Answering William P. Lazarus

Article

William P. Lazarus : The Bible as (Non) History
https://williamplazarus.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-bible-as-non-history.html

This will now be analysed, sentence by sentence for a good portion, quasi as a dialogue between us:

William P. Lazarus

For the past few days, several of my religious Facebook friends have climbed back on the old warhorse by claiming that the Bible is historically accurate.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I'll reduce the diversity of topics by sticking to historical.

History involves a human observer of the facts. Genesis 2 account of Adam's and Eve's creation can be history, from the point on when Adam is there. Genesis 1 is, very rarely for the historical books of the Bible, mostly not even purported history, normal sense, since it involves, up to verse 27 or 28, no human observers. It is revelation, given to Moses on Mt Sinai.

Compare how much in Greek paganism is involved in the Theogony, much of which (whether Uranos and Gaia or birth of Apollon and Artemis) is in this sense not history.

However, in a larger sense this also is history, as in known facts from the series of events, since they were revealed by God, they are known, even if not having human observers.

Also, historical accuracy is not affected by scientifically inaccurate terminology or beliefs of those recording it. A Hittite account of Battle of Kadesh is not affected by Hittites probably believing in Flat Earth. So much less is an account affected by simply another terminology being used than the now current one.

Note, historical accuracy is not always tied to inerrancy. Inerrancy also requires accuracy of endorsed beliefs.

William P. Lazarus

Scientific research on chemicals found on Earth, in moon rocks and in meteors clearly shows a consistent result of about 4.6 billion years.

Hans Georg Lundahl

This is about pre-human "history". Scientist's rivalling God on Mt Sinai or Nine Muses to Hesiod.

It is ALSO a very blanket statement of full confidence with overdone wording when it comes to uniformitarian science.

William P. Lazarus

Such evidence from folds in the Earth ...

Hans Georg Lundahl

I am not sure how folds are supposed to be related to deep age. Details could be welcome.

William P. Lazarus

stratification such as visible in the Grand Canyon

Hans Georg Lundahl

Grand Canyon is very unique in its succession of diverse biotic strata.

It is also almost entirely marine (like other successions, the one in Bonaparte Basin involving trilobites below elasmosaurs).

On "land", meaning on what was land at the relevant time or times, you simply do not find strata above each other.

I particularly researched Karoo on this one, you don't find a Triassic fossile and then dig deeper and find a Permian one a bit lower same spot, but Triassic and Permian fossils are in different "assemblage zones" - so the near surface finds of Karoo form a map, which uniformitarians explain as lower strata cropping out in relation to more recent ones not completely covering them, but which can also be simply the map of the bio-zones in the moment when the Flood hit what is now Karoo.

Since Flood is Biblical history, this is important for Global Flood argument.

William P. Lazarus

and multiple geological studies

Hans Georg Lundahl

Translates as : "someone else has argued, I don't bother to go into details, I just trust them, because many conclude the same thing".

If he had lived in Germany in 1937, would he have said that too?

William P. Lazarus

demonstrate the vast number of years needed to develop today’s environment.

Hans Georg Lundahl

We Creationists know very well what Evolutionists try to demonstrate. We just don't agree they succeed very well.

William P. Lazarus

Simply adding up biblical years is pointless and completely refuted by scientific study.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Where do I start?

Well, adding up years in a source you don't trust on chronology is pointless to you, adding up years in a source you do trust on chronology is not so.

Instead of telling us what he trusts, WPL might try to find out how we argue about what he is trusting, and try to refute that (no such chance so far).

William P. Lazarus

In the beginning, the order of creation starts with the Earth and places stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, as well as flowering plants ahead of animals. Science has easily demonstrated that’s the reverse of reality.

Hans Georg Lundahl

We agree on rejecting Theogony by Hesiod.

My choice for sth better is Genesis 1, his choice is evolutionist ideology, mislabelled as "science", which is about as gross a mislabelling as mislabelling following an antibirth policy (of state or company you work with) is by some mislabelled "responsibility".

What WPL choses to label things is not a valid argument for them actually being so. And, SO FAR, he has been content with showing a blanket trust in evolutionism rather than entering into what was rightly called "the scientific detail".

William P. Lazarus

On the first day, God created light, but the sun and moon don’t arrive until the fourth day: “the greater light [the sun] to rule the day, and the lesser light [the moon] to rule the night.” However, the moon has no light.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Except the Sun, by which it is a light to us. Here on the centre of the universe.

