Am I credible? For personal reasons I prefer to withhold my name, which does not allow for checking my credibility easily so I apologize. Trust this post at your own discretion. I am a student at Utah Valley University. I have experience working as a part of four different teams that have received international recognition for their research, I have recently returned to the United States from Europe after interning in my field of study, and I have received offers to present my personal research at multiple national and international conferences.

I have extensively researched the accuracy of various books in the Bible as well as the Bible as a whole, and during the translation of it's various components from Hebrew, to Greek, to Latin, to over five hundred different languages, then back to only Latin in 600 A.D., to Anglo-Saxon(early form of English), then back to Latin with Gutenberg's printing press, to German with Luther's movement in 1522, and finally to English with Tyndale in 1526, the Bible lost a great deal of it's meaning and accuracy.  The Bible has been one of the most peer reviewed documents in history, and in its original Hebrew form it has proved the most accurate historical document ever examined. It has been verified by hundreds of completely independent archeological finds and thousands of validated historical documents and recordings. These are big claims and I apologize for my haste in answering this blog, but I hope this post will set those reading it on a more accurate track by giving them more facts to work with. The site below is an incredibly simplified presentation of basic  proofs and logic, but I hope my readers find it helpful as I do not have time to take them through my research and findings personally. You can argue the Bible as a "Scholarly Source" with an English 1010-2020 professor and win, I have personally done it at three different Universities with five different professors. Validated archeological finds in corroboration alone meet the requirements for peer review, regardless countless additional evidences presented by scholars in many additional fields of research.

Quote from http://www.allabouttruth.org/bible-is-true-faq.htm (I could not discover the author of this page, but the quality of web design and the fact that it has been translated into five languages gives it some credibility. The information posted on the site regardless of who posted it is valid by my research and the examples and sources used are valid and documented by experts in their respective fields.)

"To prove if the Bible is true, we don't need to look far. Hundreds of books with historical, scientific, and archeological data have supported the Bible's credibility. The studies for these truths are called apologetics.

"Most people today, unfortunately, have not even read the Bible. As a result, many people tend to go along with the increasing delusion that the Bible is full of mistakes and no longer relevant to present times. Their searches have been from a surging atheistic desire to disprove the Bible.

"Instead, thousands of investigative findings have led to confirmation of the exact details stated in the Bible. Historical, archeological, and scientific evidences alike have reinforced proof of Bible truths. Confirmations have been almost innumerable, particularly in this last century (i.e. the Dead Sea Scrolls, Red Sea Crossing site, etc).

"Dr. Nelson Glueck, perhaps the utmost modern authority on Israeli archeology, said: "No archeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries."

"The Word of God was penned by inspiration from the Creator long before scientists stamped their approval on experimental findings. But mankind tends to look at things from a skeptical or scientific, secular perspective when the facts have been in the Bible all along. A few examples of this include:

• The Earth is round, not flat as once believed (Isaiah 40:22).
• Atmospheric circulation (Ecclesiastes 1:6).
• Field of Gravity (Job 26:7).
• Biological importance of blood to life (Leviticus 17:11).

"In addition, there are statements consistent with Paleontology. For instance, several books in the Bible refer to dinosaurs. Job 40:15 and 41:1 speak of two such creatures. And there are numerous verses referring to dragons. Yet mistakenly, some have thought dinosaurs and men did not exist at the same time.

"An undisputable proof is the overwhelming 100% accuracy of Biblical prophecy. There are thousands of fulfilled prophecies including about the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. For example, one of the many Old Testament Messianic prophecies fulfilled by Jesus can be read in Isaiah 53. It describes the life of Jesus Christ 700 years before it happened! Keep in mind that all of the Holy Bible is God inspired and is His revelation of all truths!" (author not found but findable:see contact info on source website)

of the site of the red sea crossing - well that's just beautiful...Finally I'm convinced.

The Earth is not a circle ( a flat disk), it is a sphere.

The wind does not just blow north and south - that does not remotely describe atmospheric circulation. It also circulates vertically - completely overlooked by that quote.

There is no reference in any way to gravity in Job;

Blood is important - but the life of a creature is not in its blood, it is in the body as a whole system. Otherwise blood transfusions would have rather significant effects which they clearly do not have.

All grossly incomplete as descriptions of anything,  or specifically in error - proof that the Bible is NOT a source of knowledge, thank you, but we already knew it was wrong.

