Friday, May 4, 2012

Big Old Skeleton: "Proof" of the Bible?


A friend from St. Stephen’s wondered what I thought of a web report regarding the supposed discovery, in Greece, of an oversized human skeleton that was being acclaimed as “proof” of passages in the Old Testament which refer to “people of great size” called nephalim. In Genesis these people are said to be the offspring of unions between the “sons of God” and fairest among the “daughters of humans.” (Genesis 4:1-6).

Interesting… first I had heard of it. Like you, I am skeptical of “huge discoveries” that the mainstream scientific community has not heard about, or that “a conspiracy exists to suppress the information,” along the lines of the Da Vinci Code,etc.
I am embarrassed, not impressed, by claims to have “proven the truth of the Bible” by discovering “the true remains of Noah’s ark” or things of that sort. My faith is not affected one way or another by such things, or by statues of the Virgin Mary that cry, or the “holy fire of Jerusalem” that spontaneously combusts every year on the Saturday before Easter. If anything, the willful credulousity of many  believers is a deterrent to authentic faith.
     But then, I suppose my own willingness to “suspend disbelief” with regard to the resurrection of Christ seems like gullibility to those who see no graceful pattern to their lives, do not think of trout and bass as gifts from an ingenious (if evasive) creator, and do not see anything divinely comical about passing out little pieces of bread and calling it “the body of Christ.”

Those fundamentalists and atheists are so deadly serious about everything!  


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