Every Turn of the Spade Confirms

Here is an imported article from ICR entitled, “New Artifact Supports Antiquity of Bible.” It has to do with the applicability of real history versus history twisted with presuppositional stances:

An Israeli professor has found evidence that certain books of the Bible could easily be as old as their texts claim. Some scholars had believed that Hebrew writing did not yet exist when these books were purportedly written. But though it does not quote the Bible, a 3,000-year-old piece of pottery from Israel bears text inked in Hebrew, the language of the original Old Testament.

The pottery shard was excavated in 2008 about 18 miles west of Jerusalem, at Khirbet Qeiyafa. It was translated by Professor Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa, who determined:

It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah (“did”) and avad (“worked”), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah (“widow”) are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages. The content itself was also unfamiliar to all the cultures in the region besides the Hebrew society.1

Modern critical scholars have often contended that many portions of the Bible were actually written long after the events they describe, and that the text was then attributed after the fact to the ancient authors. The conservative view that the Bible was authored by the individuals it names clashes with the liberal assertion that the people at the time were illiterate, or that the Hebrew language did not even exist then. But this newly translated artifact demonstrates that the Hebrew language was alive and well, in both spoken and written form, during the time that many portions of the Bible were written.

Fox News reported, “The inscription is the earliest example of Hebrew writing found, which stands in opposition to the dating of the composition of the Bible in current research.”2 How could “current research” have been hundreds of years off regarding its dates?

One reason that some academics have posited much later dates of authorship has been their bias against the supernatural. For example, significant prophecies were recorded by Daniel, chief advisor to several Babylonian kings, in about 536 B.C. God revealed to Daniel the number of years until the promised One, Jesus Christ, would enter Jerusalem, then be “cut off.”3 Christ fulfilled these prophecies to the exact year during His triumphal entry and crucifixion, respectively.

Since a centuries-earlier prophecy of this future event could only have occurred through a supernatural revelation, a much later date (though still over a century prior to Christ) was asserted for prophetic portions of Daniel’s book, along with the idea that Daniel was attributed false authorship after some of the prophesied events had actually occurred. For example, he foretold the rise of Alexander the Great, who unified the Greek empire in the third century BC.4

The newly deciphered Hebrew inscriptions date from the 10th century BC, long before Daniel.5 Therefore, the claim can no longer be made that much of the Bible could not possibly have been written by the listed authors because the Hebrew language did not exist until later. It is now more apparent than ever that these assertions of late-date authorship were not rooted in evidence, but in a certain ideology.

…(to follow footnotes and read related article)…

Here is a documentary that touches on many of these issues, that is naturalistic assumptions in history being proven wrong, time-and-time-again:

Miracle? More Like Coincidence

(Geese On The Mall Normally)

I love some of what Glenn Beck goes after, but, having said that — he seems at times a bit into messianism. I don’t mean as “into the Messiah,” Jesus. I mean that within LDS theology you have people like Beck who believe they will be exalted to be a god of their own planet.In fact, this exaltation can come early… as in the case of Jesus, who was exalted first in heaven BEFORE coming to earth. So his saying Geese flying over water is a miracle, I doubt seriously his understanding of what a miracle is.

C.S. Lewis says that a miracle is something that comes totally out of the blue. If for thousands of years a woman can become pregnant only by sexual intercourse with a man, then if she were to become pregnant without a man, it would be a miracle. [12][13][14]

I am hard pressed to classify this as a miracle. Even if God ordained this flight of geese at this time, it is still not “miraculous” in the sense of natural law being temporarily paused. Geese fly in these formations all the time down this small body of water. However, IF the Mormon god exists [Heavenly Father], then some geese flying in formation is one of the grandest miracles I would think he could perform. So in Glenn Beck’s eyes… yup, this is a miracle. But for people who think God created even the space-time continuum (Mormons do not), this is pittance.

The Pearls Disagree With Placing Mosque At That Site

This is important and is a h/t to Marooned In Marin. Important because we hear all the time that this Imam eulagized Danial Pearl. Well, that fact has nothing to do with this debate, as Daniel’s father points out:

Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and beheaded (on video) by Khalid Shiekh Mohammed in 2002, has penned a piece against the Ground Zero Victory Mosque in the Jerusalem Post.

Excerpts:

I have been trying hard to find an explanation for the intense controversy surrounding the Cordoba Initiative, whereby 71 percent of Americans object to the proposed project of building a mosque next to Ground Zero.

I cannot agree with the theory that such broad resistance represents Islamophobic sentiments, nor that it is a product of a “rightwing” smear campaign against one imam or another.

Americans are neither bigots nor gullible.

…A more realistic explanation is that most Americans do not buy the 19 fanatics story, but view the the 9/11 assault as a product of an anti- American ideology that, for good and bad reasons, has found a fertile breeding ground in the hearts and minds of many Muslim youngsters who see their Muslim identity inextricably tied with this anti-American ideology.

THE GROUND Zero mosque is being equated with that ideology. Public objection to the mosque thus represents a vote of no confidence in mainstream American Muslim leadership which, on the one hand, refuses to acknowledge the alarming dimension that anti-Americanism has taken in their community and, paradoxically, blames America for its creation.

The American Muslim leadership has had nine years to build up trust by taking proactive steps against the spread of anti-American terror-breeding ideologies, here and abroad….

…(read more)…