Saying that there is “proof of the historical accuracy of the Bible” is a meaningless statement. The bible is not a single “book”, it is a collection of many different types of writing and literary forms, not all of which are history. Even if they were, they would not be “history” as we know it. The church dogmatically affirms this in Dei Verbum and in the fact that the church only requires belief in the literal historicity of a small handful of stories. The bible represents *salvation *history and the vehicles for that revelation include myth, legend, fable, poetry, and even historical passages. It is wrong for either of you to only focus only on historicity.
Judaism refers to the first five books of the Bible as Torah – “instruction.” There is a harmonious view in the New Testament 2 Tim 3:16-17 where it says the scriptures (the OT) is inspired and useful for “teaching” or “instruction” (to use a different word).
But, the instruction is about the faith, not history or science.
The first creation account of Genesis is in chapter one (with a bit of spillover into chap two). This is called the priestly version of creation, because of the language and concepts, and even the literary presentation. The number 7 is obviously prominent in the specification of six days of creation plus a day of “rest” by God. But, the number seven is prominent in the Hebrew, as the verses have either seven words or a multiple of seven words.
There is a repetition of words which highlights the number seven. Seven was not a “magic” number but a traditional one. Feasts and celebrations went on for seven days, because it took so long for people to travel in for them, a daylong celebration wouldn’t have been worth the trouble. So, seven is highlighted most likely for literary and cultural reasons, not for necessarily scientific or historical reasons. Forcing that square peg into a round hole will never fit, by criticizing Gen 1 on scientific or historical grounds. Get over it.
And, notice, there is a second creation account which does not agree with the first! But, why scratch your eyes out about that, either? It is also not intended to be historical or scientific, but inspirational, spiritual, and instructional. It is metaphysical, which science is incapable of proving or disproving.
On all these points, Genesis passes with flying colors. The atheists and skeptics have studied their bibles well, as far as they went, to establish that Genesis creations accounts are neither historical or scientific. Good job, as far as they went.
I agree with G.K. Chesterton. I don’t believe that atheists exist.