William P. Lazarus

It only reflects the sun.

Hans Georg Lundahl

As I just mentioned. Which makes it a light source, second hand, but still so to us.

William P. Lazarus

Nevertheless, repeated biblical writers in the Old and New Testament somehow think the moon creates its own light

Hans Georg Lundahl

A clear reference would be very nice.

William P. Lazarus

and that the stars are incredibly close by.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Again, a clear reference would be very nice.

My own point (stars created on day 4 including fix stars and being visible to Adam and Eve on the evening of day 6) would perhaps be labelled as "incredibly" by WPL, but perhaps you had sth else in mind?

William P. Lazarus

Vegetation, created on the third day, would have no sun, based on the biblical version.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Since light was already created, that is no problem. Vegetation needs light with a spectrum close to sunlight, not that the actual source of it be the actual sun. As I already mentioned in the FB debate where he brought it up.

This starts looking like a standard list of arguments which WPL seems unable to discard even one of even when it has been refuted just a few days ago (and he tried no refutation of my refutation).

Demonstration : in Amsterdam in cellars, illegal marijuana growers do cultivate plants that have never in their lives been exposed to one ray of sunlight. (Source : The Botany of Desire). Why? Bc they are 24 by 24 exposed to halogen lamps.

If halogen light is good enough for plants (and marijuana hemp has no different chlorophyll from all other green plants), why should a light God Himself is supernaturally shining not be good enough for them?

Btw, I am not recommending cultivating marijuana hemp, I mentioned the fact because it proves that total lack of sunlight can be replaced by other light sources.

William P. Lazarus

Noah’s flood is impossible, not just from all the geological evidence to the contrary.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I think I just mentioned my viewpoint on "geology" or palaeontology. You know, Grand Canyon context. I gave exempla of Karoo and of Bonaparte Basin.

William P. Lazarus

Scientific research into DNA shows that, for humans to be as diverse as we are, the population had to contain a minimum of 1,500 unrelated individuals, not just a single family on a floating zoo.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Considering the number of alleles on each gene and considering some alleles are mutations arisen after the Flood (bleeder's disease or hemophilia, probably even white skin), I would like to know what that is supposed to be based on.

Here is a CMI study on this very question:

Adam, Eve and Noah vs Modern Genetics
by Dr Robert W. Carter | Published: 11 May 2010 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/noah-and-genetics
And a shorter summing up in a feedback:

Is there enough time in the Bible to account for all the human genetic diversity?
Published: 17 September 2011 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/bible-time-human-genetic-diversity

Note, we are 2018, WPL is ignoring answers which were already there in 2010 and 2011.

William P. Lazarus

Sodom and Gomorrah, two large and prosperous cities supposedly destroyed by God, are phantoms. No other culture mentioned the cities despite voluminous records, and no trace of them has ever been found.

Hans Georg Lundahl

As far as I have mainly heard, both were in the Dead Sea.

Note, while they were in fact sunk somewhat more recently than 1935 BC, close to or in 1916 BC, St Jerome's chronology, as 1935 BC carbon dates to 3200 BC, and as even Joseph in Egypt carbon dates to c. 2600 BC (Djoser being obviously Joseph's pharao, see Egyptian memory of Joseph as Imhotep), and since "extensive records" are from at least recently carbon dated 2400 BC (after Joseph) - except the original records behind Moses' Genesis and some other records also revalorised in contexts now labelled as "mythical" (Ramayana and Mahabharata), this means it is very clear why Sodom and Gomorrah are not mentioned. IN Greek myth, Abraham and Sarah and also Lot and his daughters are reworked as family situation of Deucalion and Pyrrha, transferring them to Flood avoided direct mention of Sodom and Gomorrah, since people with similar vices might not care to recall a divine punishment on these.

But as to records from the neighbourhood and from the time, back when this happened the burial of Djoser was still some centuries off and this means we don't have records for this time.

Here it can be noted, for Greek and Roman and Hebrew chronologies, we have continuous record (though its early stages in each is disputed as to historicity by modern scholars), and that continuous record reaches to us.

For Ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, excepting Manetho and Berossus, Hittite, Minoan, etc records, we are piecing together a scrap here and a scrap there. This means that we cannot go to a calendar to check when Ebla tablets date from, but it is more like carbon dating one bit about them, or more, and relating the rest to that or those carbon dates.

