Book of Abraham == the New View

[HappyJackWagon]

20 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

This is the problem- the definition of "real" and what that means.  Robert is right- what we need around here is a good course in epistemology

Actually that is the error of every critic here- they think they know what reality is.  That is what Dawkins says too.

Only the critic?

What if we rephrase "real" to , an actual human being named Abraham who lived and experienced the events and held the beliefs purported through scripture?

If you're arguing that Abraham was "real" to Joseph even though he may not have existed as an actual human being, then I can agree with you.

[cinepro]

52 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

This is the problem- the definition of "real" and what that means.  Robert is right- what we need around here is a good course in epistemology

Actually that is the error of every critic here- they think they know what reality is.  That is what Dawkins says too.

Just so we're all clear, I was responding to this claim:

Quote

Modern scholarship has shown that Christianity hasn't always had a focus on such literal interpretations of scripture, this is a fairly recent trend.  So if you can accept that the whole story of Abraham was likely passed down as myth and that even if an actual person named Abraham did exist at some point, that doesn't mean any of the narrative we have about Abraham describes actual events in this person's life.  If you can look at the entire story of Abraham as a metaphor for theological purposes, then its easy to accept that Joseph Smith was telling a story for modern theological purposes as well. 

I was simply pointing out that at the point that Joseph Smith says he had a vision and saw Abraham as well as his brother Alvin, we're well past the point that we can say Joseph Smith might have been simply "telling a story" and still be within the realm of Mormon belief.  

At that point, you're just using fancy words to say "I don't believe in the Book of Abraham or other LDS teachings about Abraham."

Edited November 14, 2016 by cinepro

[hope_for_things]

50 minutes ago, cinepro said:

Just so we're all clear, I was responding to this claim:

I was simply pointing out that at the point that Joseph Smith says he had a vision and saw Abraham as well as his brother Alvin, we're well past the point that we can say Joseph Smith might have been simply "telling a story" and still be within the realm of Mormon belief.  

At that point, you're just using fancy words to say "I don't believe in the Book of Abraham or other LDS teachings about Abraham."

My two cents.  On the surface, I agree that this complicates things.  Perhaps we could look at this differently.  

Mystical experiences, dreams, visions I believe are the mind trying to make sense of thoughts and emotions and sensory input, regardless the source, we can't measure what is happening definitively.  People commonly make the assumption that all these experiences are similar to what we see in the movies today.  That the person experiencing this is conscious with their eyes open and if someone just had a camera they could record the whole event for another person to see.  

If Joseph had reported seeing Zeus and Aphrodite right alongside Abraham and Alvin, I wonder what Mormon's would think.  

[cdowis]

13 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

If Joseph had reported seeing Zeus and Aphrodite right alongside Abraham and Alvin, I wonder what Mormon's would think.  

Joseph Smith  did not say it,  but DID said, with other witnesses, John the Baptist, the three chief apostles, and Jesus Christ.

Your pathetic attempt to insult members of the church failed miserably.

[hope_for_things]

7 minutes ago, cdowis said:

Joseph Smith  did not say it,  but DID said, with other witnesses, John the Baptist, the three chief apostles, and Jesus Christ.

Your pathetic attempt to insult members of the church failed miserably.

Perhaps the ancient Greeks would be insulted as well.  I guess you missed my point...

[Calm]

23 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

If Joseph had reported seeing Zeus and Aphrodite right alongside Abraham and Alvin, I wonder what Mormon's would think.  

I don't understand why some people think using Greek gods or wizards in hypothetical, highly improbable (some would say ridiculous) scenarios somehow yields insight into their reactions to the quite possible existence of individuals mentioned in the Bible.  Granted, some aspects of their lives as reported in various sources borders on the Greek god level, but then so o some of the stories attached to George Washington, Daniel Boone, and others documented to have lived.

Makes as much sense as saying "I wonder what you would think if your mother told you your father was a demon" when you knew your mother had never said anything like that and barring drastic brain damage or illness, never would.

