> First, I think it's a mistake, although I
>certainly understand your reasoning, to discount
>the biblical record.

I'm not, at least not totally. There's a saying scientists have that goes something like "Show me one and I'll show you one. Show me two and I'll show you an infinite number." What this means in a nutshell is that something that is completely unique is possible, but it's very highly improbable that two of these things could be "unique." Explanation: If you know nothing of the world, and you see a dog for the first time, you're only justified in saying that there exists one dog. However, if you see *two* dogs, you can then reasonably assume that where there are more than one, there are probably more than two. In other words, one dog could be a fluke. Two dogs is a race of four-legged creatures. So the Bible in isolation means nothing. The Bible corroborated with another independent source is infinitely more convincing.

Also, another point. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proofs. I think you'd agree with me that things like walking on water and turning water into wine constitute "extraordinary". So to merely say "Well, it looks like the mundane parts of this book fit fairly well with "known" facts, so we should just assume the spectacular parts fit too" isn't a reasonable thing to do. Like I said, I'd start questioning a completely secular history book if it started making claims like that. In fact, there *are* secular history books (the stories of the journies of Marco Polo for example) that get a lot of things right but make some completely spectacular claims about other things. Today, we don't really believe that Marco Polo saw the Chinese court magicians perform actual "magic" (at least not in the sense that the people of the time probably believed--although perhaps he *did* witness the ancient equivalent of a Vegas stage magician's act) even if we still use parts of the book as a valid history of medieval China.

-- Dave