"how can you know the bible to be true?"

BeStill&Know · Dec 9, 2016

Papias said:
Yes. I wouldn't call it a "documentary". It's a money-making project by a former rock musician, whose ideas are unsupported by evidence and have been rejected by the actual historians and archeologists. There has been plenty of work by actual archeologists in that area. Thanks for mentioning it though.

(from earlier) The Archeologists, Historians and Biblical archeologists agree - the whole exodus story never happened. How did the Jews get to Israel? They always were there. The evidence (including DNA evidence) shows that they are simply a Canaanite population that has a culturally different identity based on it's own internal stories. They were a Canaanite group that became distinct over time, never leaving its homeland.

There were plenty of expectations a century ago that archeology would confirm the stories in the first books of the Bibles, but as the evidence piled up, it soon became clear that it didn't happen as described in the Bibles. Some basic and well supported facts we now know:

The Jews were never enslaved in Egypt - instead, they developed from earlier Canaanites, and never had to "conquer" the land they always had.

There is no evidence that Moses ever existed outside of legend, like Hercules.

No Egyptian records support the enslavement of the Hebrews, or any other Biblical story - and the Egyptians have good records.

No Egyptian records support the drowning of their army in the red sea, or any other Biblical story - and the Egyptians have good records.

Jericho has been studied extensively with massive digs and archeological testing - the Biblical story does not appear to have happened. In fact, the famed walls of Jericho were destroyed by the Egyptian army centuries before the Hebrew mythology was supposed to have happened.

and so on.

This is the consensus view of Biblical archeological historians. Some examples:

Here is a book by a well known biblical archeological historian, who points out that the stories never actually happened. Read page 6 here: Exodus

Even the Conservative Jews have accepted reality here - just the first few paragraphs of this article should make that clear: New Torah For Modern Minds

Here is a good video describing this, by the top Archeologist at Israel's Tel Aviv University. You might notice that he's introduced by Rabbi Wine, who was one of the most respected Rabbis before his recent death.

The other videos by Dr. Finkelstein in that same series are also useful.

I think in today's era of fake news and rampant hoaxes, it's more important than ever to look at what the actual experts say, instead just looking for someone - anyone - saying things that we want to be true. That's the very definition of wishful thinking, after all.

In Christ-

Papias

Hello again, I'm trying, really trying. I read 2 pages of the Exodus then looked at the foot notes, which I guess she's referring from? This book is written in 2005 and her notes are from 1997 to 2001.
On her 2nd page notes from 1979.
if you have read her book is there anything more current, at least to 2005 unless their has been no more archeology digs, and re-digs <(yes I think I made that up) say it isn't so, friend.
I also went to the New Torah page article which was written in 2002, by the New York Times?
I believe the True Jew is what the Word says he is because I've known to many people with false labels. For example : You know how to identify a tree?
I am watching the video now.
BTW the original Poster Mindlight hasn't been around since Wednesday, there loads of information on-line, from all sources. I hope through every ones replies he will find truth.
Matthew 12:33
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten; for the tree is known by its fruit.
Luke 6:44
Each tree comes to be known by its own fruit. For figs are not gleaned out of briars; neither are bunches of grapes gathered from thorn bushes.
Romans 2:29
The true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. The religious act of becoming a Jew must be done in the heart. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Law does not do that kind of work. The true Jew gets his thanks from God, not from men.
I agree with God>
John 2
24 But Jesus did not trust them because He knew all men. 25 He did not need anyone to tell Him about man. He knew what was in man.
Have a blessed Sabbath

mindlight · Dec 10, 2016

Papias said:
Yes, it can. For one thing, if the Jews had been enslaved, and grown most of their population then, we'd see several clear indications.

Slavery produces a very clear genetic stamp, as slavemasters often impregnate female slaves. Thus, the population quickly has slave mt DNA,

with enslaver Y DNA. This is obvious in African Americans today, and they were only enslaved for a century. That's not the case in Jews.

Jews would show more Egyptian DNA than general diffusion predicts - this is not the case.

