Eight Ancient Armor-Clad Giants in Walkerton, Indiana?

11/14/2013

I know that many of you are waiting for the next part of my review of Graham Robb’s Discovery of Middle Earth, but it’s a slow, dense read, and it’s going to take extra time for me to read far enough ahead for the next part—unless you really want a 15 part series, which I imagine would get old fairly fast. I hope to have the next part for tomorrow.

You will, I trust, remember Doug Woodward, a Christian apologist who criticized me for criticizing the “Nephilim theorist community” over claims that sin is transmitted through deoxyribonucleic acid. Woodward contacted me privately to inform me that he would be publishing another rebuttal and asked me to refrain from criticizing it lest he feel compelled to respond in an infinite spiral of mutual criticism.

For interested parties, Woodward’s re-rebuttal is here.

Unbeknownst to me, my discussion of the Nephilim has apparently provoked discussion among Christian Nephilim theorists, with new criticism from Diana Learn that I am engaging in “scurrilous accusations.” She asks whether I can “fully understand the nuances of the alternative claims of Bible-believing Christians.” Learn agrees, however, that regardless of the factual arguments, all of our disagreements reduce to whether we believe Genesis to be inerrant.

Both Woodward and Learn attribute to me naturalist, materialist, and atheist beliefs (religiously held beliefs, Woodward says), which they derive from the fact that I ask for evidence of the supernatural before endorsing its reality. Woodward, however, criticizes Learn for failure to endorse Christian supernaturalism as thoroughly as he would like. However, both Learn and Woodward would like me to correct the following errors, which I will relate with minimal comment:

According to their brand of Christianity (but not most mainstream churches), the biological component of “sin” enters the human line due to a change in Adam’s genome caused by God.
Jesus was created by a divinely-crafted sperm encoded with special DNA and delivered to Mary by the Holy Spirit; any suggestion that his conception occurred without sperm (such as through a supernatural miracle, or the incarnation of the substance of God, or the myriad other versions proposed over the centuries) is false. I will leave it to others more skilled in such matters to explain how a sperm, with only half a set of chromosomes, can also be of one complete and identical substance with the Father.
Some but not all Nephilim researchers believe that sin is carried on the Y-chromosome, though they are not clear how it is that women also have biological sin, lacking Y-chromosomes.
The Nephilim corrupted humanity by hybridizing already-sinful humans with angel DNA, which was part of Satan’s plan to thwart Jesus’ redemption of humanity. According to Learn, God was angry at the hybridization because it was forbidden, and nearly all beings alive on earth at the Flood were hybrids. I am not enough of a theologian to parse this against Genesis 6:5-7, in which God says he was mad at sin, not hybridization, and wanted to kill the human race he created, not angel hybrids.
The books of Enoch and Jubilees can be used to understand the role of the Nephilim, but only insofar as they agree with Genesis (Ethiopian Christians they are not). Passages that disagree are prima facie false.
The Bible was written by different people at different times, but the Torah is the sole work of Moses.
Christian scholars who disagree with Woodward’s view on the Nephilim, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, are misinterpreting the texts that Nephilim researchers correctly understand.

With those corrections in the interest of fairness, I will now say a word about Woodward’s final objection, in which he took me to task for dismissing his claims of copper-armor giants without sufficient warrant, arguing that my “disdain” for his evidence was not proof of its failure. He’s right. He provided a citation to the story, claiming that eight armor-covered giants were found in Walkerton, Indiana in 1925, as reported in his book The Final Babylon (2013). Since this is a testable claim for the depth and persuasiveness of Woodward’s Nephilim research, it deserves careful and thorough treatment to show just how sloppy Nephilim scholarship is.

Let’s dispense with the simplest part of the claim first. The photograph Woodward identifies as the “giant” burial from 1925 is almost certainly a modern photograph, as indicated by the black-and-white measuring reference seen in the photo, not exactly standard equipment for 1920s amateur diggers; he was probably confused by this website which uses it as an illustration and labels it an Adena burial. The photograph does not, as he asserts, depict copper armor.

The story of the giants was first reported in the South Bend Tribune for October 4, 1925 under the headline “Skeleton in Armor Found in Indian Burial Mound.” Although I do not have access to this article, the story was then picked up and summarized by national media. Here is an original Time magazine report from November 16, 1925:

At Walkerton, Ind., a farmer opened a mound, disclosed eight skeletons, one of them clad in copper armor, lying feet together like spokes in a wheel. A giant for stature had a flint arrow head embedded in his skull. The bones appeared to be of Mound Builders.

