http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/11/18/1679514.aspx

I found this to be an interesting article that someone from any religion could enjoy/find interesting/be offended.

Thoughts?

I didn't watch PBS tonight, been on the history channel. They've been talking about physics and guns all night

Every single time I turn on the History Channel, it's either WWII, guns, WWII, WWI, bullets, some ticked off Mongolians, or medieval siege weapons.

Might as well call it the NRA network ( Now with education!)

There's a difference between the NRA and the History Channel. Maybe one day you'll figure it out.

Maybe.

lol excellent pic.

lol religion and guns

Wow, that is really interesting. I'm already familiar with a lot of the things mentioned in the article, but some of it was new. I wish I could have seen that.

I think that's neat how they set it up to present "archaeological findings that will annoy believers as well as skeptics." There are a lot of different views on the significance of archaeological findings in relation to the Bible, and I think it's a very interesting topic. Some people take the Bible a little too seriously, and some people try to be ridiculously liberal just for the sake of being liberal.

Whatever the case, though, people should at least be aware of what is out there.

These are always lame and lazy. Part of it's always proclaim discoveries like a "new gospel", which, if not old news, are totally noteworthy in that things just it like have have been around forever.

Then they generally make some arguments against the historical accuracy of the Bible by first assuming it's false, and then speculating as to what might have happened.

Then they take evidence that would be dubious either way and present them as hard facts. They are basically the equivalent of ghost hunter or UFO shows.

well, why dont you tell us what you really think.

this one does not seem to be one of the "everyone was really just hallucinating and the Israelite's really only walked through a puddle during an earthquake and massive windstorm at low tide." it actually seems fairly objective, in that it is not trying to 'prove' or 'disprove' the bible. it is telling what they have found, then comparing it to biblical stuff.

i really wish i could watch it.

For a second, I thought you were Spiderman, the way you automatically cast this into your web of generalizations without actually going through the article. Get it? WEB? I'm a genius

It's not cannon so the fundies are just going to stick their fingers in their ears and go BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

People still believe that biblical figures pre-Solomon were real people?

Wow.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/program.html

The whole thing is online if anyone wanted to watch it.

i give you my thanks sir!

Thanks for the link Vin.

IIRC, it's pretty explicit in the Bible that a large segment of the Israelite populace decided to start worshipping Asherah at some point, so that's not really much of a revelation. The Bible also suggests pretty strongly that Yahweh didn't care much for this.

Looks interesting. This was the sort of stuff I liked about Sunday School. Screw spirituality lessons, give me

While plenty of time and money has probably been wasted on trying to prove the bible archaeologically, it can still be a valuable tool in interpreting the evidence. I'm sure that Mayan texts would have done the same had most of them not been destroyed.

Yes this is true.