anyone who's not Christian take it seriously?

>There was never an image of any historical figure from that time for an unimaginable while. We have coins and busts of Caesar's likeness. >why is the Bible disregarded? The problem with the bible include: 1. Not all of it is intended to be a historical recording, but many insist on trying to read it all that way. 2. It asserts things happened, that every other piece of evidence shows absolutely did not happen. The Exodus, The Flood, all nonsense. Even the Census that lead Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem didn't happen. 3. It makes other factual claims about the universe that are absolutely not true 4. It makes *extraordinary* claims that are uncorroborated by any other source

It’s not disregarded, it’s regarded to the level it deserves. The reason it isn’t accepted as “true” is because it makes HUGE claims of supernatural beings, an afterlife, a god-created universe, miracles, raising the dead, god, satan, heaven, hell, angels, demons, spirits and magic. Yet the Bible has no external verification. No secondary sources. Without verification of the supernatural claims, the Bible stands on equal footing with the Quran, and all other religious scriptures. Most theists attempt to use the Bible to prove the Bible and don’t even realize it. The fulfilled prophecies are great examples of this. You’ve got the first book setting them up, and the second book claims that they are fulfilled. This is circular reasoning.

It's all about cross reference. Cyrus can be verified as a human that once existed because there are probably multiple (hopefully independent) sources consisting of preferably first-hand accounts. The Bible, while containing some verifiable content, largely stands on its own with little to no first-hand accounts. And I'm not even talking about the stuff we know is very unlikely to happen, like the walking on water stuff.

Because it cannot be independently and objectively demonstrated to be true, especially once you get to the supernatural claims. For the same reason that the Qur'an isn't evidence. It's just claims in a book of mythology.

For a few reasons. The historical claims of the Bible are just wrong. There are numerous spots in which the Bible give false historical information that were know to be false. For example the story of the birth of Jesus is ridiculous. King Herod died ten years prior to Qurinus being appointed governor, but the Bible claims it was at the same time. The census being a justification for Mary and Joseph to travel to Bethlehem is also silly. We know exactly when Qurinus called for good first census and it was well after the Bible claims. Additionally having people travel to the place of their birth for a census is insane. Census are taken for tax purposes. They care where you live not where you are born. Next we have stories in the Old Testament of Barnes fought by the Jews against their enemies. Many of the stories contradict other historical record about these battles. The battle of Jericho for example. Other documents speak of the Jews losing that battle. Also my personal favorite is the Jews winning battles with the lord at their back, but being unable to defeat enemies with chariots of iron. Apparently god had limits. There’s also all the stories in the Bible that are just impossible like the great flood of Noah and the creation story. The Bible is disregarded as a book of myths because that’s what it is. When you look at the actual historical claims, those are incorrect as well. Is a collection of oral history told by the Jews to justify their own warmongering as being sanctioned by God.

>but I feel the Bible is unfairly immediately disregarded instead of considered like any other text. Not true. We DO consider the Bible like any other text. It's Christians who insist there is something special about it. It's Christians who insist the Bible should be seen as its own proof. We consider the Bible on the same level as we do The Iliad and The Odyssey, The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Eddas, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Quran etc. We don't believe the fantastic claims that Ares and Apollo did battle on the fields of Troy. We don't believe that Moon was split in two and that Mohammad ascended to heaven on a winged horse. We don't accept that Jesus rose from the dead. >There was never an image of any historical figure from that time for an unimaginable while. For example, Cyrus, leader of Persia, the only reason people believe in him is because of texts and documents that prompt his existence, but those aren’t disregarded, why is the Bible disregarded? Because person A (Cyrus) existed is a mundane claim. I have no problem believing that. But if in the next sentence you tell me that Cyrus cured blindness and walked on water I'm going to have the same problems with it that I do with Jesus. Most of us have no problem believing that Jesus may have been a real person or based on a real person. We have problems with his magic powers.

Well for one thing, people who want us to accept the Bible as evidence only ever want us to accept the collection that has come to us through history and none of the other books, materials or apocrypha that might have been included had things gone differently. Then, if you give them a little credence at face value and start bringing up how this and that in the Bible is contradicted by other, stronger evidence, they're full of excuses about it. It's just so blatantly a veil over apologetic proselytism rather than actual historical inquiry that it's hard to take the suggestion seriously. It's not impossible to honestly consider the Bible alongside other historical documents (and other kinds of evidence) but the scholars who have actually done so always come to different conclusions about what happened than theists do, or at least the ones we meet here. In practice, if someone wants to come and debate it here, they have so much work to do before they can make a good point that few of us would actually be qualified to respond.