Significantly more Jewish DNA would be seen in Egypts population than diffusion would predict (an example of this is seen in the fact that most Americans have African DNA). This is not seen. (Neighbor populations show the normal diffusion you mention).

A massive DNA bottleneck would be seen dating to 3,000 years ago in the Jewish population - this is not seen.

The DNA is exactly what you'd expect if the exodus didn't happen, and radically different from what you'd expect if it did.

There is nothing accurate or helpful about such long distance dna testing.

Not sure how helpful or accurate historical DNA testing is going to be. The below critique of the "personal ancestry testing" makes my point here:

"A warning about the accuracy of the tests was made by the Sense About Science campaign group, which said "such histories are either so general as to be personally meaningless or they are just speculation from thin evidence."
The warning was backed by a number of leading genetics experts. Steve Jones, Emeritus Professor of Human Genetics at UCL said: “On a long trudge through history – two parents, four great-grandparents, and so on – very soon everyone runs out of ancestors and has to share them.
"As a result, almost every Briton is a descendant of Viking hordes, Roman legions, African migrants, Indian Brahmins, or anyone else they fancy.”

DNA ancestry tests branded 'meaningless'

Tracing Your Ancestry

When you think about how this testing process actually works then legitimate questions arise about the flimsy assumptions, faulty understandings and exaggerated conclusions of the Exodus deniers. The test process looks for markers in groups of people and then because there is a prevalence of such markers in a particular geographical area it says these people originated from there. Usually people have a massive mix of markers and populations tend to move around and in large cosmopolitan empires especially so and so identifying a marker with one fixed place may be problematic. When markers turn up in far flung geographical regions away from the statistical norm the placing of markers with geographical places becomes even more problematic. The Out of Africa hypothesis is so strong right now because a lot of the markers seem to be of African origin. So movement out of Africa is postulated. But in essence we do not know who was where when and why and the database is far from complete anyway so better matches may yet be found in completely different regions. That Jews do not have much Egyptian DNA may be because they more successfully resisted sleeping with their masters than did other racial groups or being low class shepherds by origin were simply not desirable to the more "classy" Egyptians. Josephs refusal to sleep with Potiphars wife and subsequent imprisonment was an example of such resistance. Their bad treatment as slaves could even be because they were not that congenial to intimate relations with the Egyptians and preferred to live and love apart from them. The religious differences may also have been a major factor there. Indeed there could be a thousand other reasons including the fact that the Jews were not originally enslaved and lived in a separate region of Egypt Goshen. In this region they may have bred with non Egyptian (since Egyptians tended not to favour shepherding as a profession and so did not live in a sheep herding area) locals who could have come from anywhere- thus there would be no DNA bottleneck but also little Egyptian DNA. Basically at this distance we simply do not know. But that they some how maintained their integrity as a group while enslaved in Egypt is not evidence that the Exodus never happened - far from it, in fact it supports a biblical understanding.

Not sufficient. You can see from the list above that there are a lot of other records that would be left than one Pharoah's account. We've got nothing - no record from Egypt, nor from neighboring areas, nor massive traces of archaeology, not even the predicted thousands of chariots, weapons and such at the bottom of the Red Sea (which has been extensively scanned), nor the massive trail that millions of people living in the desert for 40 years would give, and so on.

I mean, we can start with those, and go on to more like them. It's obvious to anyone familiar with history that the Exodus didn't happen.

In Christ-

Papias

The Jerusalem post commented on this in November and gave another way of looking at what kind of evidence is available.

The Exodus: Does archaeology have a say?

AvgJoe · Dec 18, 2016

mindlight said:
I am a Christian posting on behalf of UnitedweStand000000 who has his doubts about the authority and reliability of scripture. Please help me to answer his questions.

"
Can I just ask you, how can you know the bible to be true? you can believe it to be true but knowing and believing are different things.

I believed the bible to be true for many years, but I can't close my mind to knowledge.

I need more than faith, I need actual evidence or proof of something before I can wholeheartedly commit myself fully to it.

