Also, in the frame of the Canaanite pantheon, I'm pretty sure that Ba'al would simply strike Yahweh down for being insolent in this case.

Baal is found both in the Bible and in old mid eastern mythology ... which doesn't prove anything about how accurate the Bible is historically ... in all non Biblical references, he is the god of fertility and life ...

And they sacrificed to Baal for rain (to bring life to the fields)

Your quoting the Bible - quote a non Biblical source for human sacrifice .

Historically ( outside of the Bible ) sacrifices were made to Moloch in times of drought.

Baal is found both in the Bible and in old mid eastern mythology ... which doesn't prove anything about how accurate the Bible is historically ... in all non Biblical references, he is the god of fertility and life ...

And they sacrificed to Baal for rain (to bring life to the fields)

Your quoting the Bible - quote a non Biblical source for human sacrifice .

Aye. I'm sure one could find quite a few Canaanite or Phoenician sources saying that Ba'al did a great job as a god.

As a GENTLE MODERATION REMINDER to several people in the thread:

Personal attacks and insults are not tolerated on the site.

Also among the rules, the topic has drifted a few times away from a "design around the Bible" to "flame war about Chistianity". The first one is game related, the second is on the list of topics that will be closed on sight.

It seems to most recently have drifted back to lively, on-topic discussion. Please keep it that way.

I'd point out that depending on your definition of 'Christian', 'Pope Simulator' could do. It could be like playing CK2, but as the Pope.

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying every historian believes the events the bible talks about. I am saying historians take the bible into account as one of the few authentic ancient documents from those eras.

There are hundreds if not thousands of variants of the Bible, including 'non-canonical' books, and translations. It's not considered authentic because it can't be trusted. There are also parts (such as, again, Exodus) that are almost certainly complete fabrications. I'd point out, re: your comment on the Dead Sea Scrolls, that authenticity does not imply accuracy. If I wrote on a scroll that I was King of the United States and Canada by the grace of Woden, and it is found in 2000 years, it is certainly an authentic scroll, written by me. It is also certainly incorrect. Many of the stories are known to be fabrications, incorrect, biased to the point of not having substantial meaning, etc. If you were going to ask me who built the pyramids, I would not pick up the Bible and say the Jews (particularly since the Jews weren't in Egypt at the time, and the pyramids were not built with slave labor).

*cough*
Copy+pasted response: You misunderstand me. I'm not saying every historian believes the events the bible talks about. I am saying historians take the bible into account as one of the few authentic ancient documents from those eras.

As one of the few verifiably non-fraudulent historic documents covering a huge range of history with plenty of (relative, not absolute) dates and names of rulers, it has been extensively used to analyze archaeological findings even by non-Christians.

In what sense, exactly, is it 'verifiably non-fradulent'? It's used to analyze - it itself is not used as an original source.

Copy-paste again: By 'authentic', I mean that, regardless of differences between historians about the date certain parts of the bible was written, or the authorship of what parts, it's accepted fact that the bible isn't a hoax someone made up for fun, and has changed amazingly little over the years and through translation. Even if the historians differ on the accuracy (on the author's part) of the dates and ruler names recorded in the bible, they agree that the author believed those dates to be accurate, and so use it (with or without accepted it as accurate) as yet another ancient source document to compare new research to.

It is an authentic ancient document (just like, for example, the stone tablets telling the Epic of Gilgamesh), not that the events itself have been verified.

What does this have to do with using the bible as setting for games, precisely? If I wanted to set a game in the Epic of Gilgamesh, would you be up in arms about that because you don't believe the events in the story are true? And if I said it was a 'historic' game, because I'm using the events that archaeologists believe have some basis in fact as the setting of my game (being set in ancient Uruk during the potentially true, as far as we know, reign of a king named Gilgamesh), using as historically accurate knowledge as we have available about ancient Uruk during that time period, would calling it 'historically-based' upset you, because you don't believe that events I'm not using but that are also attributed to Gilgamesh aren't real?

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying every historian believes the events the bible talks about. I am saying historians take the bible into account as one of the few authentic ancient documents from those eras.

There are hundreds if not thousands of variants of the Bible, including 'non-canonical' books, and translations. It's not considered authentic because it can't be trusted. There are also parts (such as, again, Exodus) that are almost certainly complete fabrications. I'd point out, re: your comment on the Dead Sea Scrolls, that authenticity does not imply accuracy. If I wrote on a scroll that I was King of the United States and Canada by the grace of Woden, and it is found in 2000 years, it is certainly an authentic scroll, written by me. It is also certainly incorrect. Many of the stories are known to be fabrications, incorrect, biased to the point of not having substantial meaning, etc. If you were going to ask me who built the pyramids, I would not pick up the Bible and say the Jews (particularly since the Jews weren't in Egypt at the time, and the pyramids were not built with slave labor).

*cough*
Copy+pasted response: You misunderstand me. I'm not saying every historian believes the events the bible talks about. I am saying historians take the bible into account as one of the few authentic ancient documents from those eras.

As one of the few verifiably non-fraudulent historic documents covering a huge range of history with plenty of (relative, not absolute) dates and names of rulers, it has been extensively used to analyze archaeological findings even by non-Christians.

In what sense, exactly, is it 'verifiably non-fradulent'? It's used to analyze - it itself is not used as an original source.

Copy-paste again: By 'authentic', I mean that, regardless of differences between historians about the date certain parts of the bible was written, or the authorship of what parts, it's accepted fact that the bible isn't a hoax someone made up for fun, and has changed amazingly little over the years and through translation. Even if the historians differ on the accuracy (on the author's part) of the dates and ruler names recorded in the bible, they agree that the author believed those dates to be accurate, and so use it (with or without accepted it as accurate) as yet another ancient source document to compare new research to.

It is an authentic ancient document (just like, for example, the stone tablets telling the Epic of Gilgamesh), not that the events itself have been verified.

What does this have to do with using the bible as setting for games, precisely? If I wanted to set a game in the Epic of Gilgamesh, would you be up in arms about that because you don't believe the events in the story are true? And if I said it was a 'historic' game, because I'm using the events that archaeologists believe have some basis in fact as the setting of my game (being set in ancient Uruk during the potentially true, as far as we know, reign of a king named Gilgamesh), using as historically accurate knowledge as we have available about ancient Uruk during that time period, would calling it 'historically-based' upset you, because you don't believe that events I'm not using but that are also attributed to Gilgamesh aren't real?

To answer you in brief - calling anything that can't be shown with some level of accuracy to be true to be 'historically-based' would upset me. My irritation was that you stated (or at least, I understood you to have stated) that a Biblical game would be equivalent to a historical game, which is decidedly untrue.

I still like Pope Simulator.

I still like Pope Simulator.

"Spiritual Warfare - The Game"

So many possibilities !

Baal is found both in the Bible and in old mid eastern mythology ... which doesn't prove anything about how accurate the Bible is historically ... in all non Biblical references, he is the god of fertility and life ...

And they sacrificed to Baal for rain (to bring life to the fields), which is why God struck the land of Judah with a drought, so nothing would grow. Most of God's judgements have either a sense of irony, or make a point. Elijah was pretty boss during the showdown with the prophets of Baal.

I'm unsure if you're referencing this as fact, or facetiously. If it's actually true, they were pantheists, there was a drought, and they blamed it on Yahweh being upset. There's no reason to bring deities into it, unless you believe that Woden is listening.

Also, in the frame of the Canaanite pantheon, I'm pretty sure that Ba'al would simply strike Yahweh down for being insolent in this case. Ba'al historically (as per Phoenician and Punic sources) did not take kindly to other gods messing with his believers.

I was trying to tie that it to an early part of the thread, where we were discussing the justification or extremism of the plagues of egypt, and also as an interesting design-related aside if the OP is still considering Bible-related stories for games. It was also intended as a good natured ribbing at Shippou.

I was going to put "...which is why God (if you believe the Bible) struck the land of Judah...", but I felt that sufficiently apparent enough that I didn't bother adding it.

My irritation was that you stated (or at least, I understood you to have stated) that a Biblical game would be equivalent to a historical game, which is decidedly untrue.

When people talk of 'historical' regarding games and fiction, it very rarely means historically accurate. It simply means set in historical times, with a smattering of history to set the stage - think the Assassin's Creed games. In this sense, a biblical game would be like a historical game in that the bible would be the setting place of the story. The word history does not mean the same to a layman as it does to someone who studies that particular branch of knowledge.