The report says only one wore copper armor, most likely a copper breastplate like those known from ancient Native burials, and the report said nothing about the skeletons being nine feet tall. The media reports found nothing especially unusual about the size of the bones, which were in keeping with the slightly larger than average size for pre-Columbian Native peoples, who routinely were several inches to a foot taller than Europeans.

The secretary of the Northern Indiana Historical Society investigated and reported the results in in the Indiana History Bulletin for 1926. No surprise, but there is no mention of “giants.”

Carl Litchfield of Teegarden, and Jesse Lichtfield, who lives just north of Teegarden, recently excavated a mound on the farm of Grove Vosburg, some three miles north of Walkerton. The mound is reputed to be of great antiquity and this seems to be confirmed by the memory the owner of the farm has of an oak tree a yard in diameter formerly growing on top, which fell down about twenty years ago. The mound was at one time about twenty-five feet high but in recent years its height has been decreased. At a depth of about twelve feet, the Litchfields found eight skeletons in an arrangement somewhat like the spokes of a wheel with their heads toward the center. In the skull of one of the skeletons, said to be of large size, a fine flint arrow was embedded. With this same skeleton several plates of copper were found. The excavation also brought to light a number of other articles, bands, beads, etc., and two pipe bowls, one smooth, and the other elaborately carved.

It wasn’t even armor! Just copper plates, like the artifacts known from the same period, particularly the Mississippian copper chest plates, many of which were elaborately shaped into bird-men motifs. The earlier Hopewell culture made use of similar copper plates, including large copper head plates for a headdress, which could resemble sheets of armor and were probably what were found in the mound in question. No one claimed the skeletons were supernatural, only that one skull was “large.” Even if it were unusually large, it is only one of eight. The artifacts buried with the skeletons are typical of the area’s native populations.

From these reports, the myth of “giants” emerged.

By 1965, the Rosicrucian Digest had made them into “eight giants,” though recognizing that only one wore armor. As the story grew, the “eight giants” became “eight-foot giants,” almost as if the number of giants became confused with their size. Suddenly, they all started to sport armor. The key transformation took place with Jim Brandon’s Weird America (1978) where the skeletons were claimed to be giants and “all were wearing heavy copper armor.” Charles DeLoach in his Giants: A Reference Guide from History, the Bible, and Recorded Legend (1995), altered this, probably by mistake, to (in quotation marks) “substantial copper armor”—still a far cry from the “copper plates” associated with just one of them. From Weird America and from Giants, everyone from David Childress to Wayne May to Doug Woodward takes his information. And they all claim the giants and armor “disappeared,” with Childress suggesting a Smithsonian conspiracy. But there aren’t any giants or suits of armor to hide! None of these recycling authors went looking for normal-sized skeletons with typical Hopewell copper artifacts, which the original reports were very clear about.

And thus the modern myth of eight armor-clad giants, recently identified as Nephilim. You’re welcome.

35 Comments

Clint Knapp

11/14/2013 06:41:23 am

Highly-indoctrinated Christian theologian I am not, but I could've sworn the point of the tale of Eve and the serpent was that women were the sinful ones who corrupted men. Eve ate the fruit first, at the behest of the serpent, and then convinced Adam to do it too.

With that, admittedly textual, understanding one could even go further to point out that the Watchers of Enoch were smitten by the daughters of man and driven into their own sin by their desire to lay with them.

Both examples, therefore, would seem to indicate the same pattern we see throughout the Old Testament; wicked women convincing holy men into doing things God doesn't want them to do (Samson and Delilah, anyone?). Which itself is nothing new or surprising, it's reinforcement of the male-dominated Jewish belief system which the book was written for in the first place.

How, then, does the argument turn into sin being passed via Adam's Y chromosome? If this is the root of the entire DNA argument, shouldn't it at least superficially resemble something along the lines of what the scripture explicitly states?

Jason Colavito link

11/14/2013 07:02:11 am

Great question. As I understand it, they argue that when Eve gave Adam the fruit, God altered his testicles to produce sin-carrying sperm. But I may be making this sound more coherent than the idea really is. You're right that on the surface, it seems to completely reject the traditional idea of Original Sin and the Fall.

Alix

11/14/2013 08:08:30 am

It seems to me like they've fallen into a trap I've seen before - they're starting from an assumption about Jesus (that he was born without sin), taking that very literally, and working backwards from it. If he was born without sin, which somehow they see as genetic, then Mary couldn't pass sin onto him. So since they seem weirdly averse to miraculous/supernatural explanations (esp. given that Jesus' birth is itself miraculous/supernatural), sin must get passed on in some way that Mary didn't get it. And so of course they jump to the Y chromosome, not realizing how badly that screws up their own mythology.

I wonder how they'd react if someone pointed out to them that by their own logic, no woman can sin, and therefore none need saving.

Varika

11/14/2013 12:53:10 pm

Women get sin when men touch them without washing their dirty Y-chromosome sin-philous hands.

That's right, women get sin because men.

Bob

7/28/2015 02:37:26 pm

In Varika's mind: Sin = Cooties

Mandalore

11/14/2013 07:09:45 am

These sorts of wild Christian literal interpretations are absolutely ridiculous. If one wishes to believe that Moses wrote the Torah, fine. I disagree, but whatever. Jubilees and Enoch, though, are clearly much later in date and were rejected as non-canonical for a reason. Regardless, some groups, certainly not limited to Christians, take religious texts far beyond any reasonable limits which only serves to undermine their own preconceived notions.

By the way, their assertions concerning the nature of Jesus' divinity smacks of Monophysitism and Gnosticism, old heresies from the first few centuries of Christianity. They believed Jesus nature (physos) was wholly divine. Do they realize that those groups denied that Jesus died on the Cross? One can't physically die if one is wholly of a divine nature. This is also the story of Jesus' crucifixion in the Qur'an. Perhaps they should try to figure out the Nephilim's relationship to Jinn, seems like a natural connection to me.

Clint Knapp, Eve was not inherently sinful before eating the fruit. She was weak, as all women naturally are. Adam's first wife, Lilith, was too mouthy, which is why he ditched her and got a proper subservient wife in Eve. Sadly Eve screwed everything up for men, just like Pandora. Lilith became a demonness. Yay misogyny!

11/14/2013 08:10:30 am

You're right. I didn't mean to imply that Eve was sinful before she ate the fruit, only that the sin originated with her act of doing so and was subsequently passed on to Adam through her coercion. Which would seem to mean that if one really wanted to make the sin-DNA case it would be on the X chromosome passed through the mother and therefore wouldn't leave any confusion in the proponents of the theory as to how women, lacking a Y, would be sinful too... but hey, we're just bootstrapping this thing together anyway, so why not?

Cannot speak at all to the Lilith thing. My understanding is that it stems from a second retelling of the creation of Adam's partner and that the name Lilith is not mentioned in the Genesis account, but later teachings. Though I freely admit I could be entirely wrong on this.

Mike Heiser link

11/14/2013 07:27:28 am

Well, I *can* "understand "the nuances of the alternative claims of Bible-believing Christians" and do have the biblical studies credentials to render an opinion. This sin-DNA-nephilim connection described above by Ms. Learn and others is bunk. And the DNA-Jesus stuff in there is absurd. The ideas have no basis in any coherent sort of exegesis of the biblical text. Some of the other ideas are unfounded as well, but I don't want to digress here.

S Douglas Woodward link

11/14/2013 09:27:35 am

Mike, since you are quick to agree that the Nephilim Theory doesn't hold water, any comment on the Virgin Birth? Do you have an opinion on the nature of how it happened?

Jason, I did not ask you not to critique any future commentary. At least you could indicate that I was courteous and kept you informed about my counter-point to your rebut. Sorry you misunderstood.

11/14/2013 09:38:17 am

You were very courteous in the email and then less so in your posting. You told me that you felt any further critiques would be unproductive, and I agreed. I assumed you said that because you didn't want further critiques, and I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. I took it as your indication that it would not be useful to continue this. Therefore, I agreed and did not critique your rebuttal. Instead, I presented for my readers the points you felt I got wrong, and I then explained the interesting story of the "giants" you cited.

11/14/2013 11:23:49 am

One historical interpretation of the Virgin Birth is that it was a later creation by Christians who sought to understand the birth of their savior better. The canonical Gospels are generally dated by historians to between 60 and 100 (Mark, then Luke/Matthew, then John). There was little actual knowledge of the circumstance of Jesus' birth, but an important theological need to fulfill Jewish prophecy and give a divine birth. As such, Mark has no birth story, Matthew and Luke's stories are incompatible with one another, and John prefers a metaphysical (i.e. Greek) take on it. The birth stories fill a theological gap, which was further filled in by the Church Fathers (immaculate conception and so forth).

