Is denying God moral? (Atheists)

[Hoghead1]

I am sure it does given your views. But there is evidence that the entire bible including the book of Romans is of divine origin.

Yes, true. However, we also have strong evidence that the Bible is of human origin as well. I believe that the Bible is not the Word of God. I believe that the Bible is the word of man. God's Word is revealed through the words of men.

 

[Davian]

Prove that my citations are based on personal preference and not based on evidence.

In science we don't "prove" things. I called out your hypocrisy in 2201, and I stand by it.

Anyone that knows anything about science knows that there is much more hard observational or empirical evidence in cosmology than there is in the theory of evolution which is a historical extrapolation.

Another of your unsupportable claims. What we do know is the level of support by those that know about science:

An overwhelming majority of the scientific community accepts evolution as the dominant scientific theory of biological diversity.[1][2] - wiki

Media

• nformation

• 

dav: Check the batteries. And change your shirt.

Nice selfie!

lol. Nice try. You are the only one trying to do the mind-reading trick in this thread.

See posts 2254 and 2255 for citations.

2254 simply links to someone else's opinion, and 2255 is someone commenting on your reaction to being called out on your [fallacious] quote mine.

As theological heretics they do not believe those things ever occurred.

Judging other Christians to be heretics, are you?

Luke 6:37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned...

I am not sure what you mean by "worse".

Nothing, I was simply being facetious, to see if you would pass judgment on him as you do with your fellow Christians.

But as far as moral behavior, I would say that this particular non-practicing jew is much more moral than the other Democratic candidate for president.

And who appointed you to be the judge of all these people?

Most of them probably believe all those things did happen except for the sun orbiting around the earth since orthodox Christianity

Why do you keep making these refernces to "orthodox" Christianity, as if it is the "real" Christianity? Are you declaring your particular denomination "true" and throwing the "other" Christians under the bus?

Luke 6:37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned...

does not teach that. By calling devout Christians insane, you do know that you are putting yourself on the same side as Uncle Joe Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao don't you?

I am not the one being judgmental here. That the human mind, in its normal capacity, can hold such beliefs is not something I dispute.

They all believed that orthodox Christians were insane too. What do you want your politicians in Canada to do, put us all in "Re-education" Camps?

In Canada, we simply refer to it as "education" and it is done in "schools". Most everyone goes there as part of growing up, including (future) politicians and religionists.

The eyewitness accounts are backed up by archaeological evidence too.

Taking you back to the Spider-man fallacy.

See post 2255.

2255 is someone commenting on your reaction to being called out on your [fallacious] quote mine.

But some of these ancient documents have claims from non-anonymous reports of eyewitness testimony.

Claims indeed.

Both types of reports are common in the field of historical study. In fact without such reports, large swaths of history would be unknown.

Sure, but the historical method does nothing for your "miracles" or "divinity" claims.

 

[Eudaimonist]

But there is evidence that the entire bible including the book of Romans is of divine origin.

Um, what evidence? *blink blink*

I can understand that you think that you have apologetics that the universe is created by a divine being. But that is a far cry from showing that the Bible is of divine origin. That requires a vastly different sort of argument. You have to show that the human authors of the Bible weren't writing down their own views, but were only writing down divine views. How are you going to show that?

Keep in mind that the universe could (hypothetically) be of divine origin, and yet the Bible is of human origin.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Ed1wolf]

I beg to disagree. There is absolutely no evidence that nobody in later centuries would have known about Hittite treaties. I have read Kitchen and I fail to be impressed.

You do know that they did not have archaeologists in 8th century BC don't you? How could they have known about other cultures that existed 700 years earlier? Even today when we do have archaeologists there are some things we don't about 700 years ago.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Yes, true. However, we also have strong evidence that the Bible is of human origin as well. I believe that the Bible is not the Word of God. I believe that the Bible is the word of man. God's Word is revealed through the words of men.

How do you separate the two?

 

[Gene2memE]

I never said both were completely written by eyewitnesses but large important sections were.

Actually, you stated neither.