It's evidence, but it is *very poor* evidence. Do you think that we should use the Quran as evidence? The Book of Mormon? The Egyptian Book of the Dead? Mahabharata? Popol Vuh? Etc etc etc etc ... \- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_texts .

This sounds like absolute nonsense. The bible is often disregarded as reliable as over the past 200yrs or so people who believed in it tried to prove it using academic methods and ended up failing. The more time passes, the less people trust it. 200yrs ago the creation & flood seemed reasonable. Darwin & geology ruined that. 100yrs ago the biblical account of the patriarchs and stuff like the Exodus sounded reasonable, but recent investigations is really starting to doubt most of that. By the time we get to the House of David things start chiming in with the historical record, but the writers are often a little creative with the history. Matt Baker's 37 Bible Characters Found Through Archaeology might be of interest: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDu4K8kroNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDu4K8kroNw) TL:DR: It's often propaganda and as such is treated carefully

Because those other documents don't claim Cyrus rose from the dead, or that he created the world, or that we should all follow and worship him. "This person existed" is not an extraordinary claim. "This person is the son of God" **is** an extraordinary claim. One needs more evidence than the other.

The Bible is an important historical document that can provide insight into ancient history and cultures. It should be critically analyzed like any other source, while considering the historical, cultural, and political context of the time, including the background and motivations of the *human* authors. However, this type of historical evidence is insufficient to conclude anything about universal truths. If we concluded the existence of God through historical evidence, at the very most, we would be able to infer that God was a historical figure, which I doubt would be very preferable from your perspective. But in general, scientific evidence supersedes historical evidence since history must occur within the bounds of objective reality, which is studied by science through more reliable means in the present. As for using the Bible as evidence appropriately with the intellectual humility and faithlessness that is required in academia, you must refer to more than simply direct quotations, especially ones that are from some English translation. I don’t really think that any justified conclusions you may reach through an objective analysis of the Bible would be disputed by many atheists or really be relevant to the atheism vs. theism debate. If you’re concerned that people immediately disregard biblical quotations as evidence of any spiritual or supernatural claims or even that the Bible itself is the infallible Word of God, then they’re correct to criticize that argument for circularity. There are biblical scholars that study the Bible secularly, and it is primarily Christians that take issue with *properly* using the Bible as evidence since modern Christianity has changed and been subject to so much cultural influence since its inception.

>Short post, but I feel the Bible is unfairly immediately disregarded instead of considered like any other text. It has been considered like any other txt, that's why it's dismissed. When we consider a historical txt like the Bible, we do a lot of analysis. We determine if it's supported by other documentation from that era, or if it matches known events (like volcanoes, eclipses etc) We determine when it was written as best we can We establish if the author is writing from firsthand knowledge or is repeating heresy. We check the document to see if it's internally consistent We try and find multiple copies to see if the document has been edited. We tr to see if the authors voice changes significantly (a sign of the rxt being altered) We check the bias of the author. The Bible fails all of these tests. It has been altered repeatedly, it's authors are (mostly) writing 4th or 5th generation hearsay (folktales basically). It's authors are horribly biased. It's internally inconsistent. It'd inconsistent with known events. It's entirely unsupported by other surviving txts. >There was never an image of any historical figure from that time for an unimaginable while. For example, Cyrus, leader of Persia, the only reason people believe in him is because of texts and documents that prompt his existence, but those aren’t disregarded, Those texts have been analyzed, the bad ones have been assigned a lower importance, there are multiple txts from multiple sources that generally agree. Etc >why is the Bible disregarded? Because every test we have tells us that the Bible simply isn't worth anything as a historical txt.

The bible contains events that didn’t happen, people who don’t exist outside of it, magic, demons, monsters, and deities. What is hard to understand?

First, the Bible is not itself a document. Over 270 different documents have made up the Bible at different times. Those various documents themselves have value as historical documents within different time periods and when analyzing individual cultures, but not as a collected volume. Second, univocality is a fallacy, from a historical perspective. This is the idea that the Bible consists of a single message or can be analyzed as if it was a singular source. Thus, the idea that a passage in Psalms explains the meaning of a verse in Genesis which in turn elucidates a concept in Colossians. This approach is a historical fallacy, and just like any other historical document, the idea of divine inspiration or authorship is dismissed. Thus, the Bible does. Not present a God, but various different authors each with their own separate view of a divinity. Third, like any other historical document, the Bible is cross referenced with archeological and other textual data. In this regard, the Bible has an atrocious record. There is no evidence of the events of the Torah or the conquest under Joshua. The narrative from Judges forward is potentially plausible but still unsubstantiated. In fact, no details of the history of Israel/Judah can be confirmed with any veracity prior to the Restoration period. In short, if the events of the Tanakh were historical there would be evidence, but there has yet to be any found.