The desire to explain Jesus' life before His ministries is also reflected in the Gnostic gospels, composed in the 3rd and 4th centuries. In particular the Infancy Gospels, where early Christian writers tried to make sense of the nature of Jesus' divinity. Specifically how Jesus would have coped with His divine powers when a child. The stories they tell are hilarious and kind of disturbing. Jesus killing other kids and such. The Virgin Birth is likewise an attempt to elucidate something that there was no real knowledge of. Early Christians also argued whether Jesus was wholly divine, wholly human, or some mixture of the two.

That is a historical interpretation, which I will say does not negate someone's faith-based interpretation. However, the two interpretations do not generally work well together. It is problematic to try to force one to conform to the other.

Salverda link

11/14/2013 01:45:33 pm

Israel is the Virgin. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter 18 verses 15 through 18, God promises to Moses that He will raise up a special prophet who will be born to the nation of Israel like he was. Presumably this widely anticipated prophet was Jesus Christ, and we are plainly told that it was, in the New Testament book of Acts at chapter 3 verse 22, where these very verses from Deuteronomy are quoted. It was known very early in Hebrew history that, a savior would come from among the brothers of Moses, that is, from the nation of Israel. It could be said that Moses and Jesus shared a mother, the nation of Israel, and as it turns out, she was known as "the Virgin." Since the prophets have often referred to the nation of Israel as "the Virgin," (notably at Amos 5:2, but also a few times by Jeremiah), it is arguable that no miracle of parthenogenesis was ever intended in the prophecy of the Emanuel at Isaiah 7:14, who was also born to "the Virgin," (not, incidentally, "a" virgin). It is not unusual for a nation, a city, a church, or a population, to be figuratively symbolized as a female character. Even modern nations, (without, presumably, resorting to idolatry), have similar traditions. The U.S.A. has it's "Columbia," the U.K. has "Britannia," and Rome had it's "Roma," all feminine personifications that are symbolic of each their own national spirit. The nation of Israel was also referred to as a "woman," and the "maiden," and the "virgin," she was known as Zion (or Jerusalem) and called the "bride," or "wife," of God.
This convention was misunderstood my many, not only by the New Testament Christians, but also by others who influenced them, mainly the Greeks who learned of such "Messianic" prophecies from the land of "Phoenicia." It didn't help to have Scriptural stories like those of the "sons of god" coming down to impregnate the daughters of men in the days of old (testifying to the possibility that such things do occur). Also, there were obvious euhemerisms like the divine annunciations of Isaac and Samson. If she is "divinely" impregnated then her eventual birthing is still a virgin birth for no man has touched her (such as Danae, Alcmene, and Cyrene). The concept of the "virgin birth" must have been very ancient and widely known.

11/14/2013 05:18:41 pm

Since you're here to defend your own claims, Mr. Woodward, and to ask others their opinion on certain aspects of it, would you mind elucidating your stance regarding my earlier questions? How exactly did the sin come to be a Y-trait if it was first committed by one who did not have a Y chromosome?

Not that I particularly believe a DNA argument can be made regarding any of this, but I'm curious to know your process since it would seem to directly contradict the story presented and the reflections of that story found throughout the rest of the Old Testament.

Natalina

11/14/2013 01:09:22 pm

With respect Dr. Heiser, I wonder if you've read Diana's original blog post? She really doesn't take a stance in the affirmative of the sin-DNA-nephilim connection, as you call it. The entire point of her blog post is urging everyone to be more clear in the theories that they put forth, so that other researchers can have a better understanding of what they're saying... and it is kind of directed at everyone. She presents the DNA argument as a point where more clarity is needed by those who present that theory as plausible, and makes it quite clear that she hasn't hitched her theological wagon to any of these theories. In fact, she was quite generous to Mr. Colavito. I'm not really sure why she's even brought up here, given the fact that, as she states in her essay, "“Nephilim Theory”, however, is not the subject of this post."

I actually thought that clarity of presentation would be an idea you'd be on board with Dr. Heiser, so I'm a little surprised by the tone of your comment here.

11/14/2013 01:15:26 pm

To be fair, Natalina, Heiser just said Learn described it, not that she endorsed it. Woodward and Mazulli are the two who advocate the idea.

