Interesting evidence of an ancient Middle East Meteor Cataclysm...Jericho? Sodom?

Halbhh

Everything You say is Life to me
Supporter
Mar 17, 2015
17,173
9,191
catholic -- embracing all Christians
✟1,152,595.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
For Christians, does news like this challenge Bible faith by possibly demystifying certain events? Or strengthen it by corroborating them?
In order for the common bible to be legitimate at all, then the repeated messages throughout it in most of the books about the need for faith, which is to believe without seeing proof or to believe before proof....

Require that no clear evidence of God that would just prove God exists be available.

If there were any clear outright proof of some key thing that just just plainly proves God exists, then much in the bible (or certainly the New Testament) would be invalid.

Make sense?

Here's a helpful verse to illustrate what faith is:

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see.

Actually, this Hebrew chapter 11 (which you can read in about 2 minutes) is very helpful to help show that faith is one of the key overall themes of the entire Old Testament:
Hebrews 11 NIV
(and it has a message about seeking God...)

The entire Old Testament is about a few things, and faith is one of the 2 most prominent things, the other being the Law (the effort to establish the Rule of Law).

So....therefore, a way to make faith possible by hiding God's hand would be for many miraculous things seem simply naturally possible -- so that a skeptic that wishes to reject God could think it was only a natural event, happening by chance.




 
  • Informative
Reactions: durangodawood
Upvote 0

ViaCrucis

Confessional Lutheran
Oct 2, 2011
37,341
26,785
Pacific Northwest
✟728,115.00
Country
United States
Faith
Lutheran
Marital Status
In Relationship
Politics
US-Others
For Christians, does news like this challenge Bible faith by possibly demystifying certain events? Or strengthen it by corroborating them?

This is going to depend a lot on the particular approach to the Bible the Christian has.

I don't subscribe to inerrantism, and tend to view much of the Old Testament as Israel's wrestling with God, the revelation of God to Israel is very real; but the ways in which the ancients wrote about their historical relationship between themselves and God is written from their perspective, not necessarily from God's perspective.

Being 100% literally true in all details is a lot less important than the larger picture which Christians, by faith, understand as ultimately pointing toward Jesus. The purpose of the Bible in Christianity isn't to be a book of inerrant history and science, but to be the Christ-bearing text from which we can hear about God's work of saving, healing, and rescuing the world through Jesus Christ.

-CryptoLutheran
 
Upvote 0

tas8831

Well-Known Member
May 5, 2017
5,611
4,000
55
Northeast
✟101,040.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Married
There is compelling evidence that a significant meteor strike (about 15 megatons) in the northern Levant absolutely obliterated one major city and leveled the walls of Jericho around 1650 BC. That would be close to the time scripture tells of Jericho's destruction by the Israelites.

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-evidence-cosmic-impact-ancient-city.html

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-evidence-cosmic-impact-ancient-city.html
It would also mean that the bible story is a fabrication.
 
Upvote 0

tas8831

Well-Known Member
May 5, 2017
5,611
4,000
55
Northeast
✟101,040.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Married
2 Kings 1:10
Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men.
Back to religious stuff, I see.
 
Upvote 0

tas8831

Well-Known Member
May 5, 2017
5,611
4,000
55
Northeast
✟101,040.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Married
When soldiers cross a bridge, they march out of step to prevent resonance from destroying it.

The walls of Jericho were brought down by soldiers marching around the city, followed by the loud noise of trumpets and shouting. Which could mean resonance played a role in bringing down the walls of Jericho.

This is something Nikola Tesla also alluded to when he claimed to have built a resonance machine capable of destroying buildings in cities.
Walls are not bridges.
 
Upvote 0

tas8831

Well-Known Member
May 5, 2017
5,611
4,000
55
Northeast
✟101,040.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Married
With unusually high (relatively unsafe) levels of "natural" radioactivity in the water and soil in the same area....

God might have used nuclear weapons.....:mmh:(meteor impacts doesn't make a place radioactive, only nuclear weapons could)
So God is a mass murderer?
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

RDKirk

Alien, Pilgrim, and Sojourner
Supporter
Mar 3, 2013
39,137
20,169
US
✟1,440,830.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Sheared? I had never heard that. Citation?

I posted the article. I did read a couple of other articles based on the same information. One of them showed pictures of the excavation which did show the difference between sheered walls (literally looking like a knife had cut horizontally through them, and walls blown over.
 
Upvote 0
Sep 8, 2012
385
211
✟14,978.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
Are you suggesting that an army marching in step outside the walls might have brought them down? Seriously?


Have you heard of Nikola Tesla saying he could destroy a building with vibrations and resonance.

Same deal.

I think they marched around Jericho for 6 consecutive days. Which could mean they spent 6 days marching at different paces, in step to find the proper resonance frequency to bring the Walls of Jericho crashing down.

There's a lot of science in the bible, most will never know about.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

FrumiousBandersnatch

Well-Known Member
Mar 20, 2009
15,258
8,056
✟326,229.00
Faith
Atheist
Have you heard of Nikola Tesla saying he could destroy a building with vibrations and resonance.

Same deal.

I think they marched around Jericho for 6 consecutive days. Which could mean they spent 6 days marching at different paces, in step to find the proper resonance frequency to bring the Walls of Jericho crashing down.

