or are we just taking somebody's word that wrote a book , I mean with that theory I can write a book about me being jesus and bury it and a new religion will be born in 1000 years , I don't understand how you can believe without proof. If there actually was a bible found shouldn't there be proof in the same area it was found
134965
Scientist don't disagree that Jesus Christ ever lived -- there is concrete evidence that he was a real person who lived in that time period (unfortunately, I don't know what that evidence is...) The only thing disputed is whether or not he is the Son of God. And to answer your question further, I don't believe that there is solid "proof" of God. But, then again, faith isn't based on proof, or else it wouldn't be called "faith".
106757
Your question also begs a more basic question:  regardless of version, timing, or translation, human beings wrote the contents of, and chose and assembled, the texts that were called The Bible.  (Same with the Talmud, and the Koran.)  So it's reasonable to ask, why do so many believe it to be God's word?  I mean, it could be.  But why do people today so strongly believe it to be so, with such certainty?  When all they have is other people's word for it?  It is indeed remarkable, and hard to understand.
574576
I believe in God just not the bible, how dare anyone claim to know what God thinks, I have more respect for God, there are hundreds of archaeological finds proving that the bible that exists was put into place by church hierarchy that had ulterior motives for including and not including what THEY wanted in the bible, only someone who had ALL the original texts and could read them in the original language that they were written in would have a good understanding of what the ancient religious leaders had in mind, and who's to say they were God inspired, insane asylums are full of people who hear God
665629
That's because parts of it seem contradictory or counter-intuitive if you take them literally, or out of historical or literal context.  After all, the Bible is a set of books written by different people in different languages thousands of years ago.  It is only reasonable that there would be something lost in the translation, especially given the ambiguity of the English language.  It may also require a great deal of research to resolve the issues you confront them with, and they satisfied themselves of what they believe and do not remember how to explain it to you.  Ignorance and laziness are also sometimes reasons, but there are some people who are able to explain those issues to you.  If you really want good answers to your questions, you should try a few apologetics websites.
99575
My 'church' isn't mine, it's Jesus'!  If God told me to write a book about my faith and beliefs, He would be telling me to re-write the Bible, which it is not likely that He would do.\n\nSeparating doctrines of faith from opinions is easy:  do like the Bereans - test ALL things against scripture, hold fast to that which is true, discard the rest!!
412788
How about the fact that the entire scientific community accepts the age of the earth to be 4.6 billion years old?\n\nI have no idea what sources you're reading from or even if you just made all that up, but science is in no way "proving" the Bible. If anything, it's proving that the Biblical creation story is even LESS likely to actually have happened than we originally thought.\n\nAdam & Eve? Mainstream scientists laugh at that, man.
131955
1. It would have to be proven (not merely suggested) that the Bible is subsantially different today, than when it was originally written. \n2. At least one historical event recorded in the Bible would have to be proven (not merely suggested to be) false.\n3. The over 400 fulfilled predictive prophecies of the Bible would need to be proven (not merely suggested) to have been written AFTER the fact.\n4. A real, honest-to-goodness contradiction would need to be shown (and I'm not talking about the 'straw men' that get set up every single day).\n5. At least one major miracle of the Bible would have to be shown to have been a fraud contrived by mere men.\n6. I would need a memory wipe to remove the miracles I have seen/experienced which correspond to Biblical miracles (healings, multiplication of food, etc).
563726
I don't think it's a question of whether or not one believes in the bible.  The bible's existence should not some into question, it does exist, The more important question is how it is interpreted by people.  Is it the actual word of God (a relatively modern concept bought about by the church in reaction to scientific advances of the 18th century, prior to this it was not seen as the true word of God)  Is it human accounts of ture events in history, or is it allegorical stories, written to demonstrate the concepts of the christian faith.  I believe, personally, that it is a combination of the last two.. I am not christian, but I do believe that Christ existed, though I don't know what he was, I do believe that he was a wonderful spiritual man, with many wonderful ideas, but I do think that some bible stories are written to demonstrate the tenets of the christian faith, and may not have been actual events.  I don't think that the bible is the actual word of God, I don't think God would have contradicted himself as much as the bible contradicts itself, and there are alot of human constructs in there, I don't mean this as an insult to anyone's faith, I don't think it lessens the bible's importance, but I cannot believe that it is God's own words.  I believe that some of the things the bible say's are good and true and everyone can learn from the bible, Jesus said some amazing things, and sometimes it seems that the churches ignore Jesus, who said the meek shall inherit the earth, and yet the catholic church is disgustingly wealthy, I don't mean to sound like a religious nut here, I'm not religious at all, but I do have respect for what Jesus had to say, So whilst I don't believe everything the Bible says, I do believe that the bible exists as part allegory, and part history, and mainly as a very heavy book found in most hotel rooms.