11/14/2013 01:19:29 pm

Fair enough Jason. That said, since hers was the only name mentioned in the comment, it merited clarification, which seems to be the word of the day, eh? :)

Diana Learn

11/14/2013 02:21:23 pm

I am just one of those crazy people that thinks words have meaning, to the point that I drive my husband crazy! But seriously, in order to have sane debate, shouldn't the positions of both sides be clearly and accurately stated? Wit and stinging, colorful language certainly has its place. Everyone loves a good read. But mis-characterization and skewed understanding just leads to a bunch of "I did not say that" banter and the actual ideas become secondary to a bunch of noise. Boring!

My personal opinion on many of the alternate theories remains - "I do not know" - but, I do like to think about the possibilities and the implications. There is room for intellectual debate on these issues. Yeah, I hold a Biblical Supernatural worldview - a philosophical system that I believe provides the only holistic and consistent system for answering the questions of origins, the cosmos and our place it - and I see many of the "alternative theories" as exciting and amazing possibilities that a loving, reasonable and knowable God left for us to discover.

I also appreciate the voice and perspective of the skeptic, because I come from that position myself. I spent most of my young adult life as a PROUD agnostic, readily engaging in religious debate with anyone who would engage.

Ultimately I believe that it the responsibility of the Christians to be unambiguous when putting forward THEORIES for discussion, and I further believe that it should be made very clear that anytime a theory runs COUNTER TO the Word of God, it must be abandoned. We have the freedom to use our intellects along with modern knowledge, science and technology to infer details onto our world. God gave us reason, curiosity and creativity for this very reason.

Thorne

11/15/2013 06:05:27 am

Diana Learn siad: "I further believe that it should be made very clear that anytime a theory runs COUNTER TO the Word of God, it must be abandoned. "
Isn't this in total contradiction to the way science is supposed to work? You don't abandon an hypothesis just because it disagrees with current theory, You test it, and test it again, and test it even more, until it either fails to describe reality or until it shows where the current theory does not describe reality. Einstein didn't discard his theory of relativity because it conflicted with Newton's theories. He showed how it supplemented those theories, under extreme conditions. Discarding a theory because it disagrees with preconceived notion is absolutely the wrong way to go!

Diana

11/16/2013 02:41:16 am

Thorne,

I made that statement in the context of Christian researches working in the "fringey" edges of theoretical speculation. Many of the ideas of modern Christian researchers come from an understanding of the Bible as a whole and using reason, they seek to apply knowledge that has been gained over the centuries to the framework of God's Manual for His Creation. Because they are, in fact, creating theories, it then becomes the Bible against which these theories must tested. The Bible is the postulate - the accepted Truth. When the theories contradict - the THEORIES are proven false, not the the Bible.

However, your question is also relevant to science in general, and a fair one. As Christians we believe the Word of God to be infallible as given in the original language, and the birth of modern science actually came from Christians who held as their postulates, that there was a Creator God who made the Universe and was outside his Creation and that he was personal and knowable and reasonable. It was from this baseline postulate that the major discoveries in science were made. The removal of God from the discipline of science did not happen until much later - around the time of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

I know that Christians look silly and "anti-science" when they dogmatically tout the universe is 6 thousand years old, was created in six 24-hour days and try to fit dinosaurs on the ark. These are the things that I rejected as a young person who grew up in the church. I rejected them fully. And guess what? I still do. Now, I concede that if God wanted to create the universe in six days, 6000 years ago, and make it look like it was billions of years old, He could. I simply do not hold that view.

Evolution does not throw me for a loop. I have no problem with an evolutionary element at work - or not. I think there is no way to deny adaptation and natural selection. However, I do believe that Adam was a New Creation. I believe that we were created in God's image meaning that we are creative, reasonable, curious, have spoken language, can appreciate beauty and can love. I further believe that he placed us here to discover His majesty. And that is exactly what science does. It uncovers un-imagineable complexity and diversity. It puts God's power and glory on display.

Holding a historic Christian worldview does not restrict me as human, it frees me. Modern science has not found the first cause - I believe God was the first cause. Modern science has not found the evolutionary "missing link" - I believe Adam was a new creation and no link exists. Modern science seeks to explain life from non-life, reason from non-reason - I believe we were made in God's image and He imparted those things to us.