[hope_for_things]

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

I don't understand why some people think using Greek gods or wizards in hypothetical, highly improbable (some would say ridiculous) scenarios somehow yields insight into their reactions to the quite possible existence of individuals mentioned in the Bible.  Granted, some aspects of their lives as reported in various sources borders on the Greek god level, but then so o some of the stories attached to George Washington, Daniel Boone, and others documented to have lived.

Makes as much sense as saying "I wonder what you would think if your mother told you your father was a demon" when you knew your mother had never said anything like that and barring drastic brain damage or illness, never would.

The Abraham story is no less myth than the stories of Greek Gods, and to me that doesn't mean its uninspiring.  Its certainly not in the same category as mythical stories about George Washington, who we know existed in modern times.  

I'm surprised to have this comment from you Calm.  Why is it important to you that Abraham was an actual real live person and not just a character in a story?  Surely you see the power of parables and allegory in the scriptures.  

[Robert F. Smith]

14 hours ago, cdowis said:

May I ask you a very basic question.

Are you a man who dreams of a butterfly, or are you a butterfly dreaming that you are a man.  What do the normative philosophies say?  Just curious.

We all tend to lead our lives as though everything is real.  Objectively real.  "As if . . ." carries a lot of baggage, and doesn't necessarily comport with reality -- particularly when we are discussing the ultimate nature of reality, or the ground of all being.

We even get something like your butterfly paradox from a variety of sources:

“Scientists Confirm That Reality is an Illusion - Our 3D Universe Is A Hologram,” May 4, 2012, online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qngieHWZXcM .

Kevin Loria, “ Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks there's a 'very high' chance the universe is just a simulation,” Business Insider, April 22, 2016, online at http://finance.yahoo.com/news/neil-degrasse-tyson-thinks-theres-130300649.html ,  

Quote

We haven't been able to figure out how to simulate a universe — yet. But it's not too hard to imagine that some other creature out there is far smarter than us.

Tyson points out that we humans have always defined ourselves as the smartest beings alive, orders of magnitude more intelligent than species like chimpanzees that share close to 99% of our DNA. We can create symphonies and do trigonometry and astrophysics (some of us, anyway).

But Tyson uses a thought experiment to imagine a life form that's as much smarter than us as we are than dogs, chimps, or other terrestrial mammals.

"What would we look like to them? We would be drooling, blithering idiots in their presence," he says.

Whatever that being is, it very well might be able to create a simulation of a universe.

"And if that's the case, it is easy for me to imagine that everything in our lives is just the creation of some other entity for their entertainment," Tyson says. "I’m saying, the day we learn that it is true, I will be the only one in the room saying, I’m not surprised."

Check out the full AMNH discussion on YouTube here:

 

 

Edited November 15, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Calm]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

The Abraham story is no less myth than the stories of Greek Gods, and to me that doesn't mean its uninspiring.  

I'm surprised to have this comment from you Calm.  Why is it important to you that Abraham was an actual real live person and not just a character in a story?  Surely you see the power of parables and allegory in the scriptures.  

Gee, maybe because Joseph Smith and Christ spoke of him as a historical personage and not pure myth.

And you see a story about gods who can turn themselves into a shower of gold and impregnate women to be on the same level as the story of a man who believed he received revelation from God and became the patriarch of a nation?

There are numerous claims that King Arthur was based on an actual individual who had impossible to our modern view stories attached to him.  Outside of the question of whether or not he actually existed, it is quite feasible he did exist even if unlikely stories involving magic and the Fae are attached to that figure.  I see Abraham in those terms.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

The Abraham story is no less myth than the stories of Greek Gods, and to me that doesn't mean its uninspiring.  Its certainly not in the same category as mythical stories about George Washington, who we know existed in modern times.  

I'm surprised to have this comment from you Calm.  Why is it important to you that Abraham was an actual real live person and not just a character in a story?  Surely you see the power of parables and allegory in the scriptures.  