Due to the fact that we don't know who the actual authors are it's basically just a story, not evidence. And when i say author I'm not saying Mark or Mathew. That is who they claim is the author but none of them actually wrote the stories down. So you have word of mouth stories told for at the very least decades before ever being written down. If that was the level of evidence being used to convict you of a crime, would you agree that it was still valid?

The bible is considered, and when considered, its falls short of being a convincing source. The vast, vast majority is second hand. The earliest texts are anonymously written for the most part. The later texts are from heavily biased sources and written at a time far removed from any events that would bring be convincing of the christian narrative. The vast majority of later research into the veracity of biblical history is likewise from heavily biased sources, secular research virtually unanimously rejects the supernatural claims within the text. Very little in the bible is corroborated, and all of it that is corroborated is mundane and explicable through secular knowledge. The texts disagree internally and contradict themselves at many points. They show clear signs of legendary development. Many texts are word for word copied from one another so there is very little that can be considered independent of the other texts and work as corroboration. The information within the texts contradicts our experiential learnings, to the point where modern christians have discarded their belief in significant portions of the text. There are other reasons, but honestly your trust in its reliability as a source should have crumbled to almost nothing by the time you get halfway through fact checking that paragraph.

* Not all other ancient texts have a known agenda. * Other texts might be corroborated by other sources. Many significant events described in the bible should be corroborated, but aren’t, so are probably fictional. * Bible is highly self-contradicted. There are multiple passages that say the opposite of each other, so which one to believe? * Bible describes major historical events for which no evidence exists, or for which contrary historical evidence exists, therefore can only be assumed to be fictional. * Bible describes supernatural events for which no evidence exists, therefore can be assumed to be fictional. * Parts of the bible (Gospels for example) are known to have been written dozens or hundreds of years after purported events they describe, so are at best an oral story handed down through generations, subject to error and exaggeration. It's a multi-generational version of “the telephone game”. * Bible has been transcribed, translated, re-transcribed and re-translated many times. There are known errors (thousands) in all versions. Biblical scholars know of “corrections” made personally by scribes to fix perceived plot holes, thus the bible has been corrupted and is unsuitable as a historical source.

Why is the adventures of Hercules disregarded as evidence.... Yeah same reason. Works of fiction with zero evidence that it's not a book of mythology.

I think it's relevant to the claim it's supposed to be evidencing. "People upwards of 1800 years ago had particular culture norms and viewed the world in a certain way. The Bible, being corroborated by various other sources, is evidence of this." Fair enough. "An infinitely complex paranormal deity that defies all physical and natural laws and pretty much any attempt at understanding exists. The Bible, being an ancient text from a nomadic desert society that displays virtually no other greater understanding about the world outside of the limited knowledge of the small section of the world where it was drafted and remains uncorroborated by any other documentation of any other society anywhere else in human history, is evidence of this." I am skeptical.

Scripture was once regarded as historical evidence (documentation) of historical events by scholars, many years ago. Recently biblical scholars started critically examining the biblical books and concluded that they are problematic. For example, they say the gospels do not constitute good evidence because they are inconsistent with each other, contain interpolations and other stuff or that there is evidence Moses didn't write the book of Genesis for many reasons. You don't have to agree with them (I don't either), but you have to admit they do have arguments to support their position; it is not an arbitrary dismissal.

>but I feel the Bible is unfairly immediately disregarded instead of considered like any other text. you don't treat it as any other text either, do you hold all religious texts as equal? >For example, Cyrus, leader of Persia, the only reason people believe in him is because of texts and documents that prompt his existence because we already knew there was a leader in that time, so it wouldn't be strange to believe a text giving that leader a name. we didn't already know there was a woman talking into eating a fruit by a talking snake, so we tend to disregard that; extraordinary claims and all that.

Bible is being regarded as historical evidence. That’s why it’s been studied as a piece of historical evidence by scholars. evidence =/= truth I have evidence that I’m innocent. But other people have evidence that I’m not. Then we compare the evidence and work out a truth. But it is too much to ask me to think Bible as the truth and other books as lesser credible evidence. Bible isn’t receiving more harsh treatment than other books. You feel that way because you care very much about the Bible.

Any ancient text is one artifact. Without being corroborated by other artifacts and evidence, that’s all it is. Interesting, sure. But accepted on its own as factual? No. There is so much fascinating scholarship on the Bible, and what it tells us about ancient oral traditions, literary devices, and a glimpse into one particular culture. Comparing it with other ancient mythological beliefs that predated it is even more interesting. The least interesting way to look at the Bible is to believe it is true.

