According to 1 Samuel 17:7 it was Goliath of Gath whose "spear was like a weaver's beam". He was killed by David
In 2 Samuel 21:19 "Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" (KJV, the NIV does not say his brother, it says Goliath - damn why did I pick the KJV? )
And in 1 Chron 20:5 "Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam"
Nope, in Matthew 27:5 "he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself"
But in Acts 1:18 "purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out"
My point is this, purely in the discussion of the Bible as a historical record, any source which contradicts itself (and these are not the only examples by any means) cannot be considered a reliable one. Full stop. If it were any other book and I said "hey look at this great historical source", people would say "But it contradicts itself, how can it be reliable, and which part do we believe, if any?" - and quite rightly so.
This does not mean for a minute that God does not exist or that Moses didn't lead the Israelites from Egypt or that Christ wasn't born in Bethlehem or anything like that. It does mean that the Bible is not a reliable historical source. From an historical point of view, if some parts of it are known to be wrong, and by its own evidence some parts of the Bible must be wrong, then the only parts which can be trusted as historical record are those parts which can be verified from another source (much like you're trying to do with the creation evidence). If we must look to other evidence to prove the Bible then it isn't in itself a reliable historical source.
Well then it comes down actually to a matter of which translation one goes to and with any historical debate we all know that the original texts NOT the translations are always the best to go by... unfortunately we don't have those at hand for you and I to look at, but as stated before, just the translation of thou shall not kill has taken on a WHOLE new meaning and throws the entire Old Testament into contridiction... but when going to the original Hebrew text the contridictions disappear... there is another instance in KJV, off hand I don't know exactly what it was referring to but the KJ translators chose to omit it... and boy, once again the verse takes on a entire new meaning, not at all what the original text is talking about... kind of like saying Bart Roberts was a homosexual purely because one of his men was referred to as Miss Nancy... ??? how does one draw that conclusion based on just that statement alone??
KJV is tough, you can read alot into it when you study the mindset of the translators... the whole issue of Eve and women's roles, comes into question regarding later translations as compared to what modern day Hebrew scholars are now learning using original texts... archeologists are still studying old testament sights and learning new things every day... again with Judas, one would love to read it all in the original to see exactly what happened... again, unfortunately a lot gets lost in the translation...
As to the last words of Christ depends on what you consider his last time on earth, his death at the cross or when he appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus (sp) or when he spoke in a vision to John in Rev.... but that would be a matter of faith not history really....so that would not be allowed in this particular debate...
And looking at Noah, it too becomes a matter of faith to argue about the ark... just because we can't make it work now, doesn't mean it didn't work then... either way we can't truly prove it either way because we don't have the evidence to back it up... as far as historical events in the bible and persons, there is evidence to prove as you stated earlier that some is very accurate and others is questionable, and could possible be proven or disproven with time... as historians we both pretty much have learned never to say never... just go by what evidence we can actually bring forth...
I know you aren't saying God doesn't exist, and that you aren't saying God does exist either, that was never the jist of our debate...others should take note.... when debating issues of faith, I personally believe that should be done in a face to face discussion... not through hard to interpret notes... but that is neither here nor there... we've always been able to debate things betwix each other and I've always enjoyed it immensly...
so basically I think we have managed to show that when it comes to historical accuracy of the Bible, things get lost in the translation and original texts that can be studied are really the best way to go... but?!?! we already agree on that!!!
as to the translation of Yom again, it boils down to the statement that God spoke the worlds into existance..but how does one measure that???