Both Calm and I may believe that there was in fact a real person named Abram/Abraham in the second millennium BC, but that is a matter of faith, not scholarship.  For the scholar, such as the late Frank Moore Cross Jr, Abraham is indeed a matter of myth.  As he said in his From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1998), 47,

Quote

    The patriarchal traditions were an integral element in Israel’s early epic (although it must be said that the history of the patriarchs has been vastly expanded by later accretions before achieving its present agglutinative mass).  Much of the patriarchal lore is very old, some of it reaching back, perhaps, into the Middle Bronze Age.  As an epic cycle it evidently existed prior to the epic materials recounting exodus, covenant, and conquest.  There is, on the other hand, no reason to believe that the bundle of exodus, Sinai, and conquest themes ever existed detached from or separated from patriarchal epic tradition – save in its purely mythic prototype.

That does not mean that a real Abraham did not exist, but rather that our only reason for actually believing that George Washington was real is because he is so close in time to us.  What wiill people believe 4 thousand years hence?  Especially when full documentation has been lost.

However, I am also reminded of the extraordinary visions of Lucius Apuleius in his Metamorphoses (The Golden ***).  When he went through the Eleusinian Mysteries, for example, his breathtaking vision of Isis marks him as a man of strong pagan faith.  His book is an excellent read, and I highly recommend it.  Many another example could be brought forth, particularly from India and Tibet..

Edited November 15, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[hope_for_things]

30 minutes ago, Calm said:

Gee, maybe because Joseph Smith and Christ spoke of him as a historical personage and not pure myth.

And you see a story about gods who can turn themselves into a shower of gold and impregnate women to be on the same level as the story of a man who believed he received revelation from God and became the patriarch of a nation?

There are numerous claims that King Arthur was based on an actual individual who had impossible to our modern view stories attached to him.  Outside of the question of whether or not he actually existed, it is quite feasible he did exist even if unlikely stories involving magic and the Fae are attached to that figure.  I see Abraham in those terms.

I think we have enough material from Joseph Smith to know that be believed Abraham was a real live person.  However, I'm reminded of another vision that Joseph Smith had where he specifically thought he saw Elias and Elijah as two separate and distinct people, but that was likely due to his misreading of those names.  

Abraham, father of a nation figure head in the NT, not necessarily as a real person.  Still don't understand with so many biblical stories likely not literal/historical events, why the resistance to put the historicity aside completely and acknowledge that we have no need for a literal person to have existed.  Its not necessary for theological value and its certainly not something that any scholarly evidence has corroborated.  

I'm fine if Abraham was a person, I'm not saying its impossible.  There might have been a real person named Zeus too, but the later myths about him obviously aren't facts about the real person's life.  

[hope_for_things]

30 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Both Calm and I may believe that there was in fact a real person named Abram/Abraham in the second millennium BC, but that is a matter of faith, not scholarship.  For the scholar, such as the late Frank Moore Cross Jr, Abraham is indeed a matter of myth.  As he said in his From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1998), 47,

That does not mean that a real Abraham did not exist, but rather that our only reason for actually believing that George Washington was real is because he is so close in time to us.  What wiill people believe 4 thousand years hence?  Especially when full documentation has been lost.

However, I am also reminded of the extraordinary visions of Lucius Apuleius in his Metamorphoses (The Golden ***).  When he went through the Eleusinian Mysteries, for example, his breathtaking vision of Isis marks him as a man of strong pagan faith.  His book is an excellent read, and I highly recommend it.  Many another example could be brought forth, particularly from India and Tibet..

Thanks Robert, good points.  That book sounds interesting as well.  

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Only the critic?

What if we rephrase "real" to , an actual human being named Abraham who lived and experienced the events and held the beliefs purported through scripture?

If you're arguing that Abraham was "real" to Joseph even though he may not have existed as an actual human being, then I can agree with you.