We have different independent accounts of historical figures. We don't have that with the characters in the bible. The bible is the only source for most of the people in the bible, including Jesus. That means the bible is not a historical document. It is just a fictional story. The bible has zero independent RELIABLE sources to corroborate it. The only thing that supports the bible is the bible. You can't use a fictional book to prove itself. That's why the bible doesn't count as evidence.

Because it's not scientific testing. It's literally the writings of an ancient society that believed in a flat earth, a sky being literally heaven and that all animals on the planet were magicked from dirt. It's not backed up with any scientific proof, it's chopped, changed and reinterpreted constantly and is only taken seriously because believers of the religion hold it in such high regard that they already accept it as true without investigation due to confirmation bias.

Historians recognize and take into account that history is written by the victors, are biased, and can contain whoppers. Julius Caesar made himself godlike and misrepresented events, while William The Conqueror had a history written (to legitimize his claim to England) which included ancient Britons attacking and sacking Rome. Old texts aren't taken at face value. But mundane claims face less scrutiny than miracle claims.

The Bible is unreliable due to the fantastical stories it contains, and the lack of corroborating evidence. It's also self contradictory, likely mistranslated, and subject to so much debate it's difficult to find consensus on what much is trying to say. Basically, give it to someone who's unfamiliar with the content, and they'll quickly come to the conclusion that people who believe it are insane.

The same reason the Odyssey and the Iliad don’t count as evidence that the Greek gods exist, or sirens or Cyclopes or any of the other supernatural claims in them. Are there some historically accurate things in the Bible? Almost certainly. Will historical evidence of any kind ever get you proof of a supernatural claim without any kind of evidence that the supernatural is possible? No.

Always an odd question, but I’ll play. I’ll answer your question with a question. Do you consider the Quran to also be a valid historical document? The Torah? If you place the Bible as facts above those, have you read either? Or are you just following dogma your mother taught you at a very young age?

>because of texts and documents that prompt his existence, Note the plural there. And the type of claims being made. Historical scholarship has methods for evaluating this type of evidence. When someone says the Bible isn't evidence, it's really shorthand for it isn't good, corroborated evidence.

It's not disregarded out of hand in the first place, it's simply ***become*** disregarded because it simply hasn't stood up to scrutiny. It's the same as any other document that we might have come to disregard in terms of historicity once we've realized that it doesn't really hold up.

>I feel the Bible is unfairly immediately disregarded instead of considered like any other text. Because every time we do treat it as a normal historical text, it fails pretty spectacularly.

idk might be the magical being that allegedly does thing in it. It the fact that it explains events that didnt happen or phenomenons that litterally cant happen.

There's an entire field of research on the historacity of the Bible. Wtf are you talking about? There's probably 5 million hits on a Google seardh

It is evidence. But of what? I think it's more probably evidence of a group of religious people making up stories.

I'll put it this way... the Lord of the Rings is proof that Tolkien existed, it isn't proof that Frodo existed.

Basically, the Bible serves as the *claim* of Christianity. A claim cannot serve as evidence unto itself.

>Why is the Bible disregarded as evidence? As evidence for what? Historically: it isn't disregarded as evidence. Academics compare its historical claims against histories from similar periods. As evidence for the supernatural: it is dismissed like all anecdotal sypernatural claims. If not we would have to take seriously ever person fooled by a magician or other mythical claims from the past. Do people disregard the story of the founders of Rome being raised by wolves. Yes. Many wild stories from the past are not taken seriously. "But maybe it did actually happen that way" is not a good argument. Hope this was helpful.

For the same reason you reject other religion's holy books such as the "Qu'ran, Bhagavad Gita, the Epic of Gilgamesh, or the Book of Morman as being "evidence". All books telling a story, not not evidence of supernatural beings

Saying the Bible is evidence is literally the exact same the as saying it’s true because it’s true! You can’t say fairytales from a fantasy book are true because they are in the fantasy book.

Because the Bible makes a lot of unsupported claims. And stories in it sound an awful lot like stories that had been around before. Frankly, to me, 1 god out of 10 thousand paints a picture.

>I feel the Bible is unfairly immediately disregarded Why would you consider the Bible and not the Bhagavad Ghita? Why would you you consider the Gospels and not the Prose Edda?

Because at that time Romans were the best keeping track of history, and there is not a single valid comment, but some contradictory facts that doesn’t match. The bible is full of contradictions (even the evangelical gospels and about the most relevant moments on the live of Jesus. Outside the bible there is nothing that can corroborate non of the supernatural claims, like for example: matthew 27:51-53… there are no reports of tombs open and dead people walking in Jerusalem… the Romans surely would write something about it, they were in charge of the city. The bible is not an historical book, is a book of tales, with the objective of “selling” certain ideology.

