"There is nothing bad about the Bible document being wrong. Ptolemy was proven wrong by Galilleo. It is progress."

But there is something wrong if a scripture, presented as divine inspiration, is proven wrong. It was not Ptolemy who was wrong about Gelelleo - it was the church which was wrong.

The NT must eventually put aside its ego and politics - it cannot assume to correct the OT, but has to comply with it fully, else it will be shown as wrong. Nothing in the OT has ever been disproven; nothing in any other scripture has ever been proven. All things considered, the OT is the world's most mysterious document, and different in kind than degree: it alone stands up to the best of history, science and maths today.

Christians will gain far more insight into the OT when they examine in on its own merit, as an independent document, whether for or against, and do the same with the NT: a document of merit can stand on its own. Interpreting Danial every which way but that of his Hebrew angle is a lost case: the man was a Hebrew and foremost inclined in his nation's subsistance. Subtle point.

Dear Oly... don't worry..I don't see your goal in life to be disproving the Bible, and yes, that plus honest enquiry might conceivably lead to the same conclusion.

Regarding your 'we must lose some faith' because of the Churches 'constant incorrect intepretations' ? *smile*... then.. we should also lose faith in secular scholarship which said "Sodom and Gomorrah did not exist" :) or which doubted that the 'Pool of Siloam' was real?

So... my view is, "patience and open mindedness". (now that was a secret plot to rid my self of Pericles who when he read this absolutely choked and gagged himself into intensive care, plus destroyed his computer :)

On Herod and Jesus and the overlap/non overlap.. It's not really such a biggy for me. Too much speculation and Luke was a proven good historian and paid attention to small details.

"Secular" methodologies? I don't quite agree there. I'd call them 'scholarly' methods and we use the same methods. On "Interpretation" aaah..that's different. Scholarship seeks to establish the facts of the matter. Interpretation is 'what do they mean' and Application is "what do they mean... FOR ME".

We (Christians) must take all sound unbiased scholarship into account.
Sadly, there is little of that around.

CJ.. PERICLES..OLIVER..runnnnnn (if ur not circumscribed:) Joseph will be after you blokes with 'THIS..is a knife'

JOSEPH;
'NT 'must' comply fully with the OT? Joseph..perhaps FULFILL is a more appropriate word.
Do you mean to tell me that you are able to obey not just the 10 commandments but also the 634(ish) other rules that Judaism claims must be obeyed? (not to mention the 1000s of permutations of the Pharisees)

If you miss obedience of the WHOLE law by a mm you miss by a mile!
Hence the spirit of the Law was about relationship with the Almighty.
Ritual means nothing:

Amos 5:21
21 "I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.

22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.

Why? because their HEARTs were not right.

Jeremiah 31:31-33
Romans 12:1-3

Boazy,

Thanks.

So we are agreed the Bible is wrong in fact or the Churches are representing an inaccurate time-line for the life Jesus.

Good, the time of Jesus' birth is not a "biggy" for you.

Yet, it is "biggy" for established Christian religious teaching. If the Bible is wrong it is not infallible, If Jesus was born earlier, the Church posits are un/less relaible than the Church would have us suppose.

- Boazy, Do you feel the Church should offer a retraction?

As noted on a previous post, Science works on rules of evidence. Troy is an example. It's existence was held questionable, until it was discovered. They did have UBDs preserved on scrolls back then.

Moreover, true Science will change its position in the face of contradiction. Good scientists will try to disprove their own holy grails. Religions are not open to self-analysis, except of the self-confirmatory kind.

The Ancient Chinese explained to missinary Jesuits how the solar system worked, but the Christians would not listen. The Church held the Chinese ignorant in not accepting Ptolemy and geocentic universe.

- The Internet represents a good protection from knives and surgical procedures ;-).

p.s. Do you have a non-Church source, regarding Science's rejection of the cities of sin?

Re. 'NT 'must' comply fully with the OT? Joseph..perhaps FULFILL is a more appropriate word.
Do you mean to tell me that you are able to obey not just the 10 commandments but also the 634(ish) other rules that Judaism claims must be obeyed? not to mention 1000s of permutations of the Pharisees

What I was saying is, while not everyone or anyone indeed, can follow all laws, this does not impact on the laws being correct and active. All 613 OT laws stand tody, not a single one is obsolete - including the law which says, NOT TO ADD OR SUBTRACT ANYTHING FROM THIS BOOK OF LAWS. The ritual laws are also active in its subscribing to a specific people [prefixed 'unto you'], while the moral/ethical laws are all accepted by the world's institutions. There are no laws from the NT or the Quran, a law being one accepted by the world at large, as opposed only its adherents - which means it cannot be made passe by the NT. The fullfilled [aka obsolete] premise has failed. This is a fact, not an opinion.

Re. "If you miss obedience of the WHOLE law by a mm you miss by a mile! Hence the spirit of the Law was about relationship with the Almighty."

No, this is not the case. The only means one can elevate is via falling first: one can only be judged how they act when they fall - those who have not experienced this cannot elevate - because all merit is by way of forgiveness and reconsidering of actions. The accumulative measure impacts, whereby guaranteed factors such as forgiveness, mercy, kindness, long suffering kicks in. One can be saved in the final instant of life - as with Korach who challenged Moses and went down when the ground opened. He was saved because he genuinely repentented while descending, crying 'The Torah of Moses is truth'. Thus the sages advocate it is not good to be too rightious - because no merit is resulted, and declare:

'WHERE A REPENTENT SINNER STANDS - THE MOST RIGHTIOUS CANNOT'

Error:

Did NOT have UBDs. It makes a difference. :-)

Hello Boazy,

We now know, either, the Bible or Christian Church interpretion is fallible. WE have a clear result. Good science, Boazy and the rest of us. Hooray!

Having established that "Everything is Not Update in Bethalem City" and "we've gone about as far as we can go". [allusion: Rogers and Hammerstein], I did have a wee bit of poke into Sodom and Gomorrah.

Here, I am unsure anyone knows, conclusively, even today, where these cities did exist, together with other "cities of the plain". Several near contemporary writers do mention cadidates, included Joseph, and Plutarch [I think].

There seemingly was interest regarding the topic c. 1840~1850. Then, and afterwards, historians then did not so much claim to have found cities, rather they situated these locations "somewhere" in near or even under the Southern Dead Sea. A problem of the time was that religionists accepted invalid claims and con-artists wanted to run religious site tours feigned specific locations, for a fee.

My feeling gained is, that scientists are uncertain about the location of the Cities of the Plain even today. Actually, since 1990 it does not seem to be venture drawing much interest.

Boazy, I think we would benefit from any retort from non-religious, university press or .edu sources.

Sodom and Gomorrah found?

I ran the keyword, "Sodom", against some a few archaelogical journals on a university database, and did not find this claim within the archaelogical "community" (peer acceptance).