Oh yeah- that applies as well to many here who accept the correspondence theory of truth, that true statements "correspond" to the world "as it actually is".

Of course the problem is that we cannot get outside our perceptions of the world to "see" it "as it is" in actuality. all we have is our perceptions of that world, "correct" or not

That is essentially what I call Dawkin's position- that what the world actually is is only the world as we see it and which can be verified by objective sense data.

I happen to believe as a part of my RELIGION, which is inherently not subject to objective evidence that Abraham was a real guy out there in a real desert with his real family and real flocks praying to a real God.

But I have no historical "evidence" for that in any real sense.   So if Abraham is an Archetype, all that is said about that individual is still true of the Archetype- in fact it is as true as "A=A " is true.

Perhaps unicorns may be an example of sorts, though an inferior example.

Suppose I had a religion which believed events which happened to unicorns (interestingly unicorns are a symbol for Christ http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/12336/the-unicorn-as-a-christological-figure)

Do unicorns exist?  

I would argue that they do.   In this case they exist as a mythological creature (in the case of Abraham, we don't know if he is mythological or not)   Unicorns exist as stories if nowhere else- they are part of our culture.  It can be said that it is an a priori truth or an "analytical" truth that unicorns have one horn.

So one could say that "It is true that unicorns have one horn".

"By definition" that is true.  Unicorns have one horn if they exist or not because what we MEAN by the word "unicorn" is a "Creature with one horn".  THAT is the definition of the word.  We are not talking about whether or not "A" exists when we affirm that "A=A".  It is true that A=A regardless of whether or not an A exists!

Similarly with Abraham and other figures whether or not they "actually existed" which is unknowable!  So affirming that "Abraham did so and so" or "Abraham taught so and so" is true- just as unicorns have one horn is true- whether or not Abraham "really existed" as a human being. 

It is unknowable if these things "really happened" therefore that becomes irrelevant to our beliefs about them either way.

In fact what you believe about theories of truth are also religious in nature- since we can and have- argued both sides.

Trumpites believe in Trump, Hillaryites believe in Hillary, and what counts is not "reality" which is unknowable, but the BELIEFS of their followers. 

As Alma 32 does not say, exactly, the proof is in the eating of the pudding.   What are the fruits of the beliefs?   THAT is the question.

 

 

Edited November 15, 2016 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

49 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

  However, I'm reminded of another vision that Joseph Smith had where he specifically thought he saw Elias and Elijah as two separate and distinct people, but that was likely due to his misreading of those names.  

We have specific statements on that issue- Joseph was not wrong

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1999/07/i-have-a-question?lang=eng

[hope_for_things]

30 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

We have specific statements on that issue- Joseph was not wrong

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1999/07/i-have-a-question?lang=eng

I hadn't read that before, but it just touches on the surface, and wasn't very convincing to me.  In a Dialogue search I found this paper by Samuel Brown that has some interesting points.  I'm reconsidering my position on what I thought was clearly a misunderstanding by Joseph of the Greek.  I do think some of his Elias references are inconsistent, so I'm still not convinced he understood that the Biblical references were to the same person.  That Joseph believed they were two distinct people is apparent though.  

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V39N03_15.pdf

 

[cdowis]

del

Edited November 15, 2016 by cdowis

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I think we have enough material from Joseph Smith to know that be believed Abraham was a real live person.  However, I'm reminded of another vision that Joseph Smith had where he specifically thought he saw Elias and Elijah as two separate and distinct people, but that was likely due to his misreading of those names.  

D&C 110, delivered at Passover, April 3, 1836, does have both Elias and Elijah listed in verses 12-13, but Warren Cowdery was the secretary that day, and  we have no independent account of that grand occasion in the hand of Joseph Smith or Oliver Cowdery, it was not included in the D&C in Joseph’s lifetime, and the Times & Seasons did not even name the angelic visitors -- Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Knopf, 2005), 319-320, citing Joseph Smith’s Journal (Dean Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, II:209-210), and Times & Seasons, Oct 1, 1842, p. 936.