See above, post 2254 for the NT. For one little piece of evidence is the Deuteronomic covenant is based on the same structure and form as the Hittite Suzarainty Treaties of the 13th and 14th century BC. So this is just one piece of the evidence that whomever wrote Pentateuch was familiar with that form. No one in the 7th or 8th century BC which is when liberal scholars say it was written, could have known about such treaty forms. For more evidence read K. A. Kitchen's "The Reliability of the Old Testament".

I've read a fair but of Kitchen. I'd rather stick with more moderate scholarship, informed by evidence rather than ideology.

Nothing about Kitchen's interpretation of the evidence convinces me that the authors of the Old Testament were "eyewitnesses".

An earlier or later date for the composition of the OT provides no evidence eitherway of whether or not it was written by eyewitnesses, nor if what they wrote is can be considered a reliable account of events.

 

[Ed1wolf]

dav: In science we don't "prove" things. I called out your hypocrisy in 2201, and I stand by it.

You are right about theoretical science but for empirical science we conduct experimental proofs.

dav: Another of your unsupportable claims. What we do know is the level of support by those that know about science:

An overwhelming majority of the scientific community accepts evolution as the dominant scientific theory of biological diversity.[1][2] - wiki

lol. Nice try. You are the only one trying to do the mind-reading trick in this thread.

dav: 2254 simply links to someone else's opinion,

Yes, but an expert opinion based on historical research.

dav: and 2255 is someone commenting on your reaction to being called out on your [fallacious] quote mine.

Actually that is a typo, I meant to type 2256.

dav: Judging other Christians to be heretics, are you?

Luke 6:37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned...

Atheists and agnostics always leave out all the other verses in that chapter that demonstrate that we are supposed to judge people after we take care of our own sin. Especially verse 42 where Christ explains how to judge rightly. Also read verse 43-47 where He explains how we can recognize His followers by what kind of fruit they produce. And heretical teaching is plainly bad fruit.

dav: Nothing, I was simply being facetious, to see if you would pass judgment on him as you do with your fellow Christians.

And who appointed you to be the judge of all these people?

I am not judging them in a final sense, because they may repent before they die only God can do that, but we are commanded to determine who most likely is a Christian in order to evangelize, if we didn't judge who was a Christian we could never fulfill the great commission.

dav: Why do you keep making these refernces to "orthodox" Christianity, as if it is the "real" Christianity? Are you declaring your particular denomination "true" and throwing the "other" Christians under the bus?

Up until about 100 years ago, almost every denomination believed the historic teachings of Christianity, such as the Apostles Creed, the ten commandments and the moral teachings of Christ. IOW orthodox doctrine. Beginning around 100 years ago, many of these denominations began to abandon these teachings, becoming unorthodox and heretical. Orthodox Christianity is real or historic Christianity.

dav: I am not the one being judgmental here. That the human mind, in its normal capacity, can hold such beliefs is not something I dispute.

Fraid so, you are implying that real Christians are insane.

dav: In Canada, we simply refer to it as "education" and it is done in "schools". Most everyone goes there as part of growing up, including (future) politicians and religionists.

I forgot Canada and most of the US public schools already are reeducation camps. Those schools are propaganda mills for secular humanism.

dav: Sure, but the historical method does nothing for your "miracles" or "divinity" claims.

Yes, it does as long as the historian is objective and does not a priori rule out the supernatural.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Um, what evidence? *blink blink*

I can understand that you think that you have apologetics that the universe is created by a divine being. But that is a far cry from showing that the Bible is of divine origin. That requires a vastly different sort of argument. You have to show that the human authors of the Bible weren't writing down their own views, but were only writing down divine views. How are you going to show that?

Keep in mind that the universe could (hypothetically) be of divine origin, and yet the Bible is of human origin.


eudaimonia,

Mark

The Bible is the only religious book that teaches that the universe had a definite beginning from nothing detectable, is expanding, operates primarily by natural law, and is winding down energetically, 3500 years before these things were confirmed by science. This is strong evidence for its divine origin, also the fact that it was written by multiple authors over a period of about 1500 years and does not contain any signficant errors or contradictions.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Actually, you stated neither.



I've read a fair but of Kitchen. I'd rather stick with more moderate scholarship, informed by evidence rather than ideology.

Evidence that his conclusions are based on ideology rather than evidence?

g2: Nothing about Kitchen's interpretation of the evidence convinces me that the authors of the Old Testament were "eyewitnesses".

An earlier or later date for the composition of the OT provides no evidence eitherway of whether or not it was written by eyewitnesses, nor if what they wrote is can be considered a reliable account of events.

Not that by itself but combined with other evidence such as that the fact that the author of Pentateuch shows great familiarity with the geography of Egypt and Palestine at that particular point in time, And there other evidences that point in the direction of the author being an eyewitness to events in the Pentateuch from Exodus to Joshua. Other parts come from other sources that also seem to come from other possible eyewitnesses .

 

[ToddNotTodd]

The Bible is the only religious book that teaches that the universe had a definite beginning from nothing detectable, is expanding, operates primarily by natural law, and is winding down energetically, 3500 years before these things were confirmed by science. This is strong evidence for its divine origin, also the fact that it was written by multiple authors over a period of about 1500 years and does not contain any signficant errors or contradictions.

Ahhhh... clouded interpretations are a wonderful thing. It's like you could believe almost anything a book says if you just try hard enough...

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ahhhh... clouded interpretations are a wonderful thing. It's like you could believe almost anything a book says if you just try hard enough...

Evidence that my interpretations are clouded? My faith is based on more than just the bible, also all the experiences of God I have had, such as all the answered prayers and blessings he has given me and my family.

 

[bhsmte]

Evidence that my interpretations are clouded? My faith is based on more than just the bible, also all the experiences of God I have had, such as all the answered prayers and blessings he has given me and my family.

That's cool. You can believe those experiences for yourself personally, but don't think that your personal interpretations and experiences, apply to other people.

 

[Ed1wolf]

That's cool. You can believe those experiences for yourself personally, but don't think that your personal interpretations and experiences, apply to other people.

But if you had wonderful information that can help people live better and more fulfilling lives and you could teach them facts about life, wouldn't you want to tell other people about them and try to teach them these truths?

 

[Gene2memE]

Evidence that his conclusions are based on ideology rather than evidence?

Rather than digging Kitchen out of storage and doing a point-by-point, I'll take an easier avenue and allow experts in Biblical history to perform some critiquing for me:

Peter Green, doctoral student of Old Testament studies at Wheaton College

"Kitchen’s stubborn claims that he can analyze the data in a purely objective and detached manner seem deeply naive in light of the decades of post-modern critique of modernism. Kitchen wants desperately for the OT to be accorded its rightful place as reliable history alongside sources from the surrounding cultures, which are invariably treated with less skepticism than the OT (50; the literature of a now defunct religion is less threatening to secularists than the literature of an active and growing religion). This misses the point, though, since the OT was never meant to convey simple history (as Kitchen himself would acknowledge). Thus, Kitchen strives to give the OT a place that it does not want."

From: https://wheatonblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/review-on-the-reliability-of-the-ot-by-k-a-kitchen/

Charles David Isbell, Director of Jewish Studies at Louisiana State University

"Kitchen stands as far to one edge of the stream of OT scholarship as his opponents do to the other".

"Second, Kitchen’s own ideology is betrayed in numerous places throughout, beginning with his choice of the word "Reliability" in the title. What Kitchen means by "reliable" is instructive, for in brief, Kitchen always thinks the Old Testament means what he thinks it means."

From: http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Isbell-Kitchen_and_Minimalism.shtml

Eugene H. Merrill, professor of Old Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary

"The present work, though technically not a history of Israel, is concerned primarily to reestablish the Old Testament as a reliable record of that history in the face of postmodern attempts to rob it of any semblance of historical credibility. In his response to these approaches Kitchen regularly makes the transition from apologist to polemicist, a move not surprising to readers familiar with his other works."

"The rationale for this, however, is quite clear and sensible, for Kitchen wants to begin with an era best documented by extrabiblical data and then, having made a strong case for the Old Testament’s reliability there, to move to earlier times where such evidence is increasingly rare. The point is that if late periods of history can be shown to be corroborated by unimpeachable secular sources, it follows a fortiori that earlier ones should at least be given presumptive benefit of the doubt. On the whole, Kitchen makes a good case for his thesis, but sometimes he does so at the expense of self-consistency or even by fudging on matters of historical event, especially where the supernatural is involved."

