I want to write about a minister who is questioning if the history the bible tells us about is completely accurate, help?

[Silver7]

I just really need answers on this one so I can write

Christianity tells us that all humans are descendants of two persons which are Adam and Eve but if science has proven that Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons and Denisovans existed and it is scientifically proven that people all over the world have Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA due to our ancestors mixing with them then doesn't that prove the version of early human history Christianity presents to us is not perfectly accurate?

(And of course we know that the Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon and Denisovan couldn't have been descendants of Adam and Eve)

[abigaillmartin]

Talk to my friend Dan

https://m.youtube.com/@maklelan

This dude helped me so much and I think he will help you too.

[kyupol]

A minister... before he becomes one undergoes extensive education in seminary where he is thoroughly indoctrinated into whatever version of Christianity he is supposed to preach.

Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, are among the material discussed to prove the young earth theory and debunk evolution.

For a minister (or anyone) to question whatever paradigm they're brought up in, they need to undergo a traumatic event or events that will lead them to even question to begin with.

Even the best arguments to counter their paradigm will simply go out the other ear if they're happy and content with their present paradigm.

The bubble needs to be popped.

[Lensing]

What is the question?

What do you mean with "perfectly" accurate?
The only thing that´s accurate in the bible are places,
some names of people who really existed.
Most of the old testament is a made up fairytale
which also changed through translations

[moontokkym]

I really feel like you're using fiction and the questions on the forum to grapple with your own faith and upbringing and ping-ponging between errant beliefs in christianity-based conspiracy theories and more science-based realities all the while not necessarily having the tools nor the critical thinking skills yet to be able to discern which are more likely to be true.

To my knowledge most Christians don't believe what happened in the Bible to be litteraly true, but spiritually true, and they practice their faith to find joy in a community and togetherness in following the word of Jesus rather than preaching that those outside of the community are wrong. I know that there are very accomplished astrophysicists and molecular biologists who are Christian, they just believe that the equations they are working out, the shapes and assemblies of atoms, and everything they are discovering and using was the work of God that they are slowly uncovering the beautiful details of. Christianity and Christians aren't fundamentally opposed to science, only small sects of extremists are, and they're usually where the hurt and fear in religion flourish. I say this as an atheist with Christian friends, i can see the good in religion, but often when a group pushes its people to ignorance such as believing the earth is litteraly 6000 years old (and not 6000 having classically meant "too much to count, a really massive undefined number"), it's to better control them.

Though you are not a minister, I'm pretty sure with some of your own life experience you are capable of putting yourself mentally in the position of someone who believes something to his core only to have that image of the world shattered by reality and fall into crisis.

[Lensing]

To my knowledge most Christians don't believe what happened in the Bible to be litteraly true, but spiritually true, and they practice their faith to find joy in a community and togetherness in following the word of Jesus rather than preaching that those outside of the community are wrong

100% at least from my perspective. I grew up in a very religious family.
I spent my youth in the church, played in the church orchestra, etc.
I know every story in the bible. For christians the stories in the bible
are like a rough guideline (10 commandments) and the 10 commandments
get discussed a lot + have different interpreations.
The rest of the bible is taken like something as fables with a moral
of the story.

[moontokkym]

That sounds a lot like the childhoods of the people I grew up with. I was brought up in what I would call a pretty devout catholic community, especially in school. There was an actual victorian-era chapel on school grounds in highschool that performed mass on holy days, if we were at school then, the devout kids could skip morning class to participate.

That explicitly catholic school uncontrovertially taught things like evolution, prehistory, basic and even advanced biology and basic astrophysics, because religion never opposed those things in their eyes. Because of how traditionalist they were I assumed that if they were the most regressive of the lot (they had pretty dismal and explicit views of homosexuality despite gay marriage having been legal for over 5 years by that point and the racism was there as a constant undercurrent from some), basically all christians must see it the same way, and even that it was kind of the only way you could reconcile what is described in many bible stories with known reality. Our physics teacher even quoted "A little science pushes you away from God, a lot brings you closer to Him." which i find pretty neat, he seemed genuinely empassionned with his field.

[abigaillmartin]

whispers It’s why I gave them Dr. Dan Makelan.
He helped me with my deconstruction and understanding of the Bible in a not dogmatic way. He’s freaking awesome.

He taught me way more than my church did and I love it.

[abigaillmartin]

Grew up Mormon here. Still active but trying to figure things out. It’s a complicated and painful path.

It’s hard to uncloud of all the things we’re taught growing up but I am so blessed to have found Dr. Dan Makelan. He is a member of the church too but he never lets his faith get in the way of his scholarly approach to the Bible and I love that about him. It has made me understand it a lot better more than anything.

[abigaillmartin]

regarding education in my church college I am going to. To get education is a divine thing and even a commandment. Many of my professors have emphasized that religion and education can coexist.

Where I have been has been great to be honest. Even if I’ve been taking issue with certain things.
I wanted to go to school that was cheap and close to my family so…

[jwabeasley]

I got this one! The short answer is that the Bible is not a science textbook and does not claim to be. Young Earth Creationism is a relatively new theological development (~1860s in reaction to Darwin) while educated Christians going back at least as far as Augustine did not believe that God created the universe in six consecutive 24-hour periods.

It's just like how educated Medieval people didn't believe the world was flat, either. And they took baths!

We also know now that the Genesis account from creation to Abraham is actually a very clever critique of the other myths that were then common in Mesopotamia at the time. It makes room for people to still believe what they already believed (Jehovah is identified with Marduk and the waters with Tiamat), just like if it was written today it would probably discuss the big bang and evolution.