Moreover, D&C 133:55, which was received in November 1831, doesn't have Elias, and Jesus  himself identifies John the Baptizer as Elijah in Matt 17:12, and Mark 9:13 (cf. Lk 1:17).  Is it possible that someone has misspelled Elijah and Elisha? -- Lenet Read, “Elijah and Elisha: Foreshadowing the Latter-day Work,” Ensign, 18/3 (Mar 1988):24.

Quote

Abraham, father of a nation figure head in the NT, not necessarily as a real person.  Still don't understand with so many biblical stories likely not literal/historical events, why the resistance to put the historicity aside completely and acknowledge that we have no need for a literal person to have existed.  Its not necessary for theological value and its certainly not something that any scholarly evidence has corroborated.  

I'm fine if Abraham was a person, I'm not saying its impossible.  There might have been a real person named Zeus too, but the later myths about him obviously aren't facts about the real person's life.  

You are comparing apples and oranges here, hope.  Zeus (Theos) is "God," while Abraham is a mere mortal.  Maybe you should try comparing King Priam, or maybe Agamemnon, since they are humans lost in the mists of time.  Then we could at least discuss the archeology.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Thinking]

On 11/10/2016 at 2:53 PM, cdowis said:

Ed Goble posts

(Stating a new thread since someone was unhappy with me in the old thread and got me banned from the thread.)

Anyway, as I see it, Ed is following the path of John Tvednes and his mnemonic theory, where he is attempts to tie the EAG with the Book of the Dead, resulting in the Book of Abraham. Let's go over the basics ==>>

Let us suppose that I want to memorize the first chapter of the Gospel of John.  I would start by dividing it up into phrases and memorize each phrase.  Let's suppose that I end up with 50 phrases, but I need a systematic way of looking at those phrases.

So I have a single word which represents the entire phrase.  So, I may use "beginning" as the trigger word for that entire phrase (verse).  Then, I take all of these trigger words and make a sentence using groups of trigger words.

"Beginning today John went home after the flood" (I'm not going to give a real example) would represent eight trigger words, or eight phrases.  Tvedtnes then does something remarkable, using the EAG as a guide, he is able to give a detailed demonstration that the BOD could be the grouping of those mnemonics or trigger words which results in the "translation" of the first part of the Book of Abraham.

This gives us some interesting possibilities  This mnemonic book, over the centuries, took on a life of its own, and the original purpose, as a repository of the Book of Abraham, was lost.

I realize this leaves alot of questions and holes, but Ed seems to have resurrected this idea and gives us a new direction.

 

[Glenn101]

8 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

The Abraham story is no less myth than the stories of Greek Gods.........

I am curious as to how you that? You state it as a fact. Is this opinion stated as a fact? Or do you have evidence that there was no historical Abraham?

 

Glenn

[hope_for_things]

8 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

I am curious as to how you that? You state it as a fact. Is this opinion stated as a fact? Or do you have evidence that there was no historical Abraham?

 

Glenn

I'm not aware of any corroborating evidence to support a historical Abraham.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham

Quote

Historicity[edit]

Abraham's well at Beersheba
In the early and middle 20th century, leading archaeologists such as William F. Albright, and biblical scholars such as Albrecht Alt, believed that the patriarchs and matriarchs were either real individuals or believable composites of people who lived in the "patriarchal age", the 2nd millennium BCE. But, in the 1970s, new arguments concerning Israel's past and the biblical texts challenged these views; these arguments can be found in Thomas L. Thompson's The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (1974), and John Van Seters' Abraham in History and Tradition (1975). Thompson, a literary scholar, based his argument on archaeology and ancient texts. His thesis centered on the lack of compelling evidence that the patriarchs lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, and noted how certain biblical texts reflected first millennium conditions and concerns. Van Seters examined the patriarchal stories and argued that their names, social milieu, and messages strongly suggested that they were Iron Age creations.[7] William G. Dever has stated that by the beginning of the 21st century, archaeologists had "given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob credible 'historical figures'".[8]