In job that christians insist shows that god was aware of the things like gravity. The assertion is crap but god asks job if he can bring together the cloud of stars which comprise the pleiades or break apart orion. 

Astronomers have confirmed that the stars of the pleiades are expanding away from each other and the orion is gravitationally fixed and this discovery (which incidentally could be applied to just about any 2 visible star clumps)

has allowed creation scientists to claim god knows all about gravity nd the bible is a treatise of pure science.  There's also the bit about sparks flying upwards that I've heard used as proof of gravity as well but which sounds like convection

to me.

Christians neglect to point out that in the course of job's discourse with the lord, god is presenting himself variously as a tornado and a cloud, is chatting with satan and other stupid things are happening, all of which defy basic scientific principle.

From memory job is an old story - older than talmud, possibly babylonian in origin, as many old bible stories seem to be, including at least one account of creation in genesis, and possibly both. 

I'm not sure who the god of the babylonians or assyrians was at the time but I imagine not the god the christians now worship.

I was going to end that post with: Now FurryCat, correct me if I'm wrong...

Eventually everyone does!

The Talmud attributes its authorship to Moses, which would be consistent with Moses' role as the teacher of the Jewish people.  As a story, it's a nice story.  As something that really happened -- not so much.

If you're talking about romans persecuting christians who then had to hide in catacombs, that is, unsurprisingly and like most of both the NT and the OT, fiction.

"He sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth..." Isaiah 40:22

People believed that the Earth was a flat disk. This matches the Bible verse, which describes the Earth as a circle. The Earth is roughly a sphere, not a circle.

"The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course." Ecclesiastes 1:6

This is way too vague to be of any significance. Also, the jet streams on Earth travel west-east, not north-south.

"He spreads out the northern skies, over empty space; he suspends the Earth over northing." Job 26:7

This has nothing to do with gravity. However, it's actually accurate, for the most part. The Bible gets it right once in a while, as it should, just like someone who doesn't understand any of the material on a multiple choice exam can still get some of the answers right. 

"For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life." Leviticus 17:11

People had known that blood was important for thousands of years before the Bible was written. And, "the life of a creature is in the blood," is just incoherent. 

"Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox." Job 40:15

"Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope?" Job 41:1

Which don't exist.

That's not a mistake. If you think that humans lived with dinosaurs, then you don't know jack shit about paleontology.

You have to show that the prophecies were made before the events, that they were unambiguous and had at least decent probabilities of failure, and you have show that the events actually occurred. I've never even seen one impressive, fulfilled prophecy.  

Now, my turn.

In Genesis, God creates light before the stars and sun, which is nonsensical since the light we see comes from the sun. He also separates day from night, and has "evening" and "morning" before the existence of the sun, which is also nonsensical, since day and night is caused by the rotation of the Earth, exposing different sides of it to sunlight. Genesis calls the moon a "lesser light," but the moon does not produce light. It reflects the light of the sun. God makes all the birds before any land animals, which is the wrong order. All animals were supposedly originally herbivores. However, when we study their characteristics, we can clearly observe that carnivores are better equipped to be carnivores, etc. , which indicates that either the Bible is wrong or that God had planned for the fall to happen. God cursed the snake by taking away its legs, but this is stupid, since a snake with legs would have a much lower chance of surviving than a snake without legs. Snakes don't have legs because they evolved that way; they've adapted. The flood is impossible for at least dozens of reasons. God scattered people across the Earth for attempting to erect the tower of Babel because he was scared. Humans can't live to 900 years old; they never have. The genealogies don't make sense. The first humans would've had to engage in incest. The entire concept of the fall doesn't make sense because Adam and Eve didn't know right from wrong.

Want me to go on?

Yes, I'm even a Jew who believes very firmly in G-d.  Not to be confused with Jews I know who are Atheists, including Orthodox Jews I know who are Atheists.  Little known tidbit -- "You must believe in G-d" is NOT one of Rambam's 613 Mitzvot (commandments).  No one can be made to believe, or not believe, in G-d.  It might give a rabbi the creeps if you say "I don't believe in G-d", but there are rabbis who don't believe in G-d and they give me the creeps, so we're even.

And it is a REQUIREMENT to consider the texts and what we can do with them is pretty amazing stuff.  Lo bashamayim hi.  The Torah is not in Heaven.  It is not across the ocean.  It is an near to us as our breathing.  Those Roman bastards killed my ancestors and invented a new religion and want us to believe that new religion is real?  No fucking way.

