72
Quite simply, no. The claim in the video series you linked is patently ridiculous.1
What is being claimed?
The argument presented in your videos is based entirely on the following passage in the Old Testament book of Song of Solomon.
Song of Solomon 5:16 (ASV)2
16 His mouth is most sweet; Yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and ...
52
TL;DR : No, even if one chooses to interpret the excerpt of the Qur'an as such, the maths don't hold up
I am going to base this answer on your second source, as the calculation there is reduced to the minimum which makes it a lot easier to show its flaws. This is an answer on the mathematical aspect of the problem, not covering the interpretation of the ...
50
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 compare. And there are indeed texts which contain only few significant deviations, for example Isaiah.
Although even they do contain some differences, such as ...
44
Modern Western culture sees rape as a crime in which the woman is the victim. But many cultures, including the ancient Hebrew culture that produced Deuteronomy 22:28-29, view rape as an insult against the woman's family and her father in particular. So when we read the passage we focus on:
If a man comes upon a virgin who is not engaged and he seizes ...
42
Firstly, I want to point out that the original passage being debated is actually in Matthew and not in Luke as your second link suggests.
Their argument is around the translation of the Hebrew word alma. They are taking issue with the fact that when the New Testament was written the Greek word for "virgin" was chosen.
It doesn't say elsewhere in Matthew ...
40
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 debunked thoroughly by professional archaeologists and respected biblical scholars. Most professional archaeologists have found so many discrepancies in Wyatt's ...
36
The Quran has some specific things to say about women, and how they are to be treated. These particular suras are the ones that may have some bearing on that particular belief (all emphasis mine):
4:34 Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). ...
31
There are two parts to this question:
Does the Book of Job refer to a spherical Earth?
If so, did it beat the other contenders to be the first to have the idea?
Part 1
I don't propose to properly answer Part 1. This is a question for Hermeneutics.SE, not Skeptics.SE.
I will note the obvious: the modern English translation provided is clearly not evidence ...
31
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 wedding.
If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies
with her, and they are caught in the act, 29 the man who lay with her
shall give ...
29
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 deal about trading girls and money. This is called dowry (1) and it is well evidenced in the bible, for example:
Genesis 34:12:
"Ask me ever so much ...
29
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 Alexandrinus.
The oldest complete version in Hebrew was the Aleppo Codex. During the pogrom in 1947 the Aleppo Codex was lost and feared destroyed. The book ...
27
At best, the answer to this question will be an apples and oranges comparison. Comparing the distribution of a static book to that of a constantly fluctuating periodical is unlikely to produce anything very meaningful. However it is amusing and I like both apples and oranges. So what can we do?
Start with the easy apples
The IKEA side of things is ...
27
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 servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.” (Exodus 20:17, ESV)
Modern translations usually only render the Hebrew word here as ...
25
No; during the life of Muhammad, there was no single text, as it was more about understanding the message than how it was told:
This page cites hadiths that mention seven different ways of teaching:
The Seven Ahruf (modes of recitation) are part of Islamic doctrine and
a Muslim MUST ACCEPT IT...
Saheeh Bukhari
Volume 6, Book 61, Number 513: ...
23
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 grains of dust from 0.4mm to 0.2mm in size. This document (PDF) actually gives a pretty full accounting of Orchid seeds.
23
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 account is supported by recent archaeological discoveries that could not have been known at the time when the Old Testament was compiled:
There is rich ...
23
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 hours, and 793/1080 of an hour.)
However, lunar cycles can be calculated pretty accurately even in ancient times by counting between total solar eclipses. ...
21
I have been unable to find any corroborating source concerning the planks glued together (even the Wyatt Museum website says nothing of this); at this time it appears to have originated with this article. I have sent an email requesting references, and will provide an update later.
What I do know:
The Witnesses
Dr. Brandenburger
Ohio State University's ...
20
The paper that sparked the news story states in its conclusion:
Considering the historical documents attesting the occurrence in the “Old Jerusalem” of a disastrous earthquake in 33 A.D., the authors assume that a seismic event with magnitude ranging from the 8th to the 9th degree in the Richter scale could have produced a thermal neutron flux of up to ...
20
Criteria
Since it's virtually impossible to count the number of people who have read any published book, the claim must be analysed on purely statistical/circumstantial evidence. I propose to show whether the Bible is the most widely available book in terms of translations and copies. Then I will examine whether a copy of the Bible is more or less likely ...
20
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 birth of Cain.
As for the reasoning for the claim, see for example this article by Howard Schwartz:
This myth is a response to the enigmatic verse in which Eve ...
19
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 Criticism, and has had an enourmous development, especially during the last two centuries. You can check the current consensus of the scholars in the majority of ...
18
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 equipped with blades [...]
Meanwhile, begonia seeds, as an example, are much smaller:
Species description Begonia fangii [...] Seeds many, brown, ellipsoid, 0.5-...
17
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 dissimulation,[1] or a legal dispensation whereby a believing individual can deny his faith or commit otherwise illegal or blasphemous acts while they are in fear ...
17
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". As noted in the Wikipedia article on Dragon's Blood:
The dragon's blood known to the ancient Romans was mostly collected
from D. cinnabari, and is ...
16
The history of crucifixion mentions several forms of crosses being used (the pole, T-shaped cross, and X-shaped cross), and mentions that the pole shape is associated with Jehovah's Witnesses who seem to believe that's what was used to execute Christ. This mimics part of the information at crucifixion which goes more into the social aspects of the punishment....
16
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 cause them to appear as if they don't mix for a period of time, especially if there aren't strong currents.
According to Ken Bruland, a professor of ocean ...
15
From the cited passage of Deuteronomy
28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married
and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father
fifty shekels[c] of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has
violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.
However this may be a problem with translation
...
13
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 historical facts. It is based on unfavorable and unproven assumptions about the culture to which it belonged, prejudices if you will. For this reason it is ...
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