From: http://www.dts.edu/reviews/kenneth-a-kitchen-on-the-reliability-of-the-old-testament

Kenton L. Sparks, professor of biblical studies at Eastern University, St. Davids, Pennsylvania.

“Having already shown me the earth from an orbiting spaceship, Kitchen then proceeded to argue that the earth was flat. For the first time it began to dawn on me that the critical arguments regarding the Pentateuch were far better, and carried much more explanatory power, than the flimsy broom that Kitchen was using to sweep them away. At that moment I began to doubt that evangelical scholars were really giving me the whole story when it came to the Bible and biblical scholarship”

From: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidb...flat-an-evangelical-critique-of-k-a-kitchens/

Dr. Paul L. Redditt Professor Emeritus, Georgetown College, Old Testament Editor for Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary

Given its subject matter, one would expect a serious treatment of the issue of historiograph, along with some interaction with the relevant literature, yet here the reader is sadly disappointed. K[itchen]. adopts a naive, academically discredited vilew of history. Both his agenda and the belligerent tone of the volume are displayed in the preface:

The facts are wholly independent of me, my prejudices, or my knowledge, and of everyone else's. This itself is an absolute fact of life, along with countless others. And so, we must firmly say to philosophical cranks (politically correct, postmodernist, or whatever else)—"Your fantasy agendas are irrelevant in and to the real world, both of today and of all preceding time back into remotest antiquity. Get real or (alas!) get lost!" (p. xiv).​

K. reserves his harshest criticism for those who allow any type of theoretical application to get in the way of his "hard facts." His utter disdain for theory, historical or otherwise, is evident throughout the volume (e.g.. "ideological claptrap" [p. xiv]: "too much anthropological claptrap theory" [p. 473]: "Dumb-cluck socio-anthropologists" [p. 467]; "neo-Nazi thought police" [p. xiv]—among numerous examples). K's naive, "commonsense" view of historical interpretation assumes that, whereas others bring their "ideological claptrap" to their reading of the text, K. himself does not.

Despite his protestations to the contrary, K.'s work manifests a clear "us versus them" mentality: me with the "hard facts" and common sense, opposed to everyone else with their ideological agendas. Indeed, it is in the consistency with which the author obsesses over accounting for the accuracy or plausibility of nearly every aspect of the biblical text that one discerns a larger theological motivation and agenda here.

 

[Moral Orel]

But most scientists agree that life can only be similar to life on earth, ie carbon based, and needing things like water and nitrogen. And so we know that if a planet does not have those things among many others then life will not evolve or exist.

"Most scientists" is going to need some citation. I'm sure there are some, but "most"? I don't think so. What I have heard is that life needs liquids, not specifically water. And that carbon is really, really good at combining with other elements and compounds, which makes it really, really good for life, but that doesn't mean it's necessary.

I admit that the sample may be small but nevertheless we have not discovered ANY yet. A better analogy would be living out side and seeing all the trees and then trying find a cave with trees in it. On our planet life is abundant, but so far in the rest of our galaxy it is at the very least, extremely rare if nonexistent.

The sample is astronomically small (pun intended). How bout an analogy in the middle ground.

You're on an island with trees. You can see a few other islands from where you are that have no vegetation whatsoever. Therefore you conclude that although there are likely to be other islands in the world, none of them have trees but your own.

So you disagree with Al Gore that very slight changes in the amount of carbon dioxide in the air are going to wipe us out in less than 100 years?

That's different. The kind of climate change that would occur from the Earth slowly changing its tilt is nothing like the kind of climate change that occurs from us pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. I don't want to get into a whole discussion about global warming, so let's keep it small and not expansive. Think of the polar ice caps.

