EXODUS44

oops?

spamandham

The Bible is a historical record. But like all such records, it must be appropriately analyzed and understood, not just blindly believed. Only a fool would blindly accept what Josephus wrote as 100% true history. The same goes for the Bible, all ancient sources, and even modern sources.

You can't leave your brain at the door.

gentleexit

It's hard to critique in a vacuum. So what's the best analogue for the Bible? Comparison of Bible with Tacitus etc. is Apples to Oranges. Known writer etc. etc. I think Homer is the best match - particularly for the OT. The Theological Poet spun a tale that was the mainstay of his culture - and it thought it true in the main. The war was dated. The people venerated.

But Homer is a poet! There was no Troy. It's just "myth"! Well, the levels dug up on the Troad beg to differ. Troy VI is his Troy. The geography of its time (the plain has changed but they've measured) matches his descriptions well. The city was large, great-walled etc. Was there an Achilles? Highly unlikely. Homer was more the historical novelist, lot's of details of place and topic but the characters are fiction. (Some say Agamemnon's name is in the Hittite records but ...)

Compare, as Spin says above, to its counterpart, the Hebrew Bible. Where are the levels of Jerusalem that back up its tales or chronology? Any of them? Babylonian exile, return etc. etc.

Barnes and Noble should move the Iliad and put the Bible into the Poetry section.

spin

While you might find the comparison useful, my comments were in a different direction: biblical archaeology was goal oriented in the sense that it aimed to show that the bible was basically correct. Archaeology pure is a much more descriptive process, dig it up and see what's there, then make links and find contrasts with other situations, either synchronic, ie with other sites at the same time, or diachronic, ie the same site at different times. Once you've got the "what" you see what it can mean in a wider cultural context. Biblical archaeology wasn't a discipline at all, but an extension of apologetics.

(Some of the conclusions archaeologists come to after the discovery of the "what" is still either religiously or politically motivated, but much of it isn't.)

People still cling to the existence of Homer, when the tales have been told and retold over centuries becoming more elaborate as the centuries passed.

Whatever was historical in the tales has become so encrusted with embellishment that the best we can do is to see that there was some kind of struggle, though how big we cannot say, that it involved Hellenes in conflict with some less barbarous people perhaps in the northern Aegean.

The current location of that which we now call Troy wasn't the first place that Schliemann looked at and we don't really know what the place he found was, but it's good history channel schlock.

The comparison with the Iliad isn't a bad one from a folklore-minded analysis.


spin

aChristian

Keep it up Roger. I enjoy your posts for their information and your politeness towards others.

Roger Pearse

Similar logic leads us to suppose that since some people lie we can't rely on any statement by anyone anywhere.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

The motivation for the invention of archaeology was that people went out to the Near East, equipped with the bible plus whatever classical texts discuss it, looking for what they recorded. Biblical archaeology, naturally, is concerned with biblical events. Nothing that I have ever read makes this artificial distinction between the two.

In the last two centuries, it has been scholarly orthodoxy that Homer never existed and everything he said was invented. Archaeology showed different.

It seems that a few people still cling to the idea that Homer was inventing everything.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

IamJoseph

Depends which part of the bible this refers to. The OT is the world's most historical scripture - by an unchalengable margin, and much of our knowledge does come from here.

spin

Opens mouth to change feet. Or is it "ground control to major Roger"?

It's good that biblical archaeology is pushing up daisies.

Typical Roger Pearse disinformation. Schliemann gives the world a "real" Homer circa 1870 and Roger's crapping on about the scholarly consensus over the last two centuries being that he never existed. For much of the last 100 years, Homer has been considered just as real as Schliemann showed him to be. (Which was?)

Was there a reason for this non sequitur?


spin

avi

I find all of your submissions to the list excellent, without reservation. Many thanks for your diligence and calm reflection, Roger, much appreciated in this quarter.

With regard to the original post, i.e. why the Bible cannot be regarded as a legitimate historical document, and the replies to this excellent question, I am of the opinion that a suitable response ought to embrace not only the Jewish/Christian "bible", but also the several other religious/mystical/supernatural, or quasi-religious texts, of comparable date of origin, specifically, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and texts purporting to elaborate Buddhism and Daoism.

And then, after all that, what have we got?
Nothing.
Homo sapiens has been trying to explain the mysteries of life and death for thousands of years.
The Egyptians, Persians, Jews, Greeks, Europeans, Hindus, Turks, Chinese, Japanese, Mayans, Ethiopians,
EVERYONE throughout human civilization has sought an answer to these universal questions of procreation, mortality, wealth accumulation, poverty, disease, beauty, despair, love, hatred, and revenge....
We lack adequate replies to these conundra.

What will we do?

Sing songs. Write poetry. Chant. Hum. Mourn.
2000 years ago, folks had even less understanding of planetary geopolitical characteristics, than we possess today, armed as we are, with such a paucity of data.

The Bible is a collection of anecdotes written by scores of folks, some may have had a similar agenda, while other authors, stymied in an attempt to explain life, simply elaborated a narrative of hope. Some editors/authors sought logical exposition, a narrative, a story that made sense. Other contributors simply wanted to express their own creativity, trapped in an era that did not yet appreciate their wisdom, culture, and intellectual superiority compared with their neighbors.

Some authors wrote to fulfil obligations, others wrote because they could, and still others expressed the joy of being alive on the planet earth.

The bible is an amalgam of several millenia of oral folk tales. Those who struggle to extract legitimate nuance from the massive quantity of uneducated opinion, prominently featured in all religious tracts, including the Bible, labor heroically, but fruitlessly. Mining archaeological data instead, offers a more productive yield for those seeking to learn the TRUTH.
avi