That doesn't make sense. A divinely inspired author living in present-day Louisiana would make references to SEC football, crawfish boils, offshore drilling, hurricanes, or rice and sugar farming. That's not a matter of flawed human perception. It's a matter of delivering a message in terms your audience understands. That's the very definition of foresight.

With no cultural influence, that same author would make references cricket, snowmobiles, mountain climbing, and yak's milk. Which would be just as valid but the intended audience would be confused.

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And? Some of christianity's current doctrines didnt arise until over a thousand years after Christ. Moreover, the time origin of either makes no statement regarding shared practice

It completely undermines the claim that Christianity was copied from Mithraism. The one that existed first was the original. Christianity was significant enough by the 60s that Caligula and Nero thought it was worth persecuting--and at that point, they had to be able to distinguish it from Judaism and from other, now-forgotten messianic movements. It just so happened that the central authorities looked at it and said "hey, this is good stuff, let's use some of it."

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There is no denying however that much of the imagery and practices, especially in the catholic church, are pulled straight from the Roman pagan practices of the first and second centuries

There's a much more direct link to Judaism. The Eucharist is the central feature of Mass and it comes from the Last Supper, which was a Seder meal.

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And a huge portion of the OT was written after the Babylonian exile, where the Hebrews borrowed extensively from Babylonian legends.

It wasn't written after the exile. Older writings were collected in one place and canonized after the exile. Kings and Chronicles were obviously written after the return from exile, but those are condensed versions of historical records that were extant at the time. The authors simply highlighted the most important points of each reign and placed them in a theological context--and each passage ends with "the rest of the acts of _____ are written in..." or similar wording. Further, a lot of the kings are mentioned in the records of neighboring civilizations. Hazael is an example--he backed Jehu's coup against the house of Omri and (as he often did) pumped up his contribution to the result.

As far as flood myths, those are almost universal and there's a good reason for that. Sea level is a LOT higher than it was during the last ice age. Which, to get back to the OP's question, proves there must have been even more SUVs 10,000 years ago than there are today, because there was a catastrophic, widespread flood as a result.

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Posted by NC_Tigah

Carolinas

Member since Sep 2003

124546 posts

Posted on 11/23/14 at 11:25 am to Bestbank Tiger

quote:
there must have been even more SUVs 10,000 years ago than there are today, because there was a catastrophic, widespread flood as a result.

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Posted by Roger Klarvin

DFW

Member since Nov 2012

46615 posts

Posted on 11/23/14 at 11:48 am to Bestbank Tiger

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That doesn't make sense

To you, and only because to accept it would invalidate claims of Biblical authority.

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That's the very definition of foresight.

The foresight to have the most important event in human history be witnessed by a few thousand largely illiterate and superstitious people in first century Judea?

To believe that shows foresight by an omnipotent deity reveals a complete disregard for intellectual honesty. On no other matter would you consider something like that to be anything deity requires a complete disregard for more than nonsense. You simply do not judge your faith using the same standard you use for everything else.

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Christianity was significant enough by the 60s that Caligula and Nero thought it was worth persecuting

Largely a myth, Christian persecution is significantly overstated by Christian historians. There are multiple Roman accounts of Christians coming to them ASKING to be martyred and being turned away. Outside of a very short and specific periods, the Romans largely ignored Christianity.

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There's a much more direct link to Judaism. The Eucharist is the central feature of Mass and it comes from the Last Supper, which was a Seder meal.

The robes priests wear is very similar to what pagan priests wore. The monstrance is nearly identical to their idols for sun worship. The sequence of the latin mass was used specifically to entice pagans to join because it was essentially their worship format. The original monuments to Mary were converted pagan goddess statues taken from sacked temples. And so on and so forth.

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It wasn't written after the exile. Older writings were collected in one place and canonized after the exile. Kings and Chronicles were obviously written after the return from exile, but those are condensed versions of historical records that were extant at the time. The authors simply highlighted the most important points of each reign and placed them in a theological context--and each passage ends with "the rest of the acts of _____ are written in..." or similar wording. Further, a lot of the kings are mentioned in the records of neighboring civilizations. Hazael is an example--he backed Jehu's coup against the house of Omri and (as he often did) pumped up his contribution to the result.

This is simply an incorrect history of past events, nothing more. From the earliest books the Bible, there is a mish mash of mono and polytheism and it only became strictly monotheistic around 400-500 BC.

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As far as flood myths, those are almost universal and there's a good reason for that.

Yeah, all old world civilizations arose next to bodies of water, many of which are known for their devastating periodic floods (The Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, the Yellow River, etc.)

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Which, to get back to the OP's question, proves there must have been even more SUVs 10,000 years ago than there are today, because there was a catastrophic, widespread flood as a result.

I laughed