11/16/2013 02:41:26 am

11/16/2013 06:13:55 am

Hold on now... The only reason modern science can still be said to have not found the "missing link" is due to the fact the "missing link" itself is an outmoded concept based on a static, pre-evolutionary world view built by deist concepts that every living thing is linked in a nice and orderly fashion. Asking modern science to find the "missing link" in human evolution is akin to asking them to point telescopes at the sky to find the physical embodiment of God as a man floating in space watching everyone. The concept itself is not science, it is belief to its very core.

We have discovered at least fifteen separate species of hominid just within our own genus 'Homo' which show varying degrees of separation between eachother, both in region and appearance, as well as evidence of interbreeding between species- even our own homo sapiens (Modern man) and homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals). Nevermind the earlier Australopethicus genus and its various members.

To ask science to find the "missing link" is to reject over 150 years of evolutionary science entirely to roll back to an earlier, faith-based concept of linear transmutation. It's not all that different from asking archaeologists to throw out logic, reason, and the records of the people who witnessed/built stone structures around the world and accept that aliens did it because one likes the story better.

11/17/2013 01:49:42 am

Diana,
You are making the assumption that the Bible is in fact the Word of God, without proof, and then using the Bible to prove that your God exists. Using that logic one could perform the same set of proofs for the existence of Harry Potter, or Bilbo Baggins. I can create innumerable theories about the existence of Hobbits and dragons and wizards, and test them against the words of The Lord of the Rings. That still does not do anything to show that The Lord of the Rings has anything to do with reality. Given the history of the creation of the Bible, and all of the contradictions within it, it's just not reasonable to declare it to be the infallible creation of a being for which there is no scientific evidence.

"The removal of God from the discipline of science did not happen until much later - around the time of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment."
Which is when real science started happening. Limiting everything to "God did it" held back those who were searching for reality. Having to restrict learning to those things which did not contradict the doctrines of the Church severely limited those early researchers. It was only after removing God from the equation that scientific progress really took off.

"Modern science has not found the first cause"
You assume that there had to BE a first cause.

"Modern science has not found the evolutionary 'missing link'"
Science has found dozens, maybe hundreds, of "missing links", and each time Creationists point to the gaps between those findings and say, "missing link!" Genetics has provided all of the links, from the first organisms drifting randomly in the ocean, right to humans, snakes, kangaroos and whales. There are no missing links. Only an unbroken chain of life.

"Modern science seeks to explain life from non-life, reason from non-reason"
And one day, when science CAN explain those things, the idea of God will take yet another step backwards. When science found the mechanism behind lightning, God was pushed back. When science found the causes of disease, God was pushed back. When science discovered the immense structure of the universe and our infinitesimal part in it, God was pushed back. While it is probable that we will never understand everything, the number of things we do understand is constantly growing. And each new thing we learn reduces the places for a god to hide.

William

11/14/2013 10:41:30 am

I think that one function of religion is to help people deal with unanswerable questions we all have about "being."

If someone believes the Bible is literal or infallible that's it. All the information is right there in book, nothing more nothing less. The unanswered questions are part of having faith.

I'm not a biblical scholar bug I am pretty sure DNA and chromosomes are not mentioned in any part of the Bible.

BTW that list of "corrections" is great, and the people who believe in the nonsense are probably sorry they engaged you. The corrections make the original intent seem even more silly.

Love it!

Gary

11/14/2013 01:16:49 pm

If Moses wrote the Torah, then he wrote that he was the most humble person who ever lived. I have a t-shirt that says "I pride myself on my humility". Moses would have loved it.

Paul Cargile

11/14/2013 11:39:00 pm

The idea of genetically encoded sin implies no one is responsible for their actions and questions the concept of free will.

Jim

11/15/2013 01:33:17 am

It also means that sin can be objectively tested for and located in our genome. After it is identified then we should be able to eliminate sin from our genome as well. This would mean that man could absolve himself from original sin. I'm by no means a biblical scholar, but this line of thought appears to lead to heresy.

This is the problem when people try to force matters of faith into science. Once you claim the supernatural has a natural component then it can be test for and falsified.

Jan

11/14/2013 11:50:34 pm

Many alternative history claims can be debunked easily when one knows something about archeology, or ancient/medieval weaponry and its evolution. Copper is a pretty horribly material for armour (with no real evidence for copper armour being ever used, even marginally) . The giants would've done much better if they just wore padded clothing, or leather stuffed with rags or dry grass.

