Religious text and authenticity

Remove all ads!

Maybe God changed the native American's DNA to test their faith - like planting all the fossils

 

Neaderthal mitochondrial DNA is significantly different to human DNA, which shows that they were a different species altogether. And since they were sentient, and they made tools and had cultural practices such as proper burials for their dead and also evidence that they performed basic surgery on injured individuals, this clearly shows that they weren't just animals, or even just smart animals.

So...did God create human Adam and Eve and neanderthal Adam and Eve?

http://www.isogg.org/neanderthaldna.htm

 

My opinion is that when it comes to religious texts and science...people interpret what they want to interpret...

I'm including the Quran in this btw...some of the supposedly scientific quotes from the Quran, Bible, Vedas etc are quite dodgy if you ask me...with quite a bit of creative licence taken when it comes to interpreting it...

 

I've found the Vedas to be quite scientific, but you're right...with a bit of creative licence...

 

@Faraaz: Recently a professor in Egypt compared the Koran with a supermarket. I think he thinks similar to you.

 

@Nataraja:

I think the Eastern, Greek, and Coptic Orthodox use the same canon as the protestants. I'm not sure about the others. Anyway, there's an issue of historical credibility for individual books here, so judge the authenticity of each canon by itself.

The same goes for the books that didn't make it in. These weren't cast out because people didn't like the message, but because they couldn't show who wrote it.

@HB:

Nothing directly. Presumably, they were among the creatures that lived on the land (created on the sixth day), though what exactly that means depends on what you believe.

@Nataraja:

Actually, the term used can mean several things (like most words in Hebrew). It can mean either a 24 hour period, or specifically sunset to sunset (24 hours, but with a specific beginning), or it can mean sunrise to sunset (just the daylight part), but all these meanings were specified much later than the origins of Genesis, so good luck figuring out what it meant then.

As for the ark and such, the calculations also match estimates of the volume of the Ararat Anomaly, assuming it is a man-made creation of similar shape (no assumptions on size) to the Ark. Of course, there's no guarantee that the
Ararat Anomaly isn't just a huge, oddly shaped rock, but there's no evidence that says it is.

Also, there is some evidence for a more wide-spread flood than that. Look at the Sphynx. There are three types of errosion marks on the entire body except for the head. The first is lateral errosion (sideways) and is consistent with the sand and wind errosion. The second type is vertical errosion, and matches patterns of errosion only caused by a rapid downpour of water (i.e. heavy rain over a comparatively short period of time (less than a year)). The third is under the first, and hard to match patterns to, but it is consistent with errision caused by the lateral flow of water. In other words, at some point there was a massive and (on our scale) prolonged downpour of rain onto the Sphynx, probably followed by a short (less than a year) period of it being totally submerged. Elsewhere, what kind of evidence would you expect to see that would survive to today? Additionally, mitochondrial DNA testing has shown that, about the right time, the world population of humans was less than 2000 people (more precise than that we can't get). Since we know there were more people than this beforehand, but we now have evidence there were only this many or less at this time, it follows to reason that SOMETHING wiped out the vast majority of humanity around this time.

@Equester:

Here your wrong, at least on the conversion part. Judaism does not and has never sought to convert others. They accept converts, but they do not seek to convert and, as such, would not absorb the mythos of another culture to gain favor with it.

@Aikanaro:

Yes, it is specified how big it is, though exactly how large a cubit is is unclear, but we have some idea. On the second, no, it is not too small, not when you consider that most of the large animals on Earth live in the ocean and thus wouldn't need to be preserved in an ark. Also remember that this isn't permanent habitation, not even prolonged habitation.

@HB:

The first is only true if you take the Shrot Day theory, and the second is probably out of the question either way.

@Nataraja

First off, mitochondrial DNA doesn't determine species, secondly, Neandertal man came AFTER anatomically modern man, meaning he was a dead end.

 

Actually, Neanderthal came before anatomically modern man, meaning he was a dead end.

 

Actually, Neaderthal came before anatomically modern man and got genocided.

So, basically, if you bear the devil's mark, you're screwed. If you don't, you're screwed. I thought Jesus forgave people?
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.

 

Perhaps genocided, perhaps interbred with early human populations. I know that for a long time, especially in western europe and the middle east that neanderthal and human populations lived side by side for a long time, and there are similarities in tools and other things amongst neanderthal finds and tools and other things amongst early human finds, showing perhaps that the neanderthal copied, albeit rather poorly, human tools and things. They just could not compete, and despite having a larger brain cavity, who knows if they had a layer of fat in there to keep their heads warm in the cold cold climates of europe, the middle east and north africa during the times they lived there. There are a few skeletons that show a mixture of features, and are found in areas that show a long period of side by side co-habitation. Perhaps they were absorbed into early human populations. This wouldn't be too unplausible since domestic dogs and wolves/foxes/coyotes etc can interbreed, yet they have been seperate species for at least a million years, and the neanderthal split off from our lineage about 100, 000 years before we left africa, as seen in their adaptedness to the harsh cold climates of north africa, the middle east and europe.

However, all of this is contra to the Bible/Tanakh/Koran, because humans are supposed to be the only sentient species, yet neanderthal were clearly sentient - they had all the hallmarks of a primitive culture in nearly all of their findings. They certainly weren't human, yet they certainly weren't animals.

Then, there is the Turkana boy. A nearly complete skeleton of a pre-human hominid, either erectus or ergaster.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/15000.html

Ape, human, neither?

 

Actually, mitochondrial DNA is used for species determination.

 

I would like to see a link to where you got this uther bullocks from. the human population has never been down to 2000 worldwide. it would considering that times hardship not even be enough to repopulate the earth.