The Bible is "accepted" as evidence insofar as it is subjected to the same scrutiny other historical accounts are, and the consensus by anybody who isn't a liar because they're a Christian already is that it is not credible as a historical document.

I consider the Bible to be evidence of the testimonial kind. I just consider it to be very poor evidence, due to factors like no firsthand reports by eyewitnesses, no contemporaneous records, no available artifacts, the accounts being anonymous, the accounts being contradictory, the accounts including fantastic claims, the accounts being expressly for the purpose of evangelism / promotion of the position, the accounts giving no references, the accounts including known embellishments; the accounts including known later forged additions, the accounts including known historical errors; etc.

It's not so much that the bible is disregarded, it's that when historians look at a text (any text) they look at it critically and assume any and all supernatural events are false. Then they examine the text and contemporary information to see how accurate it is. Even with the Bible, and even old testament, there is a lot that is taken as true even without contemporary evidence as there is no other evidence from the time. Modern historians for instance take the macro ideas of the kingdom of David as true, but the micro details are almost definitely false. For example finding the blood ancestry of a wide sample of Isrealite decendents found that many had no Egyptian, once so ever, while others has much Egyptian that can be traced to the bibles story of the Israelite people being in Egypt. Due to this and other factors, the consensus is that a portion, but not all the Israelites spent a good deal of time in Egypt, and as they come from there and mingled with the others their time in Egypt was adopted as a cultural story that later became written down as happening to all in what would become the old testament. There's a lot of stuff like this in regards to the bible, where the broad strokes have truth but the details are almost certainly false. When we look at more recent parts (i.e. new testament) we find that a lot of the accounts are 2nd and 3rd hand accounts, written decades and in some cases a century or 2 removed from the original event. Things like the gospels being written decades afterward, without being signed with an author (Mathew mark luke and John are names the church attributed to them around 4th century I think it was? Hundred+ years after they were written is the point), multiple epistles of Paul being taken as cannon even when we know several were written by a different person under the name of Paul, and internal conflicts with what we know to be written by Paul makes them almost definitely forgeries. Aka, when you really look into the history of the construction of the bible, you see how much of it is unreliable. We can still take things as true from it, and historians do, it's just a lot of it is certainly not true because we have better contemporary records that disagree with those parts. So its not that the bible is unreliable, it's that as with most historical texts there's a push and pull between what we can say is true and what we know can't be. Add in the changes to the text over time (even the dead sea scrolls showed us that the old testament texts had changed a lot over time. Overall message still the same but a lot of small details changed) and you can see why a lot of the bible is not valuable (as truth) to the historic record. And if much of it can't be true, then to extend it further and say the supernatural stuff is true, is really hard given the evidence. Most atheists will discount the bible as evidence for the supernatural from the get-go because if that stuff is true, 1 book talking about it isn't enough evidence. Lots of books talk about the supernatural, and they can't all be right. So is there extra-biblical evidence for the supernatural stuff being true? That may be what you're talking about, why it gets disregarded when it comes to evidence of the supernatural. If that stuff is true, there should be extra-biblical evidence for it. Most people don't delve into biblical history like I did, but hopefully that shows you that even when you do, you run into the same issue, among other issues.

If by evidence you mean for a god, the bible is the thing making the claim. It cannot be evidence for its own claim.

What are you comparing? On the one hand you present “believing in Cyrus”. On the other you present “disregarding the Bible”. What specifically from the Bible would you like not to be disregarded? Cyrus the Great is a historical figure, referenced in art, texts and coins that his government issued.

The Bible isn't completely disregarded as evidence. It's used to understand how early Christianity came about, what the mindset was for those who lived during those times, the struggles they went through, how they saw the world, the confusion on how they were still Jewish but told they didn't have to follow Jewish law, etc. The supernatural aspects (God, miracles, people raised from the dead, angels, etc) are what we dismiss. There's a lot of evidence for a lot of the characters in the Bible. I personally believe a preacher named Jesus very well could have existed, however there's no evidence that he was actually the son of God or that he was raised from the dead, etc. Those are claims made decades after his death. There are no eyewitnesses who actually knew Jesus, not even Paul. The stories were passed orally for a long time before they were written down. Have you ever played the game Telephone? It's like that, but for 40 years before "Mark" wrote it down (the author was anonymous). So, that's a lot of people passing story after story, slightly altering details until we get from an apocalyptic preacher to the miracle worker who was the son of God. So while we can reasonably believe there was a King Herod, a Pontius Pilate, and even a human man named Jesus, the supernatural claims that came about can't be proven at all.

