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An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#151

Post by Mikeb85 »

waynecochran wrote: post #148
Mikeb85 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Genesis has people that are 900 years old, a talking serpent, a boat that can fit every type of animal, and you take issue with giants lol?

The style of the first 11 chapters of Genesis is very different than the remainder of the book. For instance, Genesis 3 is not meant to be historical prose like chapter 12 and following. Projecting my 21st century world view on an ancient text describing deep mysteries about creation and the fall of man is pure arrogance. For instance, the author of Genesis 3 doesn't expect the reader to think the serpent was merely…

I'm not making any judgements either way. Just saying that Enoch is no more fantastic than parts of Genesis. Also, Genesis references Enoch.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#152

Post by lisper »

chickenimprint wrote: post #134
lisper wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Science uses induction as a measure No, it doesn't. This is a common misconception, but it is 100% wrong. Science is the business of finding the best explanations that account for all observations. One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws that appear to remain constant over time. But science does not assu…

>Science is the business of finding the best explanations that account for all observations. This is exactly what induction means. Even your wording is almost identical to that of the Wikipedia page on "Inductive reasoning". > One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws. But science does not assume this. I'm n…

> This is exactly what induction means.

No it isn't. You got it right the first time. Induction "presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past". But that is wrong. Science does not presuppose this.

> Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules

No, it does not. It observes that the world behaves according to general rules. It does not presuppose that it does.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#153

Post by lisper »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #141
lisper wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Naturalism insists that anything which is supernatural cannot be scientifically investigated, by definition. No, that is not what naturalism is. That would be circular. Naturalism is the philosophical stance that things that cannot be observed do not exist. Alleged supernatural phenomena cannot ever be definitively ruled out (because new observations may confirm their existence) but to date there has never been an…

> things that cannot be observed do not exist. I cannot observe propositions or truth claims or numbers or... Besides, what is "natural" and what is "supernatural" according to naturalists? [0] [0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/search?q=naturalism

> I cannot observe propositions or truth claims or numbers or...

Of course you can.

> what is "natural" and what is "supernatural" according to naturalists?

It changes over time. At the moment, "natural" is anything that can be accounted for by quantum mechanics and general relativity, and "supernatural" is anything that can't: Ghosts. Demons. Deities. Telekenesis. Stuff like that.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#154

Post by mensetmanusman »

lisper wrote: post #65
generalizations wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that science can’t comment on the “divine inspiration” claim, except to note that it’s outside its purview. Burden of proof is a whole different discussion.

> science can’t comment on the “divine inspiration” claim It certainly can. It can point out that there is no evidence that any human writing is divinely inspired, and so claims of divine inspiration are almost certainly false.

Science has no means to get at moral truths, just physical observations. It can’t even prove per definition whether moral truths exist, or why anything exists at all.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#155

Post by mensetmanusman »

torben-friis wrote: post #82
ars wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's an unfalsifable claim, so it should be ignored in a context of formal logic The claim might be unfalsifiable, but the question is still valid. Basically you are required to answer the question. If you answer "I can't know" your answer is also unfalsifiable, and no better than theirs. i.e. your position on this matter is not superior to theirs.

Admittance of ignorance is undoubtedly better than a lie, in general.

It’s impossible to say whether it is a lie, because of incompleteness.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#156

Post by [deleted] »

tshaddox wrote: post #78
gattilorenz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few billion people in the world who consider it a sacred book, to begin with. And historians, obviously. But this is like asking “well clearly Romeo and Juliet was a fictional story, who cares if we find out that Shakespeare didn’t write it”.

Indeed, I suspect a large portion of those few billion people would in fact be surprised to learn that, for instance, the New Testament books called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not written by those people (if they even existed) and the texts do not even make any claims about their own authorship.

[deleted]

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#157

Post by bmitc »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #123
Minor49er wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that the nephilim may not have even been giants to begin with. They are ambiguous

My pet theory is that the Nephilim are a folk memory of the last Neanderthals.

Aren’t Neanderthals much shorter than humans?

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#158

Post by bambax »

dagw wrote: post #142
bambax wrote: post #111

The article is confusing and unclear and addresses many different topics at once. The digressions about bass-playing are frankly irrelevant. One could end up thinking all Dead Sea Scrolls are fakes. They are not. The Dead Sea Scrolls are real, but some fragments, sold as originals for millions of dollars to rich collectors, are modern forgeries. And bad fakes too. Dead Sea Scrolls are made of parchment; the fakes are…

I find the world of forgeries fascinating because it speaks of the human mind, how our desire to make something real blocks our perception and any kind of critical thinking. That's most fascinating thing about this whole field. Supposedly smart people who no doubt consider themselves critical thinkers, many of whom have been wildly successful at business, keep getting tricked into spending millions on obvious forgeri…

It's possible the enormity of the mistakes help sell the forgery, as in "they wouldn't dare sell a wine from a time before the winery even existed, so it must be true and the experts must have missed it"...

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#159

Post by bambax »

ogogmad wrote: post #128
bambax wrote: post #111

The article is confusing and unclear and addresses many different topics at once. The digressions about bass-playing are frankly irrelevant. One could end up thinking all Dead Sea Scrolls are fakes. They are not. The Dead Sea Scrolls are real, but some fragments, sold as originals for millions of dollars to rich collectors, are modern forgeries. And bad fakes too. Dead Sea Scrolls are made of parchment; the fakes are…

Thank you for this comment. I myself began to doubt whether any of the DSSes were real after reading the article, and your comment has assured me that they are. Additionally, those asides about the researcher's hobbies are indeed a trope of modern science documentaries, written by people who likely think that science isn't interesting enough on its own. Here is where I expressed my confusion: https://news.ycombinator…

> Also, you say parchment; should it not be papyrus? Parchment doesn't get cracked.

Sources I could find all say the Dead Sea Scroll are in parchment, not papyrus, but as I said I'm not a scholar or an expert on this. It seems the problem with parchment is that it doesn't absorb ink, so that sometimes the mere rolling or unrolling can crack the ink out of the surface, even if the surface itself stays intact.

Also, many fragments are torn apart, and in that case there should be no ink at the tear, whereas the forgeries were written all over, from side to side.

Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries

#160

Post by bambax »

programmer_dude wrote: post #66

Isn't the whole bible a collection of fictional stories / articles? Who cares if some one tacks on extra "forged" chapters? What does forged even mean in this context?

The article is unclear and IMHO confusing and badly written.

The forgeries are fake fragments made in the late 20th century of the very real, authentic and ancient Dead Sea Scrolls.

See my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34258102

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