There's a lot of science in the bible, most will never know about.
Tesla said a lot of things that he never demonstrated. It would, in principle, be possible to destroy buildings with high-intensity sound waves or ground vibration, but neither the necessary frequency or intensity could be achieved by marchers.

Bridges and walls are not alike in their susceptibility to resonance. Walls don't have free spans to resonate and any resonances are damped by their continuous contact with the ground. To get a bridge resonating by footfall requires direct impact with the structure. The effect of marching around near a wall will be damped out by the ground itself which doesn't resonate. Invoking a miracle would be less risible.
 
Last edited:
  • Informative
Reactions: Astrophile
Upvote 0
Sep 8, 2012
385
211
✟14,978.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
Tesla said a lot of things that he never demonstrated. It would, in principle, be possible to destroy buildings with high-intensity sound waves or ground vibration, but neither the necessary frequency or intensity could be achieved by marchers.

Bridges and walls are not alike in their susceptibility to resonance. Walls don't have free spans to resonate and any resonances are damped by their continuous contact with the ground. To get a bridge resonating by footfall requires direct impact with the structure. The effect of marching around near a wall will be damped out by the ground itself which doesn't resonate. Invoking a miracle would be less risible.


Architecture 2,000+ years ago lacked modern engineering and safety standards. It is possible the walls were built rickety enough to be vulnerable to a resonance based attack. Or perhaps the walls were poorly maintained.

A diamond is the hardest material on earth. Even it can be fractured and broken by a gentle tap from a hammer if contacts the right point. Its not about force or resistance. Resonance and the right frequency is like kryptonite to superman. A lot of force or contact aren't necessary if conditions are right.
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

Estrid

Well-Known Member
Feb 10, 2021
9,548
3,180
39
Hong Kong
✟147,302.00
Country
Hong Kong
Faith
Skeptic
Marital Status
In Relationship
In order for the common bible to be legitimate at all, then the repeated messages throughout it in most of the books about the need for faith, which is to believe without seeing proof or to believe before proof....

Require that no clear evidence of God that would just prove God exists be available.

If there were any clear outright proof of some key thing that just just plainly proves God exists, then much in the bible (or certainly the New Testament) would be invalid.

Make sense?

Here's a helpful verse to illustrate what faith is:

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see.

Actually, this Hebrew chapter 11 (which you can read in about 2 minutes) is very helpful to help show that faith is one of the key overall themes of the entire Old Testament:
Hebrews 11 NIV
(and it has a message about seeking God...)

The entire Old Testament is about a few things, and faith is one of the 2 most prominent things, the other being the Law (the effort to establish the Rule of Law).

So....therefore, a way to make faith possible by hiding God's hand would be for many miraculous things seem simply naturally possible -- so that a skeptic that wishes to reject God could think it was only a natural event, happening by chance.



Interesting, and makes sense.
A couple of additional thoughts
I am certainly a skeptic, though it
would not be so that I " wish to reject"
and look for reasons to!
(I hope I am more intellectually honest
than that!)

Flipping your thought the other way, where does
faith come in when a perso rejects clear and unimoeachable
evidence that their chosen reading of the Bible is
not correct?
 
Upvote 0

Estrid

Well-Known Member
Feb 10, 2021
9,548
3,180
39
Hong Kong
✟147,302.00
Country
Hong Kong
Faith
Skeptic
Marital Status
In Relationship
Architecture 2,000+ years ago lacked modern engineering and safety standards. It is possible the walls were built rickety enough to be vulnerable to a resonance based attack. Or perhaps the walls were poorly maintained.

A diamond is the hardest material on earth. Even it can be fractured and broken by a gentle tap from a hammer if contacts the right point. Its not about force or resistance. Resonance and the right frequency is like kryptonite to superman. A lot of force or contact aren't necessary if conditions are right.

I suspect no engineer would say that the right conditions for
that are possible
 
Upvote 0

Estrid

Well-Known Member
Feb 10, 2021
9,548
3,180
39
Hong Kong
✟147,302.00
Country
Hong Kong
Faith
Skeptic
Marital Status
In Relationship
This is going to depend a lot on the particular approach to the Bible the Christian has.

I don't subscribe to inerrantism, and tend to view much of the Old Testament as Israel's wrestling with God, the revelation of God to Israel is very real; but the ways in which the ancients wrote about their historical relationship between themselves and God is written from their perspective, not necessarily from God's perspective.

Being 100% literally true in all details is a lot less important than the larger picture which Christians, by faith, understand as ultimately pointing toward Jesus. The purpose of the Bible in Christianity isn't to be a book of inerrant history and science, but to be the Christ-bearing text from which we can hear about God's work of saving, healing, and rescuing the world through Jesus Christ.

-CryptoLutheran

Less than 100% true is obvious.
"Thirty cubits", say, is approximate.

What persent of inaccurate / untrue can it be
and retain validity?
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

RDKirk

Alien, Pilgrim, and Sojourner
Supporter
Mar 3, 2013
39,137
20,169
US
✟1,440,830.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Tesla said a lot of things that he never demonstrated. It would, in principle, be possible to destroy buildings with high-intensity sound waves or ground vibration, but neither the necessary frequency or intensity could be achieved by marchers..

Well, the OP suggests that the high intensity shock waves (that is, sound and ground vibration) from a meteor strike did the trick.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Astrophile
Upvote 0