This means, knowing when Ebla tablets are from by adding up years in records is as impossible as knowing distance of stars by angle of reflected sunlight.

Wiki says:

They all date to the period between ca. 2500 BC and the destruction of the city ca. 2250 BC.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Tantalisingly, I have no full assurance whether real date for 2250 BC is actually fall of Jericho date (1470 BC or years just after, which is how my friend more or less such Damien Mackey would like to identify the layers of Jericho - he eschews even mentioning carbon dates) or rather before Moses was born (if Sesostris III was the Pharao just at beginning of Exodus, as I tend to think, since his burial ship is like carbon dated 1715 BC for a real date close to 1590 BC).

I also do not know if the date "2500 BC" is done by adding up years up to "2250 BC" (whether 1470 BC or between 1730 and 1590, so 1720 or between 1980 and 1830) or whether "2500 BC" is derived from another carbon date (in which case it would normally be squeezed in between 1730 BC and 1590, see previous discussion).

But I do know that a Biblically recalibrated carbon dating opens up for Ebla tablets being later than destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

William P. Lazarus

The tiny bit of ruins today erroneously called Sodom shows no sign of the “fire and brimstone” and contained maybe six homes in contrast with the biblical account.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I am not sure what you are talking about.

I would tend to think Sodom as a city is now under Dead Sea and I have not seen any reference to Mount Sodom even containing any ruins. But if it actually does contain six houses, so what? It would still not be the Biblical city of Sodom in its entirety.

William P. Lazarus

The story of Jewish slavery doesn’t match known history. For starters, Egypt did not use forced labor to build anything.

Hans Georg Lundahl

That is a very sweeping statement.

Next, Gulag archipelago is probably unhistorical too, since Soviet authorities don't record all cruelties done in Gulag - and therefore the story is undocumented, unsupported by "real" documents.

What you are actually talking about is Egypt's normal relations between Egyptians.

You are also talking as if every monument in Egypt (I don't think Israelites were involved in any Pyramid by the way) was well known as to how it was built, much like the building of Versailles.

No, 17th C AD is a tiny bit better recorded than 1590 to 1510 BC in Egypt (whatever the Egyptological dates for this, I'd go on between Sesostris III and Hyksos invasion).

William P. Lazarus

Moreover, documented evidence, including archaeological, written language and other finds from the region, shows that Jews lived in what is now Israel the entire time period of their supposed sojourn in Egypt.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Probably involves some carbon misdating, among other things.

I'd like to know the details of the case being made, though.

William P. Lazarus

Moreover, many of the cities cited in the text did not exist until centuries later.

Hans Georg Lundahl

A city can have a rotation of existence and non-existence. Ramesses might be what you are referring to.

And Ramesses can be a name given that city in the time of Ramses II, but it existed earlier, and priests made a linguistic update in the Torah by changing the name to Ramesses - or it could be quite another origin to the name.

Patterns of evidence: Exodus. A review
A new film shows evidence of the Hebrew occupation of ancient Egypt
by Gary Bates | Published: 15 January 2015 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/patterns-of-evidence

According to this, it could seem "Ramesses" was Avaris.

Some others have identified it with Ain Shams, for which I don't know the carbon dates. Avaris seems to have been occupied mainly by Hyksos, who I think were Amalekites.

It could of course be also the case that Avaris was first the Ramesses of Exodus 1:11 and later also served for Hyksos (carbon date 1783 seems to be previous to Exodus).

Wiki says

It was occupied from about 1783 to 1550 BC, or from the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt through the second intermediate period until its destruction by Ahmose I, the first Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty.

William P. Lazarus

Scholars now think the Exodus account was a fabrication to justify a war with Egypt in the 8th century B.C.E., when the first texts were written down.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Anti-Christian and Anti-Torahic ones, yes ...

William P. Lazarus

Yes, that’s an interpretation, but it matches the complete lack of evidence of any wandering in the Sinai Desert or Jewish presence in Egypt.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Desert wanderings are easily lost track of.

Complete lack of Israelite presence in Egypt?

I must admit, I was searching for a CMI article which at the moment I do not find.

William P. Lazarus

In Leviticus, we are told that hares and coneys (akin to a rabbit) are unclean because they “chew the cud” but do not part the hoof. However, those animals are ruminants; they don’t have cuds.

Hans Georg Lundahl

You mean are NOT ruminants.

The Hebrew verb is so unspecific it need not always refer to rumination.

