[Jeff Higgins]

The Koran is much newer, and written all by one man. It draws heavily on Old Testement stories, but diverges at the Isaac/Ishmael junction. I don't know how old the Torah is, nor do I know much about it. I believe it also contains Old Testement stories, but I'm not sure.

Lutheranism is a form of Protestentism; they are not "seperate religions". They, along with Mormanism and others, fall under the broader umbrella of Christianity. Islam is a different religion; it does not recognize Christ. The distinctions between religions are very clear, as are the distinctions between denominations within those religions. Your comments point to a missunderstanding of the differences, which points to a greater missunderstanding of religion as a whole. It kind of looks from here like you have formed your opinions concerning "religion" somewhat in a vacuum, without understanding it in the least. Are you comfortable forming opinions about other matters prior to coming to an understanding of them? Most of us are not, and I would be surprised if you were in other areas.

Mike, you missed my point. People question the authenticity of books in the Bible. They claim some books were written long after they claim to have been; at times long after the places in which the stories allegedly took place are gone. As in ruins. They claim the places were made up, and the stories were made up. The fact that many of these "made up" places have been found, and found to match Biblical descriptions, is significant. Even the allegations that the author was describing a known, verified place from the distant past after the fact have come into question when the accuracy of the detailed descriptions is revealed. In other words, the description could not have been penned by some one that was not actually there.

They are also finding stories carved into ancient palace walls and the like, sort of like Egyptian hieroglyphics. Most ancient kings were very happy to record their exploits and victories on their palace walls. They have found many of these today and have accurately dated them. They have found many that were apparently recorded by kings mentioned in Old Testement stories. The time frame is correct, and most interesting of all, the stories match those in the Bible.

That's the point I was trying to make, Mike. Modern archeological evidence supports many of the stories in the Bible. Stories that were supposedly made up about places that were supposedly made up. I find that very interesting.