The polar ice caps reflect a lot of heat from the sun. If they shrink, they reflect less heat. Now if we pump a bunch of CO2 into the atmosphere they shrink. If the Earth tilts slowly, then it shrinks in one spot, and grows at exactly the same rate on the opposite side. They would never change size, just location. So, climate change from an ever tilting planet would cause some areas to go from super hot deserts, to frozen wastelands (and everything in between) which would make evolution difficult as there isn't a long term stable environment, but there would still be a temperate climate somewhere on the Earth at all times.

Yes, but I am referring to the Heavy Bombardment period around 1 bya when life was mostly microbial and might not have survived so many meteors, many more than occurred when the dinosaurs were around.

So life would have started a little later. All the stuff necessary would still be here, it would just be in constant turmoil until it ended.

No, when you combine the size, location, type of moon when it was formed, ie see above about the heavy bombardment period and all the other finely tuned "coincidences" as demonstrated in the Anthropic Principle, the odds against it being dumb luck is so great that it could not have occurred by luck. It is similar to someone facing a firing squad and all the guns go off that appear to be pointed at him and yet he lives. What do you think the most rational conclusion is? Obviously they missed him on purpose.

Ahh, but it doesn't take a specifically sized moon to make a stable tilt. It takes a specific ratio in terms of the size of the Moon and of the Earth and their distance from one another. This opens up a lot more possibilities. Ours is one of countless combinations that would work. If the Moon were a little smaller, then it would just need to be a little closer or the Earth would need to be a little smaller, etc...

Please tell me how you're using the Anthropic principle, because I've heard it used in very different ways. For one, I've heard that it means that anything observable about the universe is going to match how we observe things. For instance, imagine you are catching fish with a net in a lake. Every single fish you catch is longer than 6". You catch hundreds of fish from all different parts of the lake. Does that mean that the lake doesn't contain fish shorter than 6"? No, it means your net doesn't catch fish that small.

I think you mean it in the way that some people think that of course there is something special about beings existing in the universe that can observe the universe, but I don't buy that at all. That's just a feeling people have, which isn't actual evidence of anything, and it is always possible that everything is random and meaningless.

No, verse 18 talks about how we suppress the truth in our minds. It is more clear in the original greek.

No, I said the verse after the one you shared.

Scientists move the goal posts back all the time, especially with the theory of evolution. But see above about the Anthropic Principle. The probability is basically null that all these things occurred by chance.

How do scientists move the goalposts back with evolution? Like when they change dates based on new evidence? That isn't moving the goal posts. It would only be moving the goal posts if they said something like, "well, we predicted this to prove evolution, but it didn't happen, so now we just need to prove this other thing instead". And that isn't what has happened through evolution at all. As new fields of science opened up (like genetics) they reinforced already held theories with more data to support the conclusions.

As for probabilities, you're just not considering how extremely massive the universe is.

 

[Gene2memE]

"Most scientists" is going to need some citation. I'm sure there are some, but "most"? I don't think so. What I have heard is that life needs liquids, not specifically water. And that carbon is really, really good at combining with other elements and compounds, which makes it really, really good for life, but that doesn't mean it's necessary.

EdWolf is actually quite close to the mark here.

When I was an aspiring hard science fiction writer (way back in the early 2000s), I did a lot of reading on alternative chemistries for life (and then found a couple of chemistry majors to interpret for me), get depressed about the whole thing because of how difficult it was, and then gave up and started writing bad space opera.

Essentially, this has been a topic of interest since about 1890 and there was a lot of very serious work done on the subject in the 1950s through to the 1980s (plus a bit of a resurgence in the mid 2000s). From my research, the general conclusion was that its very difficult to postulate life that is not based around carbon bonds and water, and incredibly difficult to use it as a basis for complex, thinking life.

The most likely alternative is silicon. You can make silicon work as a basis for very simple life (think bacteria/microorganism complexity), using some very un-Earth like conditions. You need stuff like super low or super high temperatures, very high pressures and almost no free oxygen. Lithoautotroph and chemolithautoroph's provide an insight, but even these are still based on plain old carbon. You'd also need liquid ammonia, rather than water. Which again has its own problems. Making silicon work as a model for complex life (motile, aware and capable of reacting to their environment) is really difficult.