Dave Lewis

11/15/2013 01:56:52 pm

I read Doug Woodward's rebuttal. He'd a nasty little person. He is an embarrassment to all Christians.

I'm gonna vent a little here about one of my pet peeves.... the use of term "researcher". People who wouldn't know research if it bit them on the @$$ claim to be researchers. In my opinion "researcher" has come to mean someone who has a pet theory and writes a book and goes on the conspiracy/paranormal circuit trying to sell it to suckers. Jason Colavito is a real researcher. Mike Heiser is a real researcher in addition to being a respected scholar. L.A. Marzulli, Jim Marrs et al are B$ artists.

Dave Lewis

Peyton

7/26/2018 03:07:01 pm

Believe me, you aren't the only one annoyed by that.

I'm a Christian that has a great love for Science, I see no reason why they can't coexist. My religion is personal, and while I might be applying the Bible to my life personally, I don't take those views and say that Science has to admit to God in order to be factual, or be based on a worldview that accepts God (though I believe that Science is a way to discover God's majesty through His creation).

The claims that the Bible makes regarding pre-recorded history (the flood account, which has several versions in what are known as Flood Myths), could be tested empirically by modeling the environments claimed (such as the Earth having a barrier of water or ice around it as the uppermost part of the atmosphere "waters above the firmaments" and water being under the crust "waters under the earth" [in a casual internet search, my first results were not actually Biblical, but recent discovery claims]) and testing how those models would modify or explain certain aspects of reality.

To explain further, I think that claims the Bible makes can be explored in a wholly Scientific way that doesn't presuppose any conclusions, but only draws on raw data to test a claim, much like how a scientific hypothesis works.

Shane Sullivan

11/15/2013 03:26:48 pm

I don't even want to imagine how they're going to react to the new Russell Crowe film adaptation of the story of Noah's Ark.

Mars

5/19/2014 05:02:47 pm

According the Geneis Adam and Eve were not given the blessing to be fruitful and multiply as all lifeforms were given prior to their creatiom. Prime reason? Eve was created with genetic material taken from Adam and that immediately makes them blood related. The forbidden fruit was a metaphor for sex and understanding their sexual nature as soon as their eyes were opened "and were "ashamed" in their nakedness. Eve was cursed in her childbirth because she was pregnant at the time of their banishment from Eden after they had 'sinful' incest. The women tempts the man with fruit... he plants a seed. Anyway yeah... detractors please? The first few books of the bible are all about genetics, incest, evolution, science...

5/19/2014 05:04:40 pm

GENE sIS GENETIcS.

Debbie Jones

12/10/2014 06:18:45 am

What road was the 8 skeletons located? I have lived at the corner of primrose and stanton road in north liberty Indiana for 25 years. Also were there any pictures taken?
Thank you

K. Workman

3/11/2016 10:01:52 pm

People listen, the bible is a collection of stories which have been altered by many. Why do we Have so many branches of Christianity? People believe what they want to believe and will fight to the death for it. Just a the Pope had Protestants murdered by the French government in the thousands just because he thought they were not true Christians.

A lot of the Bible can be duplicated in the Sumerian Tablets.

Why did the Jews have to take Jesus down from the cross before sunset ? He was only on the cross a few hours. And some of the Roman army was sympathetic to Jesus. The Roman guard who said he pierced Jesus's side with a spear and saw the water flow out tell the truth ? We will never know ? Did Mary Magdalene and Jesus have a daughter named Sara ? Did Jesus escape to France with Mary and create a royal bloodline? Was he then to return to his homeland ? Was that his return Christians talked about. ?
All Great cultures talk of a flood. India, China Japan, American Indians, Muslims, Christians, Aztecs,

Religion serves many purposes. The biggest is to control the behavior of humans in the interest of a few. Why didn't the Pope give refuge to the Jews during WWII ? Why do all great religions look to the sky for their supreme gods ? How did the earth get round ? It was flat about 500years ago. Galileo was under house arrest for asking to meet with the Pope about a sun centered universe of that time.

There are things people want to know and then there are things that people don't want to know about because it upset the balance of the people at the top. Religious Leaders, Presidents, Kings, Governments and so on. They hold power over people and they want to keep it that way. Change in knowledge is good if we use it right. Remember cigarettes. They were good for you and the companies said so. Well were they right ?
How do you feel about change in thinking and behavior in mankind.
KW