Psalm 104 is almost a duplicate of the Egyptian Hymn to Aten

On the wall of a 14th century BCE tomb in Egypt archaeologists found a beautiful hymn to the god Aten. What is really strange is that the Pharaoh Akhenaten (1352-1336) who lived in an era when everyone believed in many gods, chose to believe in only one, Aten. In fact, many scholars have argued that Pharaoh Akhenaten is the earliest documented example of a monotheist in history, though others argue that he was a henotheist (thought many gods existed, but chose to worship only one.)

What’s really curious about the Great Hymn to the Aten is that it closely mirrors Psalm 104 in the Hebrew Bible as a song of praise to the creator, though written hundreds of years before. Biblical scholars and historians disagree as to whether these two hymns are actually related by way of influencing one another, or whether both were independently written. In any case, the similarities are fascinating.

 

Language changed over 1,000 years so as to make it incomprehensible for modern readers

Language changes. Alot. And this often makes it difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to understand the original meaning of certain phrases or words by an ancient author.

This Bible verse shows the evolution of English over one thousand years. Now imagine having to deal with Hebrew and Greek over a few thousand years. To this day there are passages in the Bible where no scholars are sure what the original text says or means.

This is even worse for cases of ‘hapax legomenon‘ or words that only occur once in the Bible, in a fluid language that is constantly evolving.

 

Ancient Christian writings say traveling preachers who ask for money are false prophets

It’s very common for contemporary Christian preachers to travel around and ask for money. Yet such a practice was literally considered the sign of a “false prophet” by the early church.

The Didache says: “Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord… and when the apostle goes away, let him take nothing but bread until he lodges. If he asks for money, he is a false prophet”

(The Didache is an early Christian text from the 2nd century that was frequently quoted by the early church fathers. It was once considered by many to be a canonical book of the New Testament, for example the 4th century Church historian Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica III, mentions this book as being part of an early canon, alongside The Revelation of John. As the canon grew and developed, the didache was later excluded from most “bibles” although the Ethiopian Coptic Church still accepts this book as part of their Bible.)

Chrsitianity destroyed some of the worlds greatest literary works

Did you know many important works of ancient history and science were lost because monks bleached the pages of these important documents in order to write biblical and liturgical texts on the paper?

In the 3rd century BC, a Greek philosopher, Archimedes, discovered some of the principles of integral calculus, however, as the Roman Empire underwent Christianization, many pagan works were burned and lost (except Plato, who was beloved by the early Christians). The only remaining copy of this work by Archimedes was later bleached by monks and prayers were written on the same paper. (1)

About 2,000 years after Archimedes, integral calculus was again developed, largely by Newton and Leibnitz. Then, in 1998 scholars used modern imaging techniques (ultraviolet, infrared, X-ray, etc) to find/read the calculus, hidden underneath the prayers. This document is called the Archimedes Palimpsest.

Why do older denominations accept evolution while the modern groups reject it?

Why do Mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians (the oldest Christian groups) accept evolution while the new groups (Evangelicals, Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses) reject it?

Creationists cannot agree how to classify transitional fossils

Are there really no transitional fossils that show the evolution of one species to another? Or is that just something creationist say?

Consider this chart of six hominid skulls that are often cited as intermediary fossils, from an early ape ancestor, to a modern human. Creationists are *very sure* (for reasons unknown) that these fossils simply cannot “fill the gap.” They argue these fossils *simply must* be either humans or ape, they simply cannot be something in between.

 

Yes, these fossils appear so much in the middle of an ape/human transition, that all of the leading creationists books disagree with one another, and some creationists keep changing their minds, on which fossil is human and which is ape.

If the leading creationists have trouble telling which fossil is human and which is ape, is this not evidence that these fossils are exactly in the middle?

Joseph Smith who started Mormonism was tried for scamming people with magic seer stones

Mormonism is the fastest growing religion in US history, and is growing faster than evangelical Christianity, yet most evangelicals will easily consider Mormons deceived. Perhaps that speaks for human gullibility?

IQ scores are steadily rising – the Flynn effect

Since the inception of the IQ test, scores have been steadily rising. This is called the Flynn effect. The prevailing theory is that this occurs because we live in a more symbol-rich environment that promotes abstract thinking more than ever before (we read, interact with software, websites, stories, video games, etc).

According to award winning cognitive scientist Stephen Pinker: “if we take the Flynn Effect at face value, a typical person today is smarter than 98 percent of the people in the good old days of 1910. To state it in an even more jarring way, a typical person of 1910, if time-transported forward to the present, would have a mean IQ of 70, which is at the border of mental retardation.” (See more on Stephen Pinker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker)

While the average person today is below the intelligence of giants like Einstein, the average person today is likely to be significantly more intelligent than their great-grandparents a hundred years ago.

But don’t celebrate yet, if you can’t spell and use grammar, you are probably not included.

Contrary to most eschatalogical beliefs, the world is getting better

Contrary to popular religious beliefs that “the world is getting worse” the opposite seems to be true. We are living in the least violent period in human history:

For example, during the invasion of Asia/Europe by Genghis Khan in the 13th century, there were an estimated 40 million violent deaths out of a total of 400 million, that is 10% or ten out of every hundred people were killed.

During WW2, often assumed to be the most violent event in the history of the world, there were an estimated 66 million violent deaths out of a total population of 2.3 billion. That is 2.5%, in other words two or three out of every hundred people were killed.

And since WW2 things have been getting even better. See prof Stephen Pinkers fascinating talk on the decline of violence:

Why has the Rapture or Second Coming not happened yet?

Why has the Rapture or Second Coming not happened ? Why has every generation of people preached/prophecized “it’s very soon, in my lifetime” and yet died, unfulfilled?

Exhibit A: The New Testament says it will happen “very soon,” so soon that the early church literally expected it in their lifetimes. (There are numerous epistles dealing with these failed expectations of the early Christians).

Exhibit B: Every generation has promised the end would come in its time. Tertullian (who first coined “Trinity”) taught it would happen in his lifetime. Martin Luther promised it would happen in his. John Wesley promised it in his. The early Pentecostal movement of 1920’s promised it would happen in their lifetime. All these, and thousands more are dead, and no rapture.

Exhibit C: I have seen recordings and heard of ecstatic prophecies by people ranging from Branham, Hagin, Hinn or Robertson, to small town Slavic pentecostal prophets, who uttered that the timing would be “very soon.” Most of these have died, and still nothing.

Exhibit D: I once sat across while a few of the most important Slavic pentecostal pastors/leaders spoke about the end times, they said their Pentecostal alliance (Reinhard Bonke was mentioned) have head many prophecies and now say only three years are left, this is the final three year push before the end. This was almost five years ago.