Origins of the narrative[edit]
Abraham's name is apparently very ancient, as the tradition found in Genesis no longer understands its original meaning (probably "Father is exalted" – the meaning offered in Genesis 17:5, "Father of a multitude", is a popular etymology).[9] The story, like those of the other patriarchs, most likely had a substantial oral prehistory.[10] At some stage the oral traditions became part of the written tradition of the Pentateuch; a majority of scholars believes this stage belongs to the Persian period, roughly 520–320 BCE.[11] The mechanisms by which this came about remain unknown,[12] but there are currently two important hypotheses.[13] The first, called Persian Imperial authorisation, is that the post-Exilic community devised the Torah as a legal basis on which to function within the Persian Imperial system; the second is that Pentateuch was written to provide the criteria for who would belong to the post Exilic Jewish community and to establish the power structures and relative positions of its various groups, notably the priesthood and the lay "elders".[13]

Nevertheless, the completion of the Torah and its elevation to the centre of post-Exilic Judaism was as much or more about combining older texts as writing new ones – the final Pentateuch was based on existing traditions.[14] In Ezekiel 33:24, written during the Exile (i.e., in the first half of the 6th century BCE), Ezekiel, an exile in Babylon, tells how those who remained in Judah are claiming ownership of the land based on inheritance from Abraham; but the prophet tells them they have no claim because they don't observe Torah.[15] Isaiah 63:16 similarly testifies of tension between the people of Judah and the returning post-Exilic Jews (the "gôlâ"), stating that God is the father of Israel and that Israel's history begins with the Exodus and not with Abraham.[16] The conclusion to be inferred from this and similar evidence (e.g., Ezra-Nehemiah), is that the figure of Abraham must have been preeminent among the great landowners of Judah at the time of the Exile and after, serving to support their claims to the land in opposition to those of the returning exiles.[16]

 

[HappyJackWagon]

14 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Oh yeah- that applies as well to many here who accept the correspondence theory of truth, that true statements "correspond" to the world "as it actually is".

Of course the problem is that we cannot get outside our perceptions of the world to "see" it "as it is" in actuality. all we have is our perceptions of that world, "correct" or not

That is essentially what I call Dawkin's position- that what the world actually is is only the world as we see it and which can be verified by objective sense data.

I happen to believe as a part of my RELIGION, which is inherently not subject to objective evidence that Abraham was a real guy out there in a real desert with his real family and real flocks praying to a real God.

But I have no historical "evidence" for that in any real sense.   So if Abraham is an Archetype, all that is said about that individual is still true of the Archetype- in fact it is as true as "A=A " is true.

Perhaps unicorns may be an example of sorts, though an inferior example.

Suppose I had a religion which believed events which happened to unicorns (interestingly unicorns are a symbol for Christ http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/12336/the-unicorn-as-a-christological-figure)

Do unicorns exist?  

I would argue that they do.   In this case they exist as a mythological creature (in the case of Abraham, we don't know if he is mythological or not)   Unicorns exist as stories if nowhere else- they are part of our culture.  It can be said that it is an a priori truth or an "analytical" truth that unicorns have one horn.

So one could say that "It is true that unicorns have one horn".

"By definition" that is true.  Unicorns have one horn if they exist or not because what we MEAN by the word "unicorn" is a "Creature with one horn".  THAT is the definition of the word.  We are not talking about whether or not "A" exists when we affirm that "A=A".  It is true that A=A regardless of whether or not an A exists!

Similarly with Abraham and other figures whether or not they "actually existed" which is unknowable!  So affirming that "Abraham did so and so" or "Abraham taught so and so" is true- just as unicorns have one horn is true- whether or not Abraham "really existed" as a human being. 

