Dr Paul Allen

Below is Dick Harfield (Quora) answering the following submitted question:  Is Prophet  Amos  the 'first historically verifiable prophet' in the Bible? There may have been other prophets, all the way back to Abraham, but their existence has not been verified and is increasingly considered unlikely. Based on  Amos  1:1,  Amos  began to prophesy in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel and two years before the earthquake of 760 BCE, making him just a little earlier than the prophet Isaiah. On the face of it, that means that  Amos  may be the first historically verifiable prophet in the Bible. Amos  6:2, which warns the reader to see what the Assyrians had done to the cities of Calneh, Hamath and Gath, provides reason for doubt. Assyria defeated the kingdoms of Calneh and Hamath in 738 BCE, and Gath in 734, much later than the earthquake during the reigns of Uzziah and Joash. Since it wo...

  In a culture where truth itself has come into question, we must pay careful attention to the assumptions people make in support of their preferred beliefs. In this, we examine the so-called “verification principle.” What was the Achilles’ heel of the principle of verification? The principle of verification has been pretty much discarded by analytical philosophers. Why? What’s wrong with the principle of verification?  Let me tell you the principle of verification: “The only meaningful truth is a truth which can be verified either analytically or empirically.” Hm?  It’s very easy, so obvious it bites you if it were a snake. There is a principle that the original founders missed completely at the beginning. Their whole philosophy rests on what principle? The truth of the verification of principle.  Can the verification principle be verified empirically?  Is the verification principle analytically true? If a guy stands up and says the only thing that is true ...