There are also more exotic models based around boron-nitrogen, methan and sulfur, as well as phosphorus-carbon and arsenic-carbon, but again there are a laundry list of issues, you need really extreme environments and anything more advanced than self replicating molecular chains is difficult.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson said "Carbon is the s**t of the Periodic Table of Elements”. It wants to bond with EVERYTHING. That makes it a really good baseline for chemistry, and thus life.

 

[Moral Orel]

EdWolf is actually quite close to the mark here.

When I was an aspiring hard science fiction writer (way back in the early 2000s), I did a lot of reading on alternative chemistries for life (and then found a couple of chemistry majors to interpret for me), get depressed about the whole thing because of how difficult it was, and then gave up and started writing bad space opera.

Essentially, this has been a topic of interest since about 1890 and there was a lot of very serious work done on the subject in the 1950s through to the 1980s (plus a bit of a resurgence in the mid 2000s). From my research, the general conclusion was that its very difficult to postulate life that is not based around carbon bonds and water, and incredibly difficult to use it as a basis for complex, thinking life.

The most likely alternative is silicon. You can make silicon work as a basis for very simple life (think bacteria/microorganism complexity), using some very un-Earth like conditions. You need stuff like super low or super high temperatures, very high pressures and almost no free oxygen. Lithoautotroph and chemolithautoroph's provide an insight, but even these are still based on plain old carbon. You'd also need liquid ammonia, rather than water. Which again has its own problems. Making silicon work as a model for complex life (motile, aware and capable of reacting to their environment) is really difficult.

There are also more exotic models based around boron-nitrogen, methan and sulfur, as well as phosphorus-carbon and arsenic-carbon, but again there are a laundry list of issues, you need really extreme environments and anything more advanced than self replicating molecular chains is difficult.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson said "Carbon is the s**t of the Periodic Table of Elements”. It wants to bond with EVERYTHING. That makes it a really good baseline for chemistry, and thus life.

Thanks for the info. I hadn't heard, actually, that there was a lot of research into how other types of life could exist. I had heard silicon was the next best thing to carbon (even though carbon is always going to be the best by a long shot).

My trouble with his statements though is that he uses words like "only" and "necessary". So carbon is going to be vastly more likely to be found as the basis for life out there, but considering the size of the universe, I seriously doubt it is the only one.

 

[Oafman]

I hadn't heard, actually, that there was a lot of research into how other types of life could exist. I had heard silicon was the next best thing to carbon (even though carbon is always going to be the best by a long shot).

A lot of study has gone into the potential types of life that could be in Titan's oceans, as a good example. It's a very interesting subject; one I know next to nothing about btw, except for a documentary I watched recently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry

 

[Ed1wolf]

Rather than digging Kitchen out of storage and doing a point-by-point, I'll take an easier avenue and allow experts in Biblical history to perform some critiquing for me:

Peter Green, doctoral student of Old Testament studies at Wheaton College

"Kitchen’s stubborn claims that he can analyze the data in a purely objective and detached manner seem deeply naive in light of the decades of post-modern critique of modernism. Kitchen wants desperately for the OT to be accorded its rightful place as reliable history alongside sources from the surrounding cultures, which are invariably treated with less skepticism than the OT (50; the literature of a now defunct religion is less threatening to secularists than the literature of an active and growing religion). This misses the point, though, since the OT was never meant to convey simple history (as Kitchen himself would acknowledge). Thus, Kitchen strives to give the OT a place that it does not want."

From: https://wheatonblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/review-on-the-reliability-of-the-ot-by-k-a-kitchen/

Actually I agree with most of what Mr. Green says, he is mainly criticizing Kitchens tone. And I agree he is sometimes a little condescending and harsh to his opponents. But Mr. Green does not say that Kitchens facts and overall conclusion are wrong.

g2: Charles David Isbell, Director of Jewish Studies at Louisiana State University

"Kitchen stands as far to one edge of the stream of OT scholarship as his opponents do to the other".

"Second, Kitchen’s own ideology is betrayed in numerous places throughout, beginning with his choice of the word "Reliability" in the title. What Kitchen means by "reliable" is instructive, for in brief, Kitchen always thinks the Old Testament means what he thinks it means."

