the source of all truth, the truth in all truth {Herman Bavinck}
Out of love the divine Creator wants to provide mankind with His Words so that those willing to hear and see, shall be able to have themselves moulded into a renewed being. With the knowledge that all God’s Words are true and that all His righteous laws are eternal we should know that those Words which do not tell lies are our best information book and Guide for our life. In that Book of books or Bestseller of all times we can find many testimonies which shows the ups and downs of people, their good and bad deeds, and offer us a lesson showing what to do or not to do and who or what to believe or not to believe.
In the many books we can see how certain people tried others to get away from God. Job in the book of the same name is a beautiful example how friends can be a danger for the faith in the true God and for true worship, testing a person in the most difficult times of his life. Today too there are many people trying to get us away from the real God and wanting us to question God.
Historia (meaning “inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation”), 1892 painting by Nikolaos Gyzis
Those that say that the Hebrew Bible has little value for the science or study of history because it is made up of non-fictional prose, fictionalprose, folk tales, legends and theological treatises, may have reason to think so, but we should know the bible had never the intention to be a History Book. Those who say that archaeology hold the keys to truth should consider which truth they want to see. The Bible’s claims regarding the early history of ancient Israel can be found back in archaeological proofs.
This fragmented stela was excavated at Tel Dan in northern Galilee; it possibly dates to the ninth century B.C.E. Since its discovery in 1993/1994, the highlighted Aramaic letters (bytdwd) have been read as “the House of David” and regarded as confirmation that the Biblical David was a real historical figure. Much less optimistic scholars oppose the suggested interpretation and even question the stela’s authenticity. Photo: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem/Israel Antiquities Authority (photograph by Meidad Suchowolski).
It is fair to acknowledge that Biblical archaeology had failed to deliver the evidence that the founding fathers of the discipline — William F. Albright and George E. Wright— thought it would in support of the Bible as history. We may find that the recoveries and scientific investigations made in the last centuries, of the material remains of past cultures, could really illuminate the periods and descriptions in the Bible, be they from the Old Testament (Tanakh) or from the New Testament, as well as the history and cosmogony of the Judeo-Christian religions. The study of the evolutionary behaviour of the universe and the origin of its characteristic features throughout the ages has shed some light on what we could still call “the unsolved problem of the origin” of the solar system, (planetesimal; protoplanet; solar nebula. Cosmology may have brought lots of theories on the origin of the universe, like thebig-bang model and steady-state theory.
As much as Biblical archaeology fell short of the quest to “prove the Bible,” it helped to show just how misguided those initial expectations from Biblical archaeology were. As a result, many scholars have grown suspicious of the Biblical text, rejecting even the most central narratives of early Bible history, such as the Exodus, the military conquest of Canaan, the existence of the United Monarchy and, most recently, the very historicity of figures such as Saul, David or Solomon.{Who Tells the Truth—the Bible or Archaeology?}
In the past many preferred to follow human teachings about our universe and existing. As such theories existed of man having more than one life or having an extra part going out of the boy (the immortalsoul) after death to reside somewhere else. Others were convinced that the universe was a box or a chamber with the earth as its floor. Today we still come across “Flat earth believers” who say the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as an executive branch of the United Statesfederal government would be cheating us. They do not want to believe that the many pictures we could come to see from space would be real. For the unbelievers it are all manipulated or photo-shopped pictures.
Ed White on Gemini 4: first US spacewalk, 1965
Not only the Babylonians thought about such flat world. Also Vedicpriests of India imagined that the earth was flat and that only one side of it was inhabited. A primitive tribe in Asia pictured the earth as a huge tea tray.
For a long time the trinitarian Christians were and some still are convinced that the earth must be flat and ending by the oceans and that all animals and man came into existence like we can see them now. Creationist and several other trinitarian (but also some conservative non-trinitarian) Christians believing there was no form of evolution and that pre-historic animals (like dinosaurs) did not exist. (Be careful, we do not say you should or that we believe in Darwinism, because we do not.)
Mural likely depicting Lactantius.
Christian apologist and one of the most reprinted of the Latin Church Fathers, Lactantius, in full Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius, who became an advisor to the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I, guiding his religious policy as it developed, pressing for a three-headed godhead, also ridiculed the idea of a spheric globe. His Divinae institutiones (“Divine Precepts”), a classically styled philosophical refutation of early-4th-century anti-Christian tracts, was the first systematic Latin account of the Christian attitude toward life. Lactantius was referred to as the “Christian Cicero” by Renaissance humanists.
Lactantius reasoned:
“Is there any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? . . . that the crops and trees grow downwards? that the rains, and snow, and hail fall upwards?”
It was only in the 20th century man came to see that technically speaking, the earth is an oblate spheroid. Question should man have waited until scientific proof by the astronauts before we should have believed such thing?
Regarding the shape of the earth, The Encyclopedia Americana says:
“The earliest known image that men had of the earth was that it was a flat, rigid platform at the center of the universe. . . . The concept of a spherical earth was not widely accepted until the Renaissance.”
In the eighth century B.C.E., when the prevailing view was that the earth was flat, centuries before Greek philosophers, like the sixth century B.C.E., Greek philosopher Pythagoras and later ones, theorized that the earth likely was spherical, and thousands of years before humans saw the earth as a globe from space, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah stated with remarkable simplicity:
“There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth.” (Isaiah 40:22)
The Hebrew word chugh, here translated “circle,” may also be rendered “sphere.” Other Bible translations read, “the globe of the earth” (Douay Version) and “the round earth.”—Moffatt.
If people would have believed the words of the bible much sooner not so many people would have died innocently.
“the Catholic Church never said the earth is round, but just stopped saying it was flat.” {Russell, Jeffrey Burton (1991), Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and modern historians, New York: Praeger, ISBN 0-275-95904-X}
In 1633, the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church forced Galileo Galilei, one of the founders of modern science, to recant his theory that the Earth moves around the Sun. Under threat of torture, Galileo – seen facing his inquisitors – recanted. But as he left the courtroom, he is said to have muttered,
‘all the same, it moves’.
It was only 359 years later, (in 1992) the Church finally agreed. At a ceremony in Rome, before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Pope John Paul II officially declared that Galileo was right. The formal rehabilitation was based on the findings of a committee of the Academy the Pope set up in 1979, soon after taking office. The committee decided the Inquisition had acted in good faith, but was wrong.
Perhaps the trinitarians shall still keep saying they act in good faith before they shall agree they are wrong on many elements which are clearly explained in the bible, but where they until today still prefer to follow the human doctrines based on Greco Roman philosophy
Published by Belgian Biblestudents - Belgische Bijbelstudenten
Bible Students: Believers looking in and studying the Bible to find the Truth, reason and the essence of life. - Onderzoekers van de Bijbel: Gelovigen in Bijbel zoekend naar het begin, reden van leven, zin en onzin in de wereld en op zoek naar de Waarheid.
View all posts by Belgian Biblestudents - Belgische Bijbelstudenten
17 thoughts on “A Book to trust #16 Biblical archaeology vs Historical science or study #1 Flat or round earth”
In the past many preferred to follow human teachings about our universe and existing. As such theories existed of man having more than one life or having an extra part going out of the boy (the immortal soul) after death to reside somewhere else. Others were convinced that the universe was a box or a chamber with the earth as its floor. Today we still come across “Flat earth believers” who say the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as an executive branch of the United States federal government would be cheating us. They do not want to believe that the many pictures we could come to see from space would be real. For the unbelievers it are all manipulated or photo-shopped pictures.
17 thoughts on “A Book to trust #16 Biblical archaeology vs Historical science or study #1 Flat or round earth”