Dear Pericles
you are a scoundrel sometimes.. (I mean that in a nice way).. you make statements.. declare victory and drag them up a millenia removed from the original discussion. Naughty.

STRIKE 1

YOU: "I pointed out that Simon Greenleaf was not a "co-founder" - or any other kind of founder, for that matter, of Harvard Law School."

EXTERNAL SOURCE http://www.drbilllong.com/LegalHistory/Greenleaf.html

"Thus, it is true that Greenleaf was one of the chief figures in the early days of Harvard Law School; it is not too much to say that he was the law school during Story's long periods of absence in the 1830s and 1840s."

Sorry.. that's close enough to rebound/boomerang your "strike" into at least a few bases if not a home run.

STRIKE 2

YOU: "What's more he tells us... (Ancient Document rule)
"Rules of evidence", Boaz? Not in this universe."

EXTERNAL SOURCE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_document

Under the Federal Rules of Evidence ("FRE"), a document is deemed authentic if it is:

1. at least twenty years old;
2. in a condition that makes it free from suspicion concerning its authenticity; and
3. found in a place where such a writing was likely to be kept.

Many states have similar rules, but may limit the application of the doctrine to specific kinds of documents such as dispositive instruments (primarily conveyances, deeds, and wills), and may require the documents to be even older.

By admitting an ancient document into evidence, it is presumed only that the document is what it purports to be, but there are no presumptions about the truth of the documents contents. A jury can still decide that the author of the document was lying or mistaken when the author wrote it.

Hearsay

Ancient documents also present an exception to the hearsay rule. FRE 803(16) applies this exception to all documents over twenty years old. ....

Now THAT looks like a home run to me.

STRIKE 3 sorry old son.. that one fell to the ground and dribbled along..not even reaching the batter. Not a good pitch at all. I recommend some arm work to improve.

Dear Oly....

you asked:

Eve's mitochondrial DNA ?

*Think* me boy..... turn that thinking cap on.. now if God miraculously created Eve from Adams rib.. does it seem improbably that he also managed all the rest? Including of course the DNA issue.

FRACCY.. 2 of each.... from our perspective, I quite agree. I honestly don't have a satisfying answer to that one. I don't think scripture was trying to answer that. It is no more far fetched than the genetic diversity needed from Adam and Eve is it?

I don't know how God managed it, but then...I don't know everything :)
It seems a bit of a trap to me.. when we look back with modern science and try to squeeze ancient events into a very tightly packed box. If Scripture was intending to answer those very detailed scientific questions, I guess it would have. But perhaps we are reading more of the 'abstract' rather than the full essay ?

By the way.. thanx for the contributions. Sorry if my answers/responses seem to ignore or not answer every thing asked.
(Pre Alzheimers :)

It's a good job you don't actually play baseball, Boaz. You'd be in constant conflict with the umpire...

Let's start with the really, blatantly obvious.

Your claim:

>>Simon Greenleaf, a Harvard Law school co founder...<<

A co-founder, in case you need reminding, is someone credited with the creation, or foundation, of something. As in "William and Catherine Booth, co-founders of the Salvation Army".

You now assert:

>>Greenleaf was one of the chief figures in the early days of Harvard Law School<<

Samuel Morley was an influential figure in the early days of the Salvos, Boaz, but was not a "co-founder".

There is no way your statement "Simon Greenleaf, a Harvard Law school co founder" can be considered anything but "merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative" (W S Gilbert).

You might also confess that immediately following Bill Long's assertion that Greenleaf was one of the chief figures, comes the sentence:

"It is not true, however, that Greenleaf set out to disprove the biblical testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus or that he was challenged by students to explore the historicity of the Gospel narratives regarding Jesus' death and resurrection"

All in the interests of completeness, you understand.

And have you actually read "Testimony of the Evangelists?"

>>Supposing, therefore, that it is not irrational, nor inconsistent with sound philosophy, to believe that God has made a special and express revelation of his character and will to man, and that the sacred books of our religion are genuine, as we now have them; we proceed to examine and compare the testimony of Four Evangelists, as witnesses to the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ<<

This is the context of your application of Federal Rules of Evidence, Boaz.

Given the preconditions that Greenleaf allows himself, how could he possibly conclude otherwise than he did?

Incidentally, he did not allow a jury to examine whether the "author of the document was lying or mistaken when the author wrote it."

Interesting omission, in the circumstances.

Sorry, I think Greenleaf is out of the ballpark.

Dear Pericles
I'm pretty sure I conceded that he was not a 'co-founder' in the strict sense of the word. I don't know why you adopt this 'dog with bone' attitide of pedantism about rather peripheral issues.

Greenleafs assumption

"that it is not irrational, nor inconsistent with sound philosophy,to believe that God has made a special and express revelation of his character and will to man,"

Does not alter the essential evidentiary worth of the Gospels.
He is simply saying that it could happen... SOUND philosophy would never reject an idea a priori. They would look at evidence first THEN made a judgement.

The only requirement for it to be sound is that the existence of God be assumed. Given that that is not something which can be proven one way or the other without the element of either faith or dogmatic atheism, it stands true that the assumption of God's existence is as valid as that of his non existence.

So...you could delete the whole paragraph and move straight to

"we proceed to examine and compare the testimony of Four Evangelists, as witnesses to the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ"

under the ancient document rule.

Now.. you made a claim that "Rules of evidence: not in this universe"

which was patently incorrect. Now..I could dwell on this, and make much of it.. wax eloquent about how you are a troublemaker, a rabble rouser, a perveyor of hate, fear and loathing, that you misrepresent the Christian faith..that your credibility is dodgy.......

(as you are want to do of me)...but how does that advance our quest for truth?

I don't mind being corrected when the motive is TRUTH rather than destroying credibility.. it comes back to contributions all helping us to a better place. Sometimes that better place involved understanding things which are unpalatable to our sentimentally held notions.. such as the real meaning of bladi Surah bladi 9

Poly/Boaz

You never learn do you?

1. You do not 'prove' one myth by referring to another - Adam and Eve were also functionally extinct - inadequate gene pool.

2. Claiming that god waved some sort of magic wand is simply lame, I suppose he/she/it also provided oxygen masks for all living creatures on the ark, while the oceans topped Mount Everest. Yes, I did notice that you avoided 99.9% of Oliver's questions.

3. You cry big tears when people do not take anything you say seriously. Looking at just the 2 points above (regardless of the excellent arguments proffered by so many others) can you not see your complete absence of reason?

Many Christians quite sensibly take the bible as analogy, why can't you?

"It seems a bit of a trap to me.. when we look back with modern science and try to squeeze ancient events into a very tightly packed box. If Scripture was intending to answer those very detailed scientific questions, I guess it would have. "

David the trap would appear to be trying to treat ancient texts as a scientific or historical reference (especially a scientific reference which trumps modern science in regard to the science). By insisting on treating the early parts of the bible as an historical narative rather than accepting that they are doing something different you find yourself forced into that trap.

There are problems in not doing so - if death came from sin then how do you explain all the fossils from before modern man's time? Those problems are less then the problems you create for yourself by what you are doing here.

R0bert