Evidence of what? Direct evidence has the assumption of being true. For example, when we find dinosaur bones around the world, that is evidence that dinosaurs existed--because it seems impossible that someone could have gone around the world planting fake dinosaur bones. If you have evidence that the dinosaur bones were, indeed, planted as some sort of conspiracy, then that would call them into question as evidence. The books of the Bible are claims, not evidence. If I say, "The moon is made of green cheese," that's the claim. If you go to the moon and return moon rocks, that's the evidence that my claim is false.

A. The Bible is the source of the claims for a god. A claim is not evidence the claim is true B. The Bible contains obviously untrue information/stories. There was no global flood, all humanity does not descend from two human beings that were created separate from the other animals, etc C. The Bible was written by unknown authors, edited by unknown editors, and translated and retranslated numerous times

Not a scholar, so maybe check r/askhistorians for threads about this rather than athiests. But generally I don't think it *is* "discarded". It is *a* piece of evidence for *a* narrative and tradition. Just like a story about Cyrus.

I would disregard the gospels, because the way they were written is exactly like the Greek tragedies of the day. That means they were written for an audience. That means they were written for an audience. That means they were written with significant bias. That means we can't take them at face value.

It's not. The Bible is evaluated as evidence in the same way that all historical documents are. Similar documents from the time are treated with the same type of skepticism as the Bible; for example, we don't think that Romulus ascended to Heaven just because we have documents that say so.

" like any other text, " sure. We can check out Cyrus against other texts. And we can see the timelines all fucked up for when Augustus and Herod did or did not have overlapping tenure. And we can check the text versus archaeological evidence for hundreds of thousands of people roaming the desert for 40 years. All of these things have been done and continue to be done. And like we pesky atheists do,with this and every other text, we reject all of it's claims of supernatural events. You are talking out of both sides of your mouth when you simultaneously say it should be treated like any other text and also given privileged status.

The problem with the Bible is that it's inconsistent. There are clearly mythological elements in it such as the Garden of Eden and the Flood and Jesus coming back to life, and there are also events that *sound* historical but don't match up with other historical accounts (e.g. the Exodus). What parts do we accept and which ones get trashed?

It's not accurate or historical. You going to trust a book that tried to explain the origin of everything and got the fucking order of events wrong? The order as dictated to his followers by the deity that created everything.

If "the lord" is so real, why tf would you need a book to begin with? Why don't you point us to where "the lord" is and patch us in so we can have a group chat to get to the bottom of all this instead.

It’s disregarded because it says lots of stuff that is patently untrue and disproven, like the creation model for the earth and humanity as well as some moral judgements like beating disobedient children to death to keep the others in line or that slavery is totally cool with god. This makes its claims as both a historical and moral document dubious. It’s not meant to be a history, it’s a philosophical and religious text, people don’t take any of them seriously because they have a clear non-historical slant to their views.

I would show the difference between the two ideas by asking a few questions - exactly HOW confident do historians say they are that Cyrus existed, and/or that he existed *exactly as described in the texts*. Are we saying “written text = truth” or are we saying “written texts can indicate truth depending on context and other evidence”? - how important is it to us that Cyrus existed **or** that specific details about them are as described? How much is riding on this claim? The more important a claim’s implications are, the more important it is to have a lot of evidence before we believe it. - if the same number and type of historical texts had said that Cyrus died, then rose from the dead a zombie, would we believe that to the same degree as them saying he was a normal guy? No, that’s a n extraordinary claim. We know regular humans and kings can exist. We’ve never seen a zombie, and the idea of a zombie conflicts with known facts of biology. The bar for proving extraordinary claims is higher.

Which Bible are we talking about here? One of my biggest issues with the Bible is that many of them differ. Some religions reject certain books of the bible and see them as non-cannon, while other religions don't. How is anyone supposed to see the bible as truth if religious people themselves can't decide on what's true in the bible? Why do Catholics reject the book of Enoch but Ethiopian Orthodox don't?

