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I was debating with a Christian earlier this week, and the discussion came to the point where I questioned the accuracy of the Bible being a suitable historical source on which to base our knowledge. He asked me whether or not I believed in the existence of the Roman civilisation, and why. I cited history books and a well-supported archaeological and historical record.

I was challenged with the notion that the Bible has all of these things. It's a primary source, a collection of books by various authors each claiming to report historical fact, and which apparently has no less right to the truth than the literal fact that the Roman Empire ever existed.

I know there's a massive glaring gap in this reasoning, but I found myself lost for words when confronted with it.

Keith&Co.

To consider a document useful for historical purposes, we need to know who wrote it and when they wrote it, and ideally why they wrote it.

Moses supposedly wrote the first five books of the Books, but those writings include a description of his funeral. I'm guessing Moses didn't write that.
The ending of 'his' section also describes Moses as a remarkable person, unsurpassed by other men 'even to this day.' Which doesn't, to me, sound like it was written by a contemporary of Moses. So, whether it was meant as history or to further an agenda or whatever reason it was written, we can't really say we know who wrote it or when. So, it's not terribly useful to establish history.

Roger Pearse

Um. You're going to get a load of obscurantist nonsense in a moment from the headbangers, and if obscurantism is your thing, they'll give you plenty of words in which to express it. Just look for attempts to ignore sources.

But broadly speaking the argument is correct, but doesn't prove the truth of Christianity. We don't object to the biblical account of NT times as unhistorical. It's an ancient source, written by people there at the time or nearly so (which is pretty rare among ancient historians, actually) and depicting the world that we know from other sources. The question, tho, is whether we think that what the Christian religion teaches about all this -- which teaching is also contained in the NT -- is right or not. And that, surely, is a different question?

Presuming that the NT account of what happened is correct, how do we interpret that? The NT comes with an interpretation; but others are possible.

Don't go down the road of "the bible is not a reliable source of information about antiquity"; a lot of atheists do, but the type of arguments used are fallacious. No text ever written -- ancient or modern -- is "reliable", if someone chooses to try hard enough to rubbish it.

Just my thoughts.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

That disposes of most of the Syriac chronicles, then. Poof!

Come to that, it disposes of the Chronography of 354 as well. Packed full of solid historical data, that, but no-one knows who wrote it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

avi

Roger's useful collection of data, perhaps also found here at MGH.
avi

spin

Case in point. Roger, a christian, hangs out at an infidel site in order to make faith based statements implying how rational his religious beliefs are.

Case in point. We have no way to verify any of the major christian content in the new testament for example, no way to even say that the information contained therein is derived from the time apologists claim they are historical sources for.

Knowing who actually wrote a text tells us valuable information about a text. Knowing when it was written, also. Having elements of the principal narrative supported by external sources such as archaeology and epigraphy or by literary sources already verified, strongly supports the credibility of a source.

Biblical archaeology today is considered as a failed enterprise. The bible and the spade are a phase largely of the past and real archaeologists are somewhat freer to ply their trade. In the wake of modern archaeology the exodus has entered the realm of unsupported tradition, along with the conquest. There are strong doubts about the Davidic kingdom, the united monarchy in doubt. This situation is the testimony to the success of biblical archaeology. The new testament is such that it doesn't lend itself to gaining support from archaeology.

Unsupported claims.

The bait and switch.

Perhaps an interesting question, but beside the point of the OP.

"The NT comes with an interpretation"??

The reader comes with interpretations.

Roger doesn't like what is happening in the field of history and the new critical approaches to sources. Gone are the days of slavish recital of the contents of literary sources as though they are right until proven wrong. All texts have their own stories, their own aims, their own ax to grind. The historian has to grapple with the sources, justify the use of materials, supporting it from independent sources.

Some sources just come more recommended than others. Tacitus for example, we know who he was, when he wrote, for whom, who his colleagues and companions were and there is a city full of artefacts to support much of his content. The historian will still have to weigh up materials from Tacitus when it deals with specific arguments, because Tacitus had his own biases and habits that need to be understood in order to use his texts successfully.

When you know little to nothing about a text, its use suddenly becomes a lot more hazardous. You don't have the checks and validations you need. It becomes a much riskier business, which has the potential of leaving fathomable content and ending up in cultural tradition.

Some of the bible 1) fits in the category of not reflecting a past reality. Some of it 2) fits the too hard to extract a past reality from it and some 3) does yield history. The new testament on a purely historical analytical approach tends to be #2. There is no way to either verify or falsify its content.


spin

aa5874

Well, you seem not to be sure that there is a massive glaring gap.

Just look at the last sentence of you first paragraph.
Ask your friend to cite the historical and archaelogical records of Jesus and his believers in the first century.

After that, ask him to cite the historical and archaelogical records of Homer's Achilles.

It should be pointed out that the Bible may contain the names of figures of history, like Tiberius, Claudius, King Herod, and Pilate but there is no non-apologetic source external of the Bible that mentioned Jesus, Peter, Paul, the