No, he uses reliable in the ordinary sense, ie generally accurate in a historical sense. But anti-supernaturalist scholars do what Isbell complains about all the time. Early on in their writings it is immediately clear what their philosophical point of view is without even attempting to establish it as a rational position. No scholar is completely objective of course, but some are more objective than others and more open minded than others.

g2: Eugene H. Merrill, professor of Old Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary

"The present work, though technically not a history of Israel, is concerned primarily to reestablish the Old Testament as a reliable record of that history in the face of postmodern attempts to rob it of any semblance of historical credibility. In his response to these approaches Kitchen regularly makes the transition from apologist to polemicist, a move not surprising to readers familiar with his other works."

"The rationale for this, however, is quite clear and sensible, for Kitchen wants to begin with an era best documented by extrabiblical data and then, having made a strong case for the Old Testament’s reliability there, to move to earlier times where such evidence is increasingly rare. The point is that if late periods of history can be shown to be corroborated by unimpeachable secular sources, it follows a fortiori that earlier ones should at least be given presumptive benefit of the doubt. On the whole, Kitchen makes a good case for his thesis, but sometimes he does so at the expense of self-consistency or even by fudging on matters of historical event, especially where the supernatural is involved."

Again, this criticism is more about tone and how he deals with supernatural events by explaining them in naturalistic terms, but Merrill gives no major criticism of Kitchens facts and overall conclusion.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Kenton L. Sparks, professor of biblical studies at Eastern University, St. Davids, Pennsylvania.

“Having already shown me the earth from an orbiting spaceship, Kitchen then proceeded to argue that the earth was flat. For the first time it began to dawn on me that the critical arguments regarding the Pentateuch were far better, and carried much more explanatory power, than the flimsy broom that Kitchen was using to sweep them away. At that moment I began to doubt that evangelical scholars were really giving me the whole story when it came to the Bible and biblical scholarship”

From: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidb...flat-an-evangelical-critique-of-k-a-kitchens/

While Sparks claims to be an evangelical he seems to have swallowed the discredited documentary hypothesis. Beginning with Umberto Cassuto and more recently several other Jewish scholars have pretty much debunked it. If some scholar used it on any other ancient document they would be considered a laughing stock.

g2: Dr. Paul L. Redditt Professor Emeritus, Georgetown College, Old Testament Editor for Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary

Given its subject matter, one would expect a serious treatment of the issue of historiograph, along with some interaction with the relevant literature, yet here the reader is sadly disappointed. K[itchen]. adopts a naive, academically discredited vilew of history. Both his agenda and the belligerent tone of the volume are displayed in the preface:

The facts are wholly independent of me, my prejudices, or my knowledge, and of everyone else's. This itself is an absolute fact of life, along with countless others. And so, we must firmly say to philosophical cranks (politically correct, postmodernist, or whatever else)—"Your fantasy agendas are irrelevant in and to the real world, both of today and of all preceding time back into remotest antiquity. Get real or (alas!) get lost!" (p. xiv).​

K. reserves his harshest criticism for those who allow any type of theoretical application to get in the way of his "hard facts." His utter disdain for theory, historical or otherwise, is evident throughout the volume (e.g.. "ideological claptrap" [p. xiv]: "too much anthropological claptrap theory" [p. 473]: "Dumb-cluck socio-anthropologists" [p. 467]; "neo-Nazi thought police" [p. xiv]—among numerous examples). K's naive, "commonsense" view of historical interpretation assumes that, whereas others bring their "ideological claptrap" to their reading of the text, K. himself does not.

Despite his protestations to the contrary, K.'s work manifests a clear "us versus them" mentality: me with the "hard facts" and common sense, opposed to everyone else with their ideological agendas. Indeed, it is in the consistency with which the author obsesses over accounting for the accuracy or plausibility of nearly every aspect of the biblical text that one discerns a larger theological motivation and agenda here.

All scholars have some agenda but some are less agenda ridden than others. And Dr. Reddit seems to have swallowed the DH and many aspects of the self refuting philosophy of naturalism, that appears to be his primary agenda. Though I do agree with him about Kitchens tone.