Things Out of Place In the Bible...

I don't know about this one. It's just a theory. But did you ever notice the Bible seems to speak of technology and other things that just weren't found in that time period?

In 1 Corinthians 13:12 it says "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." Did they even have mirrors back then? I just know they had polished brass and pools of water. And in John 18: 11 it says "Jesus said to Peter, 'Put your sword into its scabbard.'" Did the ancient Jews really keep their swords on their sides, or in their "stabbards"? That seems more like a Medieval practice. Done by noblemen. Am I wrong?

Also the Bible seems to have references to electricity or similar phenomenon: 2 Samuel 6 "When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God." and Luke 8:46 "But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.” Electricity? Am I wrong? I know they knew of lightening. But Ben Franklin was the first to prove it was electricity.

Also, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Are they proven to be authentic? Christians say they prove the Bible hasn't changed since then. But I know a doctor friend of mine once said the Medieval monks were responsible for the Old Testament. Though I think he may have just meant they were copying it wrong. But then why would the Dead Sea Scrolls be perfectly in line with them?

 

Yes, they'd had them for about 6,000 years before that. History of mirrors dating back 8000 years - PubMed.

First of all, it doesn't say "scabbards" or even "stabbards". It says θήκην. Most translations render this as "sheath" but it can mean container. Matthew 26:52, describing the same incident, uses the word τόπον (place). What translation are you using? Not even the King James Version says "scabbard". The NIV just says: "put your sword away." And yes, there were scabbards back then. They've been around since the bronze age Treasure Trove of Bronze Age Weapons and Artifacts Discovered in Scotland and were widely in use by the Roman army in Jesus' time. Scabbard - Wikipedia.

For starters, it's noteworthy that the Bible passage you quoted says nothing about electricity. That was a term you imported from the recesses of your own mind. Next, if you've read anything about mythology, you ought to be aware that lightening was a standard tool of high sky gods such as Zeus, Indra, and Thor.

Good question. There have been forgeries, most notably all of the copies in the Museum of the Bible in Washington. After Dead Sea forgeries exposed, how do we know the scrolls in Israel are authentic?
'It's the First Domino': After the Museum of the Bible Discovered Its Dead Sea Scrolls Are Fake, the Field Braces for More Revelations Kipp Davis, an expert in biblical archaeology and Dead Sea Scrolls forgery remarks that “Whoever was manufacturing these was responding to the market”. “That market was, for the most part, wealthy evangelicals.” So if some have been detected, it's reasonable to think others are out there. But most scholars are convinced the 1000 pieces of the earlier found Dead Sea Scrolls in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. After Dead Sea forgeries exposed, how do we know the scrolls in Israel are authentic?

If the remaining Scrolls are authentic, they are of considerable historical value as the oldest extant manuscripts of books included in the OT canon, as well as providing insights into the reclusive sect of Essenes that seems to have been absorbed into the early Christian community. The Dead Sea Scrolls are our only existing ancient Hebrew Bible manuscripts--the later Masoritic texts dating from the Middle Ages. "Dead Sea Scrolls" yield "major" questions in Old Testament understanding The manuscripts are noteworthy for their remarkable accuracy in transmission over nearly 1,000 to the previously oldest Masoretic texts. That's the main thing evangelical Christians crow about. But there are some notable differences. "Dead Sea Scrolls" yield "major" questions in Old Testament understanding

If your doctor friend is an M.D., he should stick to that instead of branching out into fields he seems to know nothing about. What "monks" is he talking about? The Essenes at Qumran? The OT was around long before them. There were, of course , priests and scribes. If by "the monks" he means Christian monks, the Old Testament was around for centuries before they and Christianity were. Evangelicals will say the Bible was written by, or at least dictated by God, which may or may not be the case. But it seems to be a collection of writings by a variety of anonymous authors with different agendas written over many centuries. Wellhausen identified four authors of the Torah (first five books) which Evangelicals say was written by Moses: P (Priestly author), J (Yahwist), ER (Elohist), and D (Deuteronominst). His thesis is still debated, some scholars saying more authors, some fewer.

If I may offer some critical comments of your post, I think its great that you're asking questions. An inquiring mind is a wonderful thing. But to convey such skepticism about major world religions on the basis of your intuitions and what you heard from a doctor friend, with apparently no grounding in history or scholarship , IMHO, might be a tad objectionable. If you just don't know, a more neutral tone might be in order. A casual Google search might be in order. So far, to the best of my knowledge, neither you nor anyone else has uncovered any technological anachronisms in the OT, although other anachronisms are noteworthy: that Abraham and other patriarchs owned camels six centuries before the beasts were introduced in the eastern Mediterranean; The Mystery of the Bible’s Phantom Camels, or that Abraham and the early patriarchs interacted with the Phillistines in the 20th century BCE, when the latter didn't arrive from their Aegean homeland until the mid-12th century BCE.

 

Some ancient peoples had tech. & some of it was more advanced than ours. Plz read mahabarata which describes ancient techs in detail. Altho many folks dirmiss it. The translations get abit murky. & also read book of enoch. & urantia, & oahspe books, tech was all over the place. But back then paths to technology were shorter than now. We took a long way to get it. Probly a first in our history. Its quite simple, really. Our end tech goals for last few decades has been manipulation of plasmic matter thrv quantum methods. This is why we dont see much archaeologic evidence.

 

Also there were & are outside intelligent influences both good & bad. Our histories & myths r filled with these accounts. Again murky as many humans suppressed it etc.. Not only that but kept it for themselves. A main culprit is us govt. Called black ops. Some of their methods & materials come directly from the demonic hierarchy. Other govts have it too. & some stuff came from angels. But the demonic stuff is given more freely. Angels are slightly more hesitant in gifting us.

 

Those books were the science fiction of the day, even though some folks, then and apparently now, took them seriously. Maybe the reason we don't "see much evidence" is that it never happened!

 

Yes, belief in all kinds of supernatural entities has been a staple of human history. Whether they exist(ed) or not is an open question. Some of us obviously haven't developed much intellectually since the Bronze Age!

 

Just look @ some of the ancient architecture for instance. Is that all a hoax? Also too are ooparts out of place artifacts. The piri ries map the antithykera mechanism the babylon batteries to name a few. There is also the 2 green kids that came outa a cave. & surely your own ancestors knew stuff?

 

Of course my ancestors knew stuff. Back in the day, when the white men came they were sedentary agriculturalists who were good at living in villages and growing corn. Also, pretty good with bows arrows. The technology was Neolithic (New Stone Age). No batteries. Piri Reis (AKA Ahmed Muhiddin Piri), the Ottoman Turkish navigator, geographer and cartograper, is best known for producing the second oldest map of America. That was in 1513--only 11 years after Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Not exactly "out of place", though. The antithykera mechanism, a hand powered model of the solar system, was essentially an ancient Greek analog computer for predicting astronomical cycles. Remarkable! But those green children? I assume you're talking about the green children of Woolpit. That story, usually preceded by the words "legend" or "myth", dates from the twelfth century, and has yet to be corroborated.