Thursday 1 January 2015

Jim Franks Proves the Bible

"Jim who?" you ask. Jim Franks. Jim is a leading punkawallah in the Church of God, a Worldwide Association.

"Church of what?" you ask.

Oh never mind. The important thing is that this church publishes a magazine called Discern, and in the latest issue Jim begins the first in a series of five proofs that the Bible is true. A sort of latter-day apologetic Pentateuch for the incurious fundamentalist.

I'm not exactly sure what Jim means by 'true', but I suspect he has a fairly rigid definition in mind; literal, propositional stuff. I'm not sure what he means by 'proof' either. I well remember a booklet called The Proof of the Bible where the author (some guy called Armstrong I believe) botched his prophecy argument completely and, according to one wag, actually ended up "disproving" the good book.

Jim's five areas of proof are, "archaeology, the Dead Sea Scrolls, secular history, fulfilled prophecy and the consistency of statements found within the Bible."

This could be fun. Jim launches out into archaeology. This is a brave move as, as far as I know, Jim isn't an archaeologist, even an amateur one. In fact I'd bet good money - if I was a betting type - that he's read absolutely nothing by anyone currently "in the field", if you'll pardon the pun. Indeed I suspect he's never so much as taken a university class in the subject either (apart maybe from an unaccredited and now closed college based in Pasadena?) But isn't it wonderful what you can find using Google these days!
"If archaeology can confirm the existence of major characters and verify major events as recorded in the Bible, then we have an objective proof of authenticity. There are archaeologists who reject the Bible and make the claim that many accounts recorded in Scripture never happened. These individuals are called minimalists and their position is that the biblical story must be read as fiction unless it can be confirmed by archaeology. Another group is referred to as maximalists and their position is just the opposite—the biblical story is more or less correct unless archaeologists prove that it is not."
I hope we all learned something there. Jim now grabs us by the hand and takes us on a jolly romp through Hezekiah's tunnel. Then...
"One of the greatest Jewish archaeologists of the 20th century was Nelson Glueck (1900-1971), who even appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1963. He wrote the following about the authenticity of Scripture when compared to archaeology: “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries” (Rivers in the Desert, 1960, p.31). 
1960? The other not-so contemporary source Jim cites is from a 1981 US News and World Report article. Well, there ya go! Jim's really done his homework, huh? So I hope you're all now fully convinced of, of, of whatever Jim wants us to be convinced of.
"The story of Hezekiah’s tunnel and second wall, the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem and the death of King Sennacherib are only a few of the scores of biblical accounts that have been confirmed by archaeology. While there are archaeologists who reject the Bible as authentic, the record of archaeology, taken as a whole, supports the biblical text."
So there! Proof positive! Can't wait for part 2.

3 comments:

  1. I have romped through "Hezekiah's Tunnel". It is not really jolly, nor is it allowed anymore....

    ReplyDelete
  2. I read HWA's "Seven Proofs of the Bible", back in the 70's. None of them were really proofs: as a mathematics major at Rutgers University I knew that. But my will to believe was stronger than my rationality. So I believed and continued on a journey into WCG. I was looking for answers and HWA, who was an extremely convincing speaker, provided them. Some of his answers "rang true" to me. Some didn't sound quite right, but I figured I would understand those once I grew in grace and knowledge and received more of the Holy Spirit. And the rest, as they say, was history.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, how quickly we forget.

    Let's just take a romp back to the old DNArefutesBI website archive and note the badarcheology.com website and what it has to say about The Lost Tribes of Israel, shall we? These are REAL archeologists and in one fell swoop debunk British Israelism, not that The Foundation of Sand by Silenced and DNArefutesBI.com doesn't do the job. So what we have here is Jim Franks from the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia (CoHAM) Church of God Worldwide Association sect which has its core religion based on the outrageous rubbish of British Israelism which has been thoroughly debunked, claiming that Archeology proves the Bible. It's guaranteed a giant major failure from the get-go, since there can be not one shred of credibility for the incompetence of the entire Armstrongist group. If that's not enough for you, then check the failed prophecies of Herbert Armstrong: Dozens, if not hundreds, making him and his hirelings nothing more than false prophets (which, in Old Testament parlance are to be put to death). We have maybe a dozen websites and blogs against this sort of thing with mainstream Christians, agnostics, atheists and even the Church of God Seventh Day debunking Armstrongism. Yet they act as if they are in a universe of their own, safely tucked away from science, history, archeology and fact.

    You know what? What they all have to look forward to in 2015 is stagnation.

    Happy New Year.

    ReplyDelete