ALSO you have strayed from the stated topic of historical accuracy. This is terminology. And no, "chewing the cud" in Biblical sense is not the same thing as being in modern zoological sense a "ruminant."

William P. Lazarus

In Daniel, the author doesn’t know the name of the king. He identifies Belshazzar as the king. Here’s actual history: Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 BCE. His son, Awil-Marduk (who the Bible calls "Evilmerodach") followed him on the throne, but was assassinated by his brother-in-law, Nergal-shar-usur, in 560. The next and last king of Babylon was Nabonidus who reigned from 556 to 539, when Babylon was conquered by Cyrus. Belshazzar was a son of Nabonidus, but not king or a relative of Nebuchadnezzar.

Hans Georg Lundahl

One problem is taking fairly fragmentary Mesopotamic accounts or even Herodotus as more reliable than the Bible just because it is not the Bible. A bit like a very unfair policeman or shrink could find anyone more reliable than his suspect or patient.

Another one is not checking whether certain names can refer to same person. Nabonidus is NOT an Akkadian or Hebrew form of anything, but is Herodotus.

This opens the question on what he would be in Hebrew?

Well, Damien Mackey goes for Nabonidus = Nebuchadnezzar.

Which obviously would make Belshazzar the son of Nebuchadnezzar.

Here are the equations in dynastic series:

• Nabu-apla-usur
• Labashi-Marduk
• Nabu-kudurri-usur II = Nabonidus
• Amel-Marduk = Neriglissar = Belshazzar

The Bible doesn't specify that Belshazzar and Evilmerodach are different persons.

Damien gives the etymologies for Belshazzar and for Neriglissar as Belsharezer and Nergalsharezer - which is basically same name except for difference of theonym in the theophoric name. So, if Belshazzar was fond of theophoric names why not add Marduk to Nergal and Bel, which means he could easily also be Evilmerodach.

Here is his paper:

If King Belshazzar madeDaniel 3rd, who was 2nd?
by Damien F. Mackey
http://www.academia.edu/23063639/If_King_Belshazzar_made_Daniel_3rd_who_was_2nd

William P. Lazarus

Not one to stop there, the author then makes Darius the successor to Cyrus. Actually, that was Cambyses.

Hans Georg Lundahl

It is actually even more complicated. Citing Cambyses involves relying on Herodot.

Here is an actual phrase in Daniel:

"Now Daniel continued unto the reign of Darius, and the reign of Cyrus the Persian."
[Daniel 6:28]

Seems Cyrus could even be successor of Darius?

I'd trust Daniel over Herodotus, who did not even pretend to have been personally involved in Persia back then, but was writing a retrospect about prequels to Greco-Persian wars.

Messy things are likely to later get tidied up a bit. Not saying tradition is unreliable as totally NOT reliable at all, but tidying things up that are complicated would be one of the turns it naturally takes.

William P. Lazarus

The census described in Luke took place, in 6 C.E., 10 years after Herod the Great died. However, Matthew said Jesus was born when Herod was in power. According to Luke, Emperor Augustus ordered the whole world registered. Not true. In fact, the census was held only to determine taxable property in Judea, which had been placed under Roman control.

Hans Georg Lundahl

There seem to be two problems with one solution.

The 6 AD census (if from then) limited to Judaea is another one than the one ordered by Augustus for the whole world (a census which could have been of loyalty rather than property).

It would involve retranslating a phrase as "before Quirinus etc".

William P. Lazarus

No one had to return home, such as Joseph from Galilee to Bethlehem.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Any census I have heard of, one usually registers at one's hometown.

THEN I also think Joseph took a polemic liberty with that wording.

Suppose he had lived in Nazareth all the time up to then, except brief hospitalities (including in Bethlehem).

Suppose he then hears an order about registering in "his" city. Well, ancestrally, Bethlehem was his. This was also potentially a move to underline Messianic connections of his family, as the Messiah had not come yet, but as Mary was exspecting under circumstances which on the angel's words were - suspiciously like Messianic ones.

William P. Lazarus

Luke just wanted to get Jesus to Bethlehem for polemic purposes. So did Matthew; he just used a different device that contradicted Luke.

Hans Georg Lundahl

No contradiction. In Matthew, nothing is said of how JOseph came to Bethlehem. In Luke there is nothing saying Nazareth was not also a point of return after Egypt.