68212
This is a question that seems to come up a lot, but I love it anyway!\nIf the Bible is really God's word, then there is no problem at all with a literal 6 day creation story. (If you try to change that, then you have death before Adam sinned, and Eve could not be the mother of all living, etc ... disbelieving a literal 6 day creation will make you throw out more of the rest of the Bible than you get to keep.)\nI agree with the perspective that God could have created the earth with the appearance of age, created stars with light-years of light coming from them already, etc... I mean, if God can create everything, He can create it however he likes. (Side note on the age of the earth, did you know that according to evolution the earth is ageing millions of years per year? - Ask that one sometime!)\n\nBack when Darwin introduced the theory of Evolution to modern history (the idea goes back WAY before Darwin, but that's another story), he stated that for his theory to work, there must be evidence, and speculated on what it COULD look like - None exists today. Christians really dropped the ball on this one, and let this "theory" become equivalent to "science" (science must be observable and repeatable).\n\nIs there PROOF for creation? No (again, scientific proof must be observable and repeatable), there is not PROOF, but there is a lot more reasonable evidence that there is for creation.\n\nRegarding dinosours, the Bible actually speaks of them (and dragons) in the book of Job.\nSome remote cultures (The Congo, the Amazon, etc.) have recent (20th Century) stories of dinosaurs still living.\n\nThere's a lot more, but I don't want to get too long on you, so check out the link below for TONS more info, on this subject.
643867
Archeology is a science and the science is not static like the "true"  Bible. In the Bible all the thinks are true without question, they are "God" words.  In science we question all the thinks and the true of today maybe be false tomorrow and this concept is not bad is really good. If you are a believer your true is based on faith, if you believe in the science your true is based on proof and the proof are generally changing. Yes there are a  lot of discrepancies between the evidences. Are you willing to accept the differences even if they point that Bible is incorrect?
555438
You just said that "the bible can't be proved as fact" and you derived "the bible is a lie" from that, in the law of deductive logic and reasoning, you can't derive the latter from your previous phrase.  \n\nTruth be told, you can't prove the whole Bible at all, either way, no matter what.  You can prove the history that the Bible has supplied.  You have to have faith and the Holy Spirit to fully understand scripture, and even with these things, not everything is meant to be known.  God has a revealed will and a hidden will and we are not meant to know everything.  In fact, most of the things that have happened in the Bible have been proved fact.  The great battles in the Old Testament, the life of Jesus has even been proved by historians.  There's irrefutable evidence in support of his life, and his dying.\n\nCurtis
300813
Jesus did a lot just to fulfill the prophecy's of the old testament. It's good to question things. If the book can't stand up to our questions it's not worth the paper its printed on.
89722
Dear sweet one, \n\n  There is no proof.  If there were proof, then the global population would be in perfect agreement.  There is faith, and there are theories.  And nothing more.
76268
Of course the Bible has errors, the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) don't even agree on what time of day Jesus was crucified.  The Bible was written by MANY differeny people and there are bound to be things that are inaccurate and just flat out wrong.  The Bible was written by people, not God, and there for it is a statistical impossibility that none of those people made absolutly no errors over a periond of two thousand years.  To me, the Bible is for inspiration and for insight into a lot of spiritual topics, but it is by no means without flaws.  To believe that the Bible is without flaws is a very, very rigid way to look at it and if someone doesn't think so, there is plenty of proof otherwise.  And those who always quote and espouse the stuff in the Bible usually can't come up with anything interesting theologically on thieir own.
596186
We're made in the spiritual image of God, but that doesn't mean we ARE God; we make mistakes.  The Bible does have some internal inconsistancies, but it's also about 4000 years old.  You can't expect a story to be reproduced perfectly all throughout that time.  And I don't think it really matters anyway, since the creation story is more meant to be a parable than a factual history.  The message is more important than the individual details.
527188
I agree that faith should not be based solely on a book.  This is stupid.  Faith should be based on actual experiences with the book, with God, and with other "spiritual experiences".  Many people, including atheists and Christians think they are so smart and understand.  The fact is, is that both science and religion don't have all the answers right now.  Both groups put faith into their belief systems and adamantly state that they are correct.  But science changes and religion is often misunderstood.\nAs to your scriptures on Bible mishaps, you have two issues that should be addressed.  First, our morals and the morals of yesterday are not the same.  Why do we think we understand history from a few lines in a very old book?  Why do we judge a society that lived thousands of years ago?  We don't know enough about the actual events that led to these stories being recorded in this way.  The second issue is that if you were to read many of the versus you quoted in German, they say something different than what is implied here.  Translation errors are not a few in the Bible.  Thus, rather than base our belief on the Bible as a perfect book, we should seek after God in the Bible, the other stuff isn't as important.
533936
How long have you got?\n\nNo books of the bible were written in christs lifetime.  Even the fundys know that.\n\nAnd why do ppl believe it?  A mystery to me.  Because their parents taught them to is my best guess