Abbadon,
I'm also having a laugh at people who will accept the bits of the Bible they know are false as allegory/etc. (rather than Bronze-age understandings of the world), but are equally happy to accept things that cannot be proved false due by assumption true; as I have pointed out, a god allowing a book with such an important message to be full of so much rubbish compromises the believability of the rest, which is illogical.
Your assumptions of it being illogical and rubbish, maybe due to not understanding the purpose of Scripture??? It's purpose is not to provide proof of God's existence, by relating scientific knowledge, that is far advanced of the concepts of the people to whom the word was originally spoken.
The first five books of the Bible, form the written contract, between the Isrealites and Yahweh. While Abraham worshipped the Lord, that cannot be said of the Israelites in general, they were for the most part polytheist(pre-national). The book of Genesis establishes status. Yahweh is portrayed in the poetical genera, as the creator of all things, and alone to be worshiped. The first three chapters of Genesis help establish clearly in the mind and concepts of the Idol worshiping Israelites, the status of Yahweh as creator, and everything else as creation. Since the Israelites as well is all the nations around them worshiped many parts of the creation as different god's,, in order to enter into the Law Covenant, or contract, they had to understand, as Moses stated "Yahweh is one" that he was the only true God, and everything else demoted to the status of creation. This was no small task, since polytheism was everywhere during that time the Law covenant was given to the Israelites. The poetic narrative of the first three chapters of Genesis, which describe God in anthropomorphic terms, are clearly poetic in nature, not meant to relating scientific knowledge, the purpose first three chapters of Genesis is not to give accurate history of the developments of creation, most assuredly it is not written with scientific language, that is common to our 20th-century, but in poetic metaphor, commonly used, during that time the Law was given to Israel.
To expect the Bible to answer scientific questions about creation, is inappropriate, and leads many fundamentalists, holding to a position that is untenable, and in my opinion, shows a lack of real understanding as to the purpose of Scripture. This of course in no way endangers their salvation.
the Bible in general is just what you'd expect; a flawed historical account of a people with added made-up bits.
The Bible does contain a prehistory of the nation of Israel, that is not altogether accurate according to our 20th-century way of explaining history. But the fact that there is such a thing as Biblical archaeology, where the Bible is used as a guideposts, in its discription of some of the history of the near East, should atleast taken into account, in forming one's opinon of the biblical account. Biblical archaeologist, according to my studies seem to feel that the history in Genesis starting from Abraham at the 12th chapter to be very accurate, that is according to archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia and the near East. Whereas chapters one to 11 seem to be covering great lengths of time, with less accuracy for details.This of course is common in ancient literature. There seems to be no consensus however as to how the information was obtained or compliled in forming the book of Genesis, espesially the early chapters, but the fundamentalists on the other hand seems to have it all nailed down(joke), and is very sure that it was compiled by Moses under strict control of God's spirit which would not allow for even the slightest error. These of course are speculations, and must be viewed as such. Perhaps archaeologist as they continue to be granted permission to dig into sites that are currently off-limits to them, perhaps then more information will become clear. I must say that many archaeologists have a deep respect for the Bible and its accounting of events. Although I wouldn't value the opinion too greatly a fundamentalist archaeologist because he has a peculiar way of interpreting information that has to be along the partyline. Where as others not so black and white in their veiws seem to be much more reputable.