Can you steer me in the right direction."

Islam is statistically a religion for losers

There are many testaments to the validity of the Scriptures. The unity of the Scriptures is one such testament. The Bible was written over a period of 1,600 years, by 40 God chosen men, who lived on multiple continents and they all wrote about the same thing, man's sin and his need for a savior, Jesus Christ. There were no mail delivery trucks, no drop ship planes, no Federal Express, no UPS and no email, yet when all of the writings were put together they present one unified message. The Bible is truly the Word of God.

Following are many other areas that attest to the validity of the Scriptures.

An excellent ebook on the subject: http://www.apologeticspress.org/pdfs/e-books_pdf/idobi.pdf

Proof of Textual Evidence
Old Testament: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Biblical Integrity
New Testament: Manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliability | CARM Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry
More on the Bible: The Bible | CARM Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry

Proof of People Living at the Time of Christ
Non biblical accounts of New Testament events and/or people | CARM Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry
The writings of Josephus mention many biblical people and places | CARM Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry

Proof of Archaeology
Archaeology and the Bible • ChristianAnswers.Net
Biblical Archeology
Archaeological evidence verifying biblical cities | CARM Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry

Proof of Science
Statements Consistent With Paleontology, Astronomy, Meteorology, Biology, Anthropology, Hydrology & Geology, that were made 1,000s of years before science discovered them.
Science and the Bible
Scientific Accuracies of the Bible | CARM Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry
Eternal Productions - 101 Scientific Facts and Foreknowledge

Proof of Prophecy (Messanic & dealing with nations)
Messianic Prophecies
Fulfilled Bible Prophecy Dealing With Nations
Prophecy, the Bible and Jesus | CARM Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry
http://shoreshdavidbrandon.org/pdf/I-Have-A-Friend-Whose-Jewish.pdf (pages 11 & 12 - awesome eBook)
How Do You Know The Bible Is True?

If the Bible is true, then Christianity is true and the God described within it's pages, is Who He says He is and can be trusted.

jimmyjimmy · Dec 18, 2016

Papias said:
True: we have confirmed that a ruler named "Pontius Pilot" did exist, as did Caesar Augustus, places like Jerusalem, Rome, Assyria, Galilee, etc. That really doesn't prove much, as even works of fiction sometimes use real place and person names (like Spiderman being set in New York, fictional movies mentioning Bill Clinton, a Tale of Two Cities with London and Paris, etc.)

C.S. Lewis rightly pointed out that when the NT books were written no one wrote fiction in the way you suggest. It had never been done to that point in history. The practice modern.

BeStill&Know · Jan 6, 2017

1. The science of archeology of is 200 years old more or less.
2. Egyptian history is between 8000 B.C. to 30 B.C. more or less
3. In many archeological digs only a small fraction of the site in researched.
4. it's estimated hundreds of sites are yet to be discovered or unearthed because as the natural waterways moved, so did the civilizations.
Conclusion : Their has to be extreme arrogance for any puny human to believe all answers concerning this topic have been already exposed.

bcbsr · Jan 7, 2017

mindlight said:
I am a Christian posting on behalf of UnitedweStand000000 who has his doubts about the authority and reliability of scripture. Please help me to answer his questions.

"
Can I just ask you, how can you know the bible to be true? you can believe it to be true but knowing and believing are different things.

I believed the bible to be true for many years, but I can't close my mind to knowledge.

I need more than faith, I need actual evidence or proof of something before I can wholeheartedly commit myself fully to it.

Can you steer me in the right direction."

Islam is statistically a religion for losers

Now some people ask, "How can I know God has spoken?" Just read His word and I'm not jokin. Raising the dead and healing the blind. Oh, there's lots of proofs, you'll find. In the presence of thousands, both friend and foe. things not done in secret, don't you know. For when God speaks His word, He understands we need proof it's His and not man's.

"how can you know the bible to be true?"

BeStill&Know

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mindlight

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BeStill&Know

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"how can you know the bible to be true?"

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