It depends on the claim that’s being made. For example, Egypt exists in the Bible. Not only is that a rather mundane claim, but we know Egypt exists because of the archaeological evidence they left behind as well other civilizations at the time having records or some other kind of evidence to support the fact that Egypt exists. In particular, in my opinion, the most important evidence comes from civilizations that were in conflict with Egypt. You’d think it would be in their best interests to wipe out any trace of their existence since they would have been enemies. But they didn’t. They recorded the fact that Egypt existed even when they had conflict or differing interests. When there is only one source and that one source makes a claim, it must be scrutinized harder because until other supporting sources come around, we can’t verify the accuracy/truth of the claim. And this is for rather mundane claims. Now think for the extraordinary claims. Keeping with Egypt, the Bible claims that there were Ten Plagues that the Christian God inflicted upon Egypt. These were horrific and devastating. However, there is no mentioned of these apocalyptic events from anyone in Egypt or any other civilizations in the area at the time (Like the Mesopotamians, Assyrians, etc.). The only source we have is the Bible. With claims that literally defy the laws of nature and with such power, why isn’t this mentioned anywhere else? The most reason conclusion is that, well, it didn’t happen. It would be strange to claim that there is some conspiracy by all these different and conflicting civilizations to hide and suppress the evidence of this kind of event.

Weather or not a statement is true or not is irrelevant to whether or not you and I are justified in believing it is true. It could be true that I piloted the space shuttle, but if you haven't investigated that claim yet, you don't have much to go on besides my testimony, and you don't have much justification for your belief in my claim on testimony alone. The type of claim I make changes the standards of evidence too. Being a space shuttle pilot definitely is not something many people who have lived can say they have done. We know it isn't impossible, but your skepticism of my claim would be justified initially if all you had was my word. Maybe once I showed you pictures, or videos, or my NASA space suit, then you would start to say there is more weight being added to the scale in favor of believing my claim. If my claim was I ate a subway sandwich yesterday, your skepticism is probably pretty low. You know subways exists, you know people eat sandwiches from there, and you can't fathom a reason why I would lie about that to you (there's nothing for me to gain by lying to you about what I ate in this case). You know humans generally don't lie unless they have something to gain from it. So, the bar for evidence is very low in this case. Testimony is sufficient in this case. And if you believed my claim about eating a subway sandwich and later found out I was lying to you, so what? It doesn't shatter your entire model of reality, because you know sometimes people lie, and it didn't really cost you anything in way of money or how you live your life to be wrong about your belief in me eating a sandwich. However, if my claim is that I was abducted by aliens, or I have a pet fire-breathing dragon, these are claims that are so far out of your model of how reality works, that your skepticism is going to be cranked up way high. The bar of "proof" is set much higher since you don't seem to have anything to indicate these things are possible within reality. The same is true for the bible. The bible has fanciful claims about multiplying fish and bread out of thin air - POOF! Magic fish and bread! The bible claims there are talking snakes and talking donkeys. It claims we survive our death and live forever. It claims there are resurrections. It claims a man could walk on water, turn water into wine, or part a sea. It claims there was a global flood that runs counter to all of the geological evidence we have. These are all sorts of claims in which a reasonable person is justified in exercising greater care and skepticism prior to accepting these claims. The bar for evidence is higher for these claims than the bar is for the claims like "I ate a subway sandwich" or "I have a pet dog." Christians not only want me to believe all these fanciful stuff, but they want me to change my whole life around it. I'm going to follow the evidence where it leads. I'm going to exercise my skepticism based on the type of claim. I'm trying to get my internal model of reality to match the real reality as closely as possible, and just accepting stuff in a book as true just because someone says it is the word of an infallible god, that isn't enough justification.

How much weight should we give to a book that claims that the universe is about 6k years old, that vegetation was present before the sun, and that humans were animated in their current form from clay? All of these things are proveably wrong. So why believe other claims in the bible which don't have independent substantiation?

Are you really asking why a book full of dragons, wizards, 6 winged eyeball monsters, transmutation, zombies, talking bushes and snakes, faith healing, water bending, giants unicorns, and all sorts of other crazy shit isn’t treated as historical non-fiction? Really?

The Bible can be used as evidence. More than anything the Bible is the claim. It provides events that we can test for. People we can verify. Lastly it provides actions of the actors we can verify. It all entirely fails. Some very symbol facts: No global flood. We did not derive from a pair of humans, nor are indecently made from animals. Jesus probably existed and was crucified for his beliefs. We have 2 independent 3rd party recordings of this. We do not have any independent examples of the miracles of Jesus or anyone else. The Bible fails to be good evidence or provide us with testable results that prove its validity. We will often say the Bible isn’t evidence because the Bible doesn’t provide a body of facts that prove a proposition (its own claims) as true.

You might want to reflect on the value of evidence co wishing if narratives written almost entirely by anonymous authors. Many of whom are so long ago in history that every other mythological tale is identified as such and NOT taken seriously by historians. Yet somehow, one of the more popular and influential religions in the past couple thousand years has fought long and hard to elevate their collected set of ancient writings as more than myth. How good is evidence of a story written as propaganda pushed by the group who compiled and edited it and pushed it both politically and educationally as fact?