Time for coffee and pie.  But first -- a little debunking.

1). The first "light" in the universe didn't come from stars.  There wasn't even hydrogen, much less any protons, in the universe when the first light was produced.  That's standard Big Bang chronology.

2). No where does it say "all life was herbivorous".  That's in interpolation based on a mistranslated word for "food".  However, before there were animals to eat, all food came from non-animals.  Which is to say ... all life was initially herbivorous.  I'd be willing to construct a formal proof on that point.  Even though the Torah doesn't say that.

3). Did you know that planets had to form before stellar ignition?  If not, the solar wind would have blown all the material out of the inner solar system, out to the Oort Cloud where it hangs out today.

4). The Bible no where says that your interpretation of what it says incorrectly is the correct way to read the texts.  For that matter, the Torah also doesn't claim to be a science manual.

Hebrew has 22 consonants.  That's all.  Roots are made from three consonants -- a shoresh -- though some combinations of consonants don't exists as triliteral roots.  22 x 22 x 22 = 10,648.  You're complaining that a language with fewer than 10,648 different root meanings isn't giving you information at a level of detail expected in the modern world?  But you're not giving the Torah props for recording that the first light in the universe existed before anything that's "solid matter" even existed?  Unfair much?

I see I didn't catch that... guess I have been overexposed to silly christians who actually believe the 'persecuted christians hiding in the catacombs' myth.

That is not a good analogy. It would be relevant if the wrote "D-d" and "M-m", which would be equally silly, but still not have anything to do with respect.

I am not going to respect a silly, pointless superstition, any more than I respect the belief in God.

That convention is silly. It indicates a superstitious mind-set. Tying it to "respect" is even sillier. It devalues true respect, just as religious morality devalues and subverts true morality.

I can respect a person for their personal qualities, that should not be confused with requiring automatic respect for their sillier ideas.

Don't give me that crap. There is ambiguity in language, especially in metaphor-riddled religious texts written in old languages. There are multiple plausible ways of interpreting many different parts of the Bible, which is why everyone disagrees on their meaning. What are your criterion for determining the correct interpretation? Whatever saves the Bible from embarrassment?

Why do you keep trying to defend Genesis, but, at the same time, saying that it's not a science manual? Is that a sneaky way of arguing the position and backpedaling at the same time? Do you agree that the Bible contradicts science or do you think it's infallible?

I don't think it's infallible, that's for sure. Mr. forgottobrush picked out a few verses that Creationists love to quote, but forgot to read all the verses that make the Bible look stupid. I can drown him in scientifically and morally objectionable material. 

Oh yeah, you're right; I'm being extremely unfair to God. Surely, if he had access to a more modern and complex language, he could have wrote a better book.

Yep, when the Bible explains that God punishes snakes by taking away their legs and commands us to kill our family members for believing in other Gods (edit: being homosexual, working on Sunday, etc.), he didn't actually mean that, right? God just didn't have a better way of explaining what he really wanted to say. 

Nonsense.  Not in any standard Big Bang chronology does "light" come that late.

Likewise, nonsense.  While they DO form from the same cloud, "later than" is an impossibility.

The solar wind is precisely what sweeps the interior of a solar system clean of planet forming dust and debris.  If it's not gravitationally bound to something when the proto-star becomes a T Tauri star, it's going to be heading outward until it is swept up by something that has the gravity to do it, or the solar pressure and gravity balance.  The pressure from a T Tauri start, which is before the star enters the Main Sequence, is greater than afterward.

And how does a Jew deal with Jewish texts?

Is the Torah infallible or not? Is it only inspired by God? Is it against your religion to tell me?

Of course the Torah never claims that it's a science manual. It doesn't need to be a science manual for my arguments to hold.

It's supposed to be the word of God, which means that it's supposed to be more perfect than any other book in existence. It should be able to refrain from explicitly making incorrect statements about observable reality, which it fails to do so on a regular basis. 

So "your people" have a monopoly on what these texts are trying to say because it's part of your tradition? Ha! 

Haha, well, I didn't say he needed to explain rocket science (although even a few equations could have converted millions of people). Again, I fail to see why the word of God cannot be better than this.

And, I don't even understand why the people at the time needed to know the language in order for God to make a book in that language. Is God only allowed to use a language in scripture after it's already popular? 

Huh? I'm talking about what's written in the Torah, not Jewish practices.