William P. Lazarus

Mark and John are sure Jesus was born in Galilee.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I think the wording was often "from Galilee" or "from Nazareth". Or nouns or adjectives meaning inhabitants or people born somewhere. Not always identic to actual birth place. I'm Viennese by birth and Malmowite by upbringing from pre-teens to adult (and remained there a while too).

Neither of these other two Gospels has any account of His birth, both start the story when John is baptising. In other words, they are not specific enough to warrant such a conclusion as WPL's.

William P. Lazarus

There was no murder of the innocents as described in Matthew. Josephus, who left us a detailed history of the time period, hated Herod and yet knew nothing about this supposed slaughter.

Hans Georg Lundahl

How much text did Josephus dedicate to Herod?

Had murder of innocents become a taboo subject on which Josephus could have had scarce access to the facts (he wrote far later than St Matthew).

William P. Lazarus

One of my favorites in the New Testament is where Paul was bitten by a snake on Malta. The pagans there decided Paul must be a god because he didn’t die. Except there are no snakes on Malta. Never have been. (That’s true in Ireland, too, despite stories of Patrick.)

Hans Georg Lundahl

Unless St Paul drove the snakes out of Malta ... recent changes in legislation and attitudes are likely to bring snakes back to both places.

Or unless another ship with a transport of snakes had previously stranded there.

Or, why not go to a Catholic resource on this one:

SNAKES OF THE MALTESE ISLANDS
http://www.shadowservices.com/nature/Maltese/biology/snakes.htm

Telescopus fallax fallax, Elaphe situla leopardina, Coluber florulentus algirus, Coluber viridiflavus carbonarius.

William P. Lazarus

Close examination of records from the time of Pontius Pilate show that the description of the trial of Jesus bears no resemblance to documented Roman trials.

Hans Georg Lundahl

"records from the time of Pontius Pilate" = Gospels (unless you consider Acts of Pilate as genuine or unless you consider last chapter of Velleius Paterculus as "records" - it's a panegyric on Tiberius).

William P. Lazarus

For one, judges were never seen.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I'd like to know the source for that one. "Never" is also a big word implying a uniform routine which could never have been varied for whatever reason.

For one, it's not totally a Roman trial, it's a Jewish trial followed up by a Roman validation.

William P. Lazarus

There was no “tradition” of freeing anyone on Passover.

Hans Georg Lundahl

In Rome? Certainly not. In Holy Land? Very possibly as an accomodation to local tastes.

William P. Lazarus

Romans never “wash hands” to free themselves from guilt. That was a Jewish custom.

Hans Georg Lundahl

And no British official in Pakistan ever said "Inshallah" and as to Nelson saying "Kismet" it is probably faked, he really must have been saying "kiss me" ... I sense a total, but very, very total incomprehension of how colonisers deal with natives (perhaps because Zionists are not as sensible about Palestinian sensibilities?).

Of course a coloniser picks up some local habits. He doesn't want to show himself off as a complete foreigner in all and every detail.

And suppose he had never used that gesture before or after, he would have known it. He would have been using that in a non-Roman, since very Jewish, context.

William P. Lazarus

The Sanhedrin didn’t meet on holidays;

Hans Georg Lundahl

There is some doubt on the precise chronology. It could also have made an exception.

William P. Lazarus

there’s no record of any earthquake in that time.

Hans Georg Lundahl

By what Institute of Seismology?

William seems to imply we have about as complete a record of that decade - fourth decade of AD - as we would have of any decade of 19th C, where some press museum certainly would preserve some newsclip for an event which happened at least in any big place.

Also, the circumstances of that earthquake are such that it could very easily have become taboo because of the Christian implications, directly after Matthew published his Gospel in Hebrew (or Aramaic) original. If so, that would explain why subsequent Gospellers don't mention it.

"The mountains tremble at him, and the hills are made desolate: and the earth hath quaked at his presence, and the world, and all that dwell therein."
[Nahum 1:5]

Oh, an OT prophecy fulfilled in that quake ... and one involving even Adonai.

Guess why that earth quake would have become taboo among Jews VERY quickly, except those who were Christians.

(This line of thought obviously argues for Matthean priority.)

William P. Lazarus

Having written several books detailing many – but not all – of the textual problems, I see no reason to continue a familiar recitation.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Reminds me, I should continue the refutations of his The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information, which he graciously sent me ...

William P. Lazarus

[the rest]

Hans Georg Lundahl

[diatribe, not much to refute]