It is unknowable if these things "really happened" therefore that becomes irrelevant to our beliefs about them either way.

In fact what you believe about theories of truth are also religious in nature- since we can and have- argued both sides.

Trumpites believe in Trump, Hillaryites believe in Hillary, and what counts is not "reality" which is unknowable, but the BELIEFS of their followers. 

As Alma 32 does not say, exactly, the proof is in the eating of the pudding.   What are the fruits of the beliefs?   THAT is the question.

 

While it is accurate to say that a unicorn has one horn (whether or not the unicorn is fictional) it is different to make a statement like "King David had a stable of 5 unicorns, and one Pegasus." A fictional creature can have attributes as part of its fictional character but moving fiction into non-fiction requires a bit more of a logical leap. When we read things like "they fought like dragons", we can accept that they fought like fictional dragons are storied to fight. But it would be different to say they fought with the dragon, riding on its back as it swooped through the air, vaporizing the enemy with its fire breath.

I'm reminded of Marco Polo's description of a unicorn.

Quote

 "They have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick ... The head resembles that of a wild boar, and they carry it ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide in mire and mud. 'Tis a passing ugly beast to look upon

https://curiosity.com/topics/marco-polo-believed-in-unicorns/

What he was calling a unicorn was really a rhinoceros  Was the rhinoceros really a unicorn just because he called it such?

[SeekingUnderstanding]

23 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

This is the problem- the definition of "real" and what that means.  Robert is right- what we need around here is a good course in epistemology

Actually that is the error of every critic here- they think they know what reality is.  That is what Dawkins says too.

I don't think its just the critics. I'd say the vast majority of believers look at epistemology the same way the critics do...

[mfbukowski]

15 hours ago, Thinking said:

 

An odd response from someone nicknamed "Thinking", who apparently does not like to do so.  It's not as if some alternative theory was offered or anything or even any reason given for errors in the point being made.

One might even think that exercising one's mind is a good thing.

 

Nah....

Edited November 15, 2016 by mfbukowski

[Glenn101]

8 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I'm not aware of any corroborating evidence to support a historical Abraham.  

Not surprising, as far as contemporary documents are concerned.  There is a wealth of Jewish literature about Abraham. And there are Egyptian documents which mention Abraham. Of course this is by John Gee who is an Egyptologist and a member of the Church, so it really is not evidence.

There is enough literature to suggest that Abraham was believed to be a real person by people in Egypt as well as the Jews. But it still boils down to opinions either way, not established facts. There are many people mentioned in various texts for which there is little to no contemporary corroborating evidence. I do not see why I should discount their existence just because of that.

 

Glenn

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

While it is accurate to say that a unicorn has one horn (whether or not the unicorn is fictional) it is different to make a statement like "King David had a stable of 5 unicorns, and one Pegasus." A fictional creature can have attributes as part of its fictional character but moving fiction into non-fiction requires a bit more of a logical leap. When we read things like "they fought like dragons", we can accept that they fought like fictional dragons are storied to fight. But it would be different to say they fought with the dragon, riding on its back as it swooped through the air, vaporizing the enemy with its fire breath.

I'm reminded of Marco Polo's description of a unicorn.

What he was calling a unicorn was really a rhinoceros  Was the rhinoceros really a unicorn just because he called it such?

A rhino IS a creature with one horn.  That is the literal meaning of "unicorn".  

I am not as expert as you are in making a sure definition of "reality" in this context, but this one of the earliest representations of a unicorn, from the Mohenjo-daro civilization

https://www.harappa.com/seal/1.html

It is what it is.  Horse?  Rhino? Funny bull?

As I have said many times and apparently has yet to sink in, is that are no facts, just interpretations.  

I think it's time for a little English 101 refresher- there is a difference between similes, metaphors, symbols and "fiction"

Are the letters of this sentence fiction?  They are definitely symbols.   I think you are demonstrating compound category errors.

Edited November 16, 2016 by mfbukowski