Most of the older parts of the Old Testament were written down during the Babylonian exile, and you can see a huge break between the pre-exile Hebrews and the Post-exile Jews. For one thing, the post-exile people took a lot of elements of then-dominant Zoroastrianism and incorporated it into their theology and philosophy. And it's not until you get to the Maccabees (yes, in the Catholic Apocrypha) that you see the Jews develop into the version that Jesus encounters in the gospels. King David didn't have to deal with any Sadducees or Pharisees!

Historically, there's decent evidence for the Bible's version of history starting in Joshua/Judges, although it doesn't approach what we moderns think of as history until the later prophets. Earlier bits are debatable. But you have to remember that nobody wrote histories or biographies as a dry telling of events until the modern period (post ~1500). Prior to that, the historian was expected to be a storyteller, allowed to reorder events and paraphrase arguments in order to make a rhetorical point. You don't think anyone was sitting during the Peloponnesian war scratching away with a stylus for Thucydides to be able to quote everyone! Sometimes with the later Greeks, you get historians like Procopius who was there and was a scribe during the events and more or less renders a true account of the events he witnessed, but that kind of thing is very rare historically.

So it takes a bit of literary care to read the Bible in its proper genres (Histories and Biographies and Science textbooks aren't among them) rather than ascribing a modern thinking to these ancient authors.

[abigaillmartin]

Okay just to clarify so we can help you I’m going to ask you a few questions

1. What is your story about?

2. Who is the protagonist?

3. What is the goal of the protagonist and who’s the antagonist trying to stop them?

4. Does the protagonist have a team or are they alone?
   What is their alignment?

5. What is the setting?

Basic stuff like that. We can’t help if we don’t know what your story is about in the first place.

[cherrystark]

I am a Christian and very religious. I would focus on writing your plot instead of theories, because there is still so much we don't know. Science and religion are two sides of the same coin, in a way. I heard someone say science tells us how something happened, religion tells us why.

Second, science and history aren't benchmarks for accuracy. We tend to view things in neat little clusters and fail to acknowledge that events occurred in concert with other events, or may rewrite events to fit our current understanding. The Bible says that God created the world in seven creationary periods, calling each period a "day". However, the Bible never states that the world was created in 168 hours (seven Earth days). And then, when you consider that the Bible has been translated countless times and revised to fit people's agendas, "accuracy" doesn't exist.

There's a ton to consider, but that's why I encourage you to focus on your plot first. If your goal is to write a fantasy novel, I would put my focus toward crafting an epic fantasy world of your own creation where you create the rules. But if you want to write more about the minister's journey to reclaim his faith, for example, I'd focus on that. (Just a thought.)

[abigaillmartin]

You make a good point dude.
This is should really help them.

Just be creative and write your own story.

[abigaillmartin]

Are you a bot?

Silver7 is the name of a casino and your other username is a beauty product.
What human would have their username after a corporation and a beauty product.

[jwabeasley]

Relax @abigaillmartin, @Silver7 has been a forum regular for years. Most people don't check the forum every five minutes, or even every hour. Instant replies would be more indicative of bot activity, wouldn't they?

[abigaillmartin]

Eh I guess you’re right. I’m sorry dude.

[Silver7]

My story is about a minister that deep down in his heart he hates Christianity and wants to debunk it.

The minister is the protagonist

At this point in the story, there is no antagonist

The protagonist does not have a team

The setting is modern day London

[jwabeasley]

Hm, if he wanted to debunk Christianity, and he's in modern-day London, he could easily say that the recent translations of Sumerian and Babylonian mythology show that the flood myth in Genesis was taken from the Sumerians by the Jews. Since we obviously don't believe that the Babylonian myths are literally true, and scientifically we know there was no world-destroying flood that covered the whole earth, then the bible is wrong. QED.

I think that's a bad faith argument but it's one I've encountered a few times.

Another common pro-atheism argument I see is that Old Testament God kills a whole bunch of people and orders genocides. If you take that statement, apply no nuance to it, and assume that any good deity's actions should be governed by the same ethics followed by modern humans, then that proves that He is terrible and should not be followed.

A third one is the argument from evil, which has been a bee in the bonnet of anyone arguing for an omnibenevolent and omnipotent deity. It goes like this: If God is all good and all powerful, then why is there pain, suffering and evil in the world? Those things are bad, therefore God cannot be all good and all powerful, therefore He is either not God or does not exist.

Nearly all the atheists I have met have held a combination of the above.

I think for the Adam and Eve + science debate at the beginning, at some point you had a first sentient primate, male and female, and they'd be the ones who did the deed, however primitive they were. I don't myself hold this position but that seems like the logical response.

[kyupol]

1) Focus on WHY the minister got traumatized enough to go against his own paradigm. To be a minister you either have to be so devoted to the cause in the first place.

Takes trauma to go against your comfort zone. I've read a lot of ex Christians, ex Muslims, ex Atheists, ex North Korean generals (these guys had a very privileged existence kissing up to Kim), etc.

2) Modern day London? In modern day western world, Christianity is seen as a meme / laughing stock. I was once in street preacher "hellfire" type Christianity. I can write an entire book about our "Acts". I know about all the hecklers. And most of our hecklers were other Christians vs unbelievers. Lukewarm Christians and other "serious" Christians who focus on straining at a gnat over every little point of doctrine and if you got the semantics wrong you're a heretic destined for eternal hellfire. And that doesn't even consider internal politics, defamation and false accusations coming from your "brothers and sisters". No wonder unbelievers see Christianity as a joke.

A more realistic setting would be a time period or place where Christianity was taken more seriously by majority of the population. Like an underdog fight the power type story.