50
votes
Accepted
Are there textual deviations between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Old Testament?
Is it true that there are no textual deviations between the dead sea scrolls and the old testament?
No. Most people claiming that there are no differences seem to cherry-pick the texts that they ...
tim♦
- 50.6k
40
votes
Has a "chariot army" been found at the bottom of the Red Sea?
Ron Wyatt (1933-1999) was a nurse-anesthetist in a hospital in Madison, Tennessee. His claim of finding 'Wheels from Egyptian Chariots involved in the pursuit of the Israelites from Egypt' has been ...
- 22.6k
36
votes
Accepted
Did a Jewish rabbi precisely calculate the duration of the full moon cycle 1800 years ago?
Maimonidies (12th Century) puts it at 29.530594. His source is the Talmud (Bavli RH 25a) (~7th century quoting a rabbi from the 2nd century).
(For the curious the precise number given is 29 days, 12 ...
- 483
35
votes
Accepted
Are rape victims forced to marry their rapist, according to the Old Testament?
Yes. According to Deuteronomy, if a man rapes or otherwise have sex with a woman who is not married or engaged, he is forced to "set things right" by marrying the woman. Think of it as a shotgun ...
- 1,002
30
votes
Accepted
Was marriage defined as "selling your daughter for three goats and a cow" in the Bible?
In the past, if a male wanted to marry a female, he'd transfer property, animals or goods to her father. The idea is of giving something valuable in return of a marriage; marriage was just a business ...
- 29.8k
29
votes
Are there textual deviations between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Old Testament?
It's wrong to say there is literally no difference.
The oldest relatively complete copies of the Old Testament are in Greek, so there is no direct comparison. These are the Codex Vaticanus and Codex ...
- 99.2k
27
votes
Did "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" originally refer not to sex but to housework?
Context suggests that that commandment is more related to wealth than sex:
“You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female ...
23
votes
Is the mustard seed the smallest of seeds?
To repeat Oddthinking's answer, that is a simple NO. The mustard seed is far from the smallest. That distinction belongs to the Orchid. With over 26,000 species, many having seeds no larger than ...
- 44.9k
21
votes
Accepted
Do certain religious traditions believe that Eve had sex with the Serpent?
Eve having Sex with the serpent
This is also called the serpent seed theory.
The idea is that the arch angel Samael was the serpent and used that form to have sex with Eve, which then resulted in the ...
tim♦
- 50.6k
19
votes
Did the Hebrew exodus from Egypt ever happen?
In his essay, Was There an Exodus?, Joshua Berman states that the book of Exodus was written by someone intimately familiar with the structure of early Egyptian dynastic life; and that the Biblical ...
- 40.3k
19
votes
Is the New Testament significantly corrupted from its originally intended form?
Do we know the words used by the original authors of the New
Testament?
The answer is a qualified yes.
As tniles09 comments, the (scientific) discipline that studies this is called Textual ...
- 975
18
votes
Is the mustard seed the smallest of seeds?
No.
Several sources put mustard seeds as between 1 and 2 or 3 mm in diameter.
For example:
During the hulling of white mustard seeds and rapeseeds,
1.4 mm to 2.8 mm in diameter, on a disk ...
- 133k
18
votes
Are Muslims allowed to deceive non-Muslims through a practice called Taqiyya?
Are Muslims allowed to deceive non-muslims through a practice called Taqiyya?
Wikipedia says,
In Islam, taqiyya تقية (alternative spellings taqiyeh, taqiya, taqiyah, tuqyah) is a form of religious ...
- 26.3k
18
votes
Did a Jewish rabbi precisely calculate the duration of the full moon cycle 1800 years ago?
The measurement of the mean lunar month as 29 days, 12 hours, and 793/1080 of an hour is (in this notation) first found in Treatise on the Computation of the Chronology of the Jews and their Festivals ...
- 945
17
votes
Have there been documented cases of "blood pumping from the trunks of trees"?
The Dracaena cinnabari (Socotra dragon tree or dragon blood tree) is well known for having a distinct red sap or resin and there are a number of other plants that also exhibit similar "Dragons's Blood"...
- 16.8k
16
votes
Is there a place in the world where two oceans meet and they don't mix?
To answer your question, "Is there a place in the world where two oceans meet and they don't mix?" No, the water mixes it just isn't instantaneous. Saline, temperature differences, and pollutants can ...
- 1,278
15
votes
Did the Hebrew exodus from Egypt ever happen?
The overwhelming consensus of scholars, based on sound evidence, is that the Exodus from Egypt never happened as described in the Bible.
Wikipedia describes the Exodus as the founding myth of Israel,...
- 647
15
votes
Accepted
Does the bible explicitly forbide homosexuality?
Yes, the Bible explicitly and clearly forbids homosexuality, in the Old and New Testament. Those are the passages:
Leviticus 20:13:
If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a ...
- 29.8k
14
votes
Has anyone ever memorized the entire bible?
There were many reports claiming that people have memorized the entire bible. For example:
15 years ago, Baptist Press released an article reported that Nadine Hammonds, a blind woman, has memorized ...
- 29.8k
13
votes
Are rape victims forced to marry their rapist, according to the Old Testament?
NOTE: This answer has been heavily rewritten. As requested it now discusses the opinions of Bible scholars on the subject.
The interpretation of the law in the infographic is not based on known ...
- 668
12
votes
Does the Torah-encoded age of the universe match science?
I like the other answers, but I like the question so I wanted to give a more complete and thorough answer. I'd have to say, though I much prefer religious folk contorting their holy books to match ...
- 2,005
8
votes
Accepted
Did the ten plagues take place in Ancient Egypt?
I'll take a crack at an answer based on Matthew's sources (Ipuwer papyrus. This is a "best effort" answer, since we don't really have anything definitive, and can't prove a negative. ...
6
votes
Did William Shakespeare help make the KJV bible?
It's not true, simply because the numbers are off. We can count the words ourselves. Psalm 46, KJV (1611):
1 [To1 the2 chiefe3 Musician4 for5 the6 sonnes7 of8 Korah9, a10 song11 vpon12 Alamoth13.] ...
- 15.4k
6
votes
Is the mustard seed the smallest of seeds?
No, but one should not expect a literal interpretation of of parable.
It is a good idea to use an interlinerar bible when reading translated works. A concordance or other search tool that allows you ...
- 8,925
6
votes
Accepted
Is sex only mentioned in one of the 200 tantric scriptures?
I can see why this question is not answered yet, because a prospective answerer must first determine: how many tantras actually exist? And surprisingly, this is not easily answerable: try to find a ...
- 40.3k
6
votes
Accepted
Was the Pentateuch dated back to the second millenium B.C.E?
The source you quote makes the case for authorship in the Mosaic era (or even by Moses himself, as is the tradition), based on internal textual evidence and where there is an apparent lack of motive ...
- 40.3k
6
votes
Accepted
Did Winston Churchill say the King James Bible had been translated into more than 760 languages?
It appears he said it in A History of the English - Speaking Peoples, Vol. 2 The New World.
A short paper authored by Calvin George in 2009 quotes the book directly
If the adventurers took ...
- 21.8k
5
votes
Did the Hebrew exodus from Egypt ever happen?
The Exodus
The Exodus is considered a myth by most non biblical historians.
Wikipedia defines the Exodus as:
The Exodus (Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, Yeẓi’at Miẓrayim: lit. 'Departure from Egypt') is the ...
- 2,514
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible