I understand the point perfectly.
This is not true at all. Many MANY facts in the Bible have been proven to be historically accurate. Such as (this is an example, so please don't get caught up in it.)
Yes, you are right, there are some portions of the Bible that contain many historical facts, mostly because they are just reporting history. Most of the last books in the Old Testament are just records of Hebrew life and do contain a lot of actual facts. No one disputes that However, that doesn't, in any way, prove that any of the supernatural events or stories actually happened.
My sister told me a long time ago that horror author Dean Koontz, in one of his books, mentioned the street I grew up on in one of his books. That is a demonstrable historic accuracy, that street really does exist. However, that doesn't prove that any of the horrible things that he wrote about in that book were real. Likewise, Stephen King writes about a lot of real places in New England, that doesn't mean anything supernatural he records are real.
Starting in 1929, Dr. John Garstang, excavated the ruins of ancient Jericho. His discoveries corresponded remarkably with the Biblical account. Jericho, he found, had a double wall, with houses built across the two walls. This explains how Rahab's house could have been built upon a wall. He learned that the wall was destroyed by some kind of violent convulsion such as that described in the Bible, and that when the wall feel that it fell outward, down the hillside, or as the Bible says, it fell down flat. Had the wall been destroyed by the battering rams of an enemy army, the walls would have fallen inward instead of outward. Furthermore, the city had been burned. Once again, the spade of archaeology has established the accuracy of the Bible. -
The Historical Accuracy of the Bible
You do need to realize the sad state of Biblical archaeology through the first half of the 20th century. In many cases, you had archaeologists going out into the field in the Middle East, finding a site, and instead of actually figuring out what the site was, they turned to the Bible as a guide book and declared that they had found whatever happened to be closest to it. Even Biblical Archaeology Review has come out and said people need to take these claims with a grain of salt, many of the supposed discoveries have not been independently verified as being actual Biblical sites, they were just assumed to be.
No one here is talking about any mythology, we are talking historical fact in most of the Old and New Testament.
I've been talking about mythology, you're just ignoring that discussion.
I am not certain if you are just missing something or if I am not being clear? I did not say it was a myth, I don't think it was at all. I said the author of the creation epic was writing it figuratively, I did not say anything about it being mythology.
There's nothing figurative in the language of Genesis, it is written descriptively, in chronological order. On this day, this happened. Just don't try to compare the two creation stories, they just don't match up.
5000 years ago the people did not have the language to explain the things they were seeing about creation. They say it was through dreams which means it was up to them to try to explain what they were seeing. So open space as we understand it becomes "formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep" which from that long ago makes perfect sense from their perspective. If you are a serious student of history, this understanding is the most important to interpret anything that old with any kind of accuracy. Just ask any anthropologist, or anthropology major.
They didn't see anything about creation, they were supposedly recounting a story told to them by revelation from God. You're suggesting we ought to take any of these stories seriously when they simply do not match up with what we observe and understand about reality and ultimately, they're just ridiculous to scientifically-literate eyes.
The problem is you refuse to see it from the historical perspective of someone with no understanding of the world as we know it, or had the language to explain it in our modern terms. Hence a "global flood" as in their whole world, not the literal world.
No, I'm reading the story as it is actually written, I'm not editing out the silly parts. Now while I will absolutely agree with you that the actual flood upon which the Noachian myth is based was likely a conglomeration of local floods (and I can go into detail on the dating of those floods if you want), the story as written, the giant ark (which was unseaworthy), holding all the animals (which wouldn't fit), for 40 days and 40 nights (which is absurd), landing on Mt. Ararat (the flood waters wouldn't reach that high), is ridiculous.
Further, if you want to go the route that primitive people were ignorant of nature, which I will certainly agree with, and simply phrased their myths in terms of what they knew, I'll agree with you and suggest that God is simply an example of the same thing happening. Just as we know the worldwide flood never happened, there's no reason to think God is real.