So... those T Tauri stars found with disks around them, what would they be...?

Jews plagiarized the works of other western Asians peoples when writing the Tanakh.  One example is the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was the inspiration for much of Genesis.  I find your hypocritical attitude to be amusing:  "Keep your filthy hands off of that thing that I stole, it's mine!"

Of course the Torah is infallible.  The question is never whether or not it's "infallible", the question is "what the heck does it really mean?"

We were studying Torah this morning and a man said "Well, I think that's sexist" and I said "Only because you read it in a sexist manner.  What if it is really saying blah blah blah".  And I changed NONE of the words, only the lens the words are being read through.  Which my Rabbi thought was very clever.

Proof By Repeated Assertion much?

Before you can make that claim, you have to demonstrate that it's a Science manual.  SO ... construct a sound logical argument, not just Proof by Repeated Assertion, that it's a Science manual and then we'll discuss it.

Well, it's our book.  I'm sorry that you feel you get to claim some kind of bizarre ownership over other people's property, but you don't.  It really sucks trying to co-opt other cultures property and being told "No", doesn't it?

Not sure if you knew this, but we don't even have numbers.  Or maybe you didn't know that.  Our cousins invented numbers.  The Arabic Numerals.  We still use letters.  The number 18?  Same as the word for "Life" -- "Chai".  Chet-yod.  So ... not sure what we'd have for "equations".

Since the Torah isn't a dead book ("Lo bashamayim hi" -- google that), we're not done with it.

You've yet to establish that you're actually talking about what's written in the Torah.  You still seem to think it's a Science manual.  When you can establish that you're actually talking about what's written in the Torah, we can begin.  Until then, it's not your book, you don't get to co-opt it, and you definitely don't get to tell me what it does or doesn't mean.  Become a Jew, then we'll argue like a couple of Jews about what it does or doesn't mean.

Stop with this stupid chant that the Torah is not a "Science Manual".

It is claimed to convey truth in some form.

If it makes statements about the nature and origin of man, life, and the Universe, they can be legitimately and logically challenged. 

If those claims are clearly inconsistent with known reality, it can be legitimately criticized.

So, it does not claim to contain truths about the world?

OR does it not contain anything which even implies or assumes anything about the physical nature of the Universe? Or of the benefits or problems of various foods? Or any comments on the causes and recommended responses to diseases?

So which of those statements applies? One or other would need to apply for your assertions to make sense.

EDIT:

Your persistent dodging of the actual point in my question on this with that "Science Manual" crap is really annoying. You are refusing to address the fact that your book contains the same creation myths as Genesis in the Christian Bible. The words are clearly describing the sequence of creation of everything by God, and is equally clearly recounting primitive and erroneous beliefs about the Universe and origins, which people at the time it was written did believe as explicit truth.

What is your problem? Do you not want to admit you actual believe that crap in some literal sense, or alternatively that your book has clearly problematic content to anyone with even a modest level of science literacy?

Didn't say that.  I said it doesn't claim to be a Science manual.

You mean, "Don't eat shrimp because they are filthy bottom feeders and you might get sick"?  No, it doesn't say anything like that.

But some christians are more evolved than others. Oddly your typical American christian tends to the fundamentalist protestant thing but we have plenty of that stuff here, too.

I find it hard to accept anyone can have a concrete end-to-end position when our knowledge base is so unsubstantial and so recent. But it's tough to convince a christian that they

should take into account things we don't yet know. Thanks to the lake of fire there's a deadline on believing and those little tracts that show doubters in car crashes and in the midst of

coronaries with demons standing around them tend to wick up the pressure. 

Tell more about this - I don't know enough to know about this disconnection. John was obviously on ecstasy when he wrote John and I don't how the Council of Nicaea got hold of that early Nostradamus but revelations to me - and i've read it a few times so far - seems pretty wild stuff. It's like an apple bob. End of the world, coming of the beast, seas turn to blood/wormwood, great war, sound of trumpets, blah, blah. There's something for everyone in there somewhere.

The "disconnection" is in the Gospel of John.  John the Evangelist is the primary source for "Jesus is God" beliefs within Christianity.  The Jewish Messiah isn't G-d.  He's just a guy from the Davidic line who either establishes world peace, and all the other good things -- rebuilds the Temple, gets all the Jews to obey the Torah, is King of Israel, etc -- or who shows up after we've done all those things ourselves.

Much of John is just plain NOT Judaism.