Secondly, a worldwide flod would leave some surweare changed geological marks around the world, the flooding of earth would knock down all treas, erode hills and so forth, leaving a geological mark of a complete layer of rotten plants and animals (remember only 2 of each survive). such a geological layer has not been found anywhere.

Thirdly, we know the flothing myth was taken up by the babylons, we know the jews at a point lived in babylon. funnely enough when analysing the scriptures and writting form, the story of noah seems to written in the periode when the jews lived in babylon. that prety much point towards the jews incoporating another peoples myth.

 

The Sumerian myth of Ziusudra tells how the god Enki warns Ziusudra (meaning "he saw life," in reference to the gift of immortality given him by the gods), king of Shuruppak, of the gods' decision to destroy mankind in a flood - the passage describing why the gods have decided this is lost. Enki instructs Ziusudra to build a large boat - the text describing the instructions is also lost. After a flood of seven days, Ziusudra makes appropriate sacrifices and prostrations to An (sky-god) and Enlil (chief of the gods), and is given eternal life in Dilmun (the Sumerian Eden) by An and Enlil.

The Sumerian king list, a genealogy of traditional Sumerian kings also mentions a great flood. The list explains that "kingship first descended to Eridu", and then passed successively to Bad-Tibira, Larak, Sippar and Shuruppak.

Excavations in Iraq have shown evidence of a flood at Shuruppak about 2,900-2,750 BCE, which extended nearly as far as the city of Kish, whose king Etana, supposedly founded the first Sumerian dynasty after the flood.

The myth of Ziusudra exists in a single copy, the fragmentary Eridu Genesis, datable by its script to the 17th century BC.

http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/specex/ur/ur-flood.htm

 

Where does the Bible say that humans are the only sentient species? It says we are given dominion over all the Earth, and that God made us in His own image (speaking of a soul here), but not that we were the only creatures in all creation to be sentient.

As for the evidence of a world-wide flood, the evidence would be less than you think. There would be a layer of dead plants and animals, yes, but guess what, that's what would happen anyway. The fact that they all died in a month instead of within 10 years of eachother wouldn't be discernable from the geologic layer. The errosion on most of the environment of one such event over such a short period of time would not be significant. There would be landslides here and there, but there is evidence of landslides all throughout the geologic layer, that isn't telling at all. The errosion would only have a significant effect on certain types of stone, like limestone, which is more sesceptable to prolonged exposure to water anyway. Think of the impact of a single category 5 hurricane on Mt Everest compared to hundreds of thousands of years of gradual wind errosion. The hurricane isn't even a footnote in the geologic record.

 

mate, if you kill all animals at once, you get a lot more skeletons in one layer, then in any other, no such layer has been found. Secondly the biblic version of survivers wouldn't be enough to support a repopulation.

the whole flooding of earth is nothing but a myth.

 

Wrong. Jews used to proselytize actively and accept converts. This changed when Christianity became the state religion and people were put to death for not accepting it. Jews were often exempt from forced conversions, but were not exempt from being punished for soliciting conversions. Changes adopted due to historical circumstance have become a widely accepted folktale, as your statement shows.

My understanding is that, at the time the New Testament was being codified, they DID know who wrote what. Either the author or the message wasn't acceptable, so out those writings went.

Why should the editors of the eraly Bible be any different from those today?

 

agreed with Rally on this. When they made the bible some 300 years after Jesus death, they delibarately choose which book fitted in, the fun part is, the four evangelions depicting jesus life, was written long after his death by people who never met him or his followers. the closest being the marcus evangelion. Marcus by the way was quite a poor writter and linguist has proven he on several cases qoutes other sources ,for does parts his linguistic skill goes quite up, while the rest is in very plain greek.
Secondly marcus does not deal with Jesus birth, it was not importent on his time or an unknown evangelion has dealt with it.
thirdly all the following evangelions, seems to qoute the same evangelion that marcus qoutes, again change of style and direct qoutes show this.
So all four evangelions seems to be build on studie of a 5th evangelion that didn't made it to the bible.

 

@Rally:

Interesting. Seeing as you're Jewish, I'll take you as a far better authority on it than me.

Mmm, yes and no, depending on what books we're talking about. The NT time books that are coming up now were mostly known to the editors, but either the authors were flat out heretical, or there were too many questions about them to accredit the word of God to them. More than a few of these, however, were by unknown or questionable authors, and they were kept out from the start. The OT time books that form the difference between the protestant Bible and the Catholic Bible are different. Many of them we're still unclear about the author today, and the messages are historically questionable as well.

@Equester:

Wrong. Of the four gospels, two were either written or dictated by actual apostles: John and Matthew. All four were likely written before AD 70 (40 years after Jesus's death) and some may have been written as early as AD 50.

 

No, NOG, again you're wrong. John was written about 90-100 CE. The earliest being Mark, then Matthew, then Luke.

Reason for having 4 gospels was that they felt they needed 4...theres 4 winds, 4 corners to the earth, 4 elements etc...and they felt that the word of God should reflect nature, so they included 4 gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke were easy enough for them to all agree upon, however, John was the best of a bad bunch - ie the last 30 or so that didn't make it into the Western and Eastern Bibles. John is heavily gnostic, and has strong dualism going on, lots of dark vs light. It's Zoroastrianism in Christian form.

This is all really basic knowledge, the kind you'll find in religious studies/christian studies at any major university.

 

indeed Nataraja. This is what we are thought in religion study in gymnasium (college). and its quite easely proven by linguist, by studieing thier language to see they qoute other texts.

 

Want to cite some sources anyone? I'd love to hear where you're getting these ideas. I'll admit that Matthew, Mark, and Luke share many common elements, and it is commonly thought that they draw from eachother (which one came first is heavily argued), and that John is noticably different, but gnosticism? I don't think so.