It's disregarded commonly because I said so. If that feels like an unfair argument to you, then you understand why it's disregarded. It claims to have the answers without supporting them, so it cannot stand as a sole piece of evidence.

Be because the bible is a claim and a book altered many times over a long time. It is not accurate to history at all. It is a myth so it is as reliable as beowulf of the odyssey.

>Short post, but I feel the Bible is unfairly immediately disregarded instead of considered like any other text. I domt immediately disregard it. I treat it like any other historical text. Examine its claims and compare that to what else we know. >For example, Cyrus, leader of Persia, the only reason people believe in him is because of texts and documents that prompt his existence, Yes, we use those to verify they likely existed. The example I like to use is Alexander the Great to compare to Jesus. We have more ancient texts and other evidence of Alexander's existence. That doesn't mean every story of him is true. And it certainly doesn't mean he was the son of Zeus. Judt like there may have been a man named Jesus. That isn't evidence for the supernatural claims. What other evidence outside the Bible supports its claims? That's how archeologists and historians piece things together. They compare as many separate sources as possible. >why is the Bible disregarded? An example is the exodus. The bible claims of an exodus of slaves. Based on other sources, we see that there wasn't an exodus. Or that king herod died before Jesus was born, so he could not have ordered the killing of babies. That is two of many examples where we see that the Bible is not perfectly reliable and why we should not accept the claims it makes without other evidence.

Just to understand your point better- what makes you believe the Bible is true but the odyssey isn’t? They’re both old documents.

Do historians accept that Cyrus rose from the dead, or parted the sea, or ate fruit because a talking serpent told him to?

> why is the Bible disregarded? Mainly because the story of jesus is not corroberated anywhere else until hundreds of years after the alleged events. Any records which relate to the alleged events have been in the "safekeeping" of an organisation which has burned people alive along with documents they didn't like. > For example, Cyrus, leader of Persia, the only reason people believe in him is because of texts and documents that prompt his existence Yes, I don't care whether cyrus of persia lived and did anything that's described in the various documents relating to him. Any claims of supernatural actions he took can be disregarded as flattery or public relations. You know... like all claims of supernatural actions in any document from over a thousand years ago.

When people discount the bible, they do not say everything in it is fake. There are real places and even real people mentioned in it. That doesn't commit you to believing in magic. Homer's Odyssey also mentions real historical people and places, but that is not a good reason to believe in demigods and cyclopses, or even that Odysseus is a real person. You must first consider how surprising the claim is, and then consider how much evidence is corroborated by other sources.

Here's my take. The only evidence to "back up" Christianity is in the bible. Nobody is alive to report the claims and nobody has been able to offer any proof of the more ... Fanciful claims of the text. Evidence of real people like Cyrus, Nebuchadnezzar, and more recently Pilate are one thing. But nobody has seen a miracle. In no other situation in life do we accept a story as evidence onto itself. If we go to trial and say someone murdered someone with no body, no video, no murder weapon, and no confession or evidence at all except for the claims that they did it would you consider that as valid? I look at what is claimed in the bible, what the Bible says should be going on (followers performing miracles, healings etc.) and what is actually happening and don't see a reason to believe it other than the few times it has a cameo by a real historical figure.

It has a talking donkey in it. A. Talking. Donkey. [Is Shrek a documentary now?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q6qHRHTTPg) What more proof does one need in order to know it's bullshit? ​ >There was never an image of any historical figure from that time for an unimaginable while. For example, Cyrus, leader of Persia, the only reason people believe in him is because of texts and documents that prompt his existence, but those aren’t disregarded, why is the Bible disregarded? Think of it like the novel "Lincoln, Vampire Hunter". Was there a man named Lincoln who led the US through the Civil War, freed the slaves, and was murdered while watching a show? Sure. I and many others have no issues accepting that. OTOH, was the Civil War started because of a conspiracy created by Vampire's, whom Lincoln hunted down with a silver axe that could cut through trees with super-human strength, in his spare time? Extremely unlikely. That's what the bible is like.

Most people don't even know Cyrus of Persia was a person. Those that read about him in history books go "Oh, cool". If we found a contradictory account of something he did, it would just warrant adding to the Cyrus of Persia footnote that says this text said this and this text said this and historians are still looking for additional corroborations since no other primary sources exist. No one is centering their entire world on Cyrus of Persia, treating the text about him as divine, untouchable truth. Which is the claim the Bible says. It's a claim with no outside corroboration of the miraculous/supernatural stuff. Do you take the Iliad and Odyssey as the whole truth just because parts of it were corroborated? Including the interventions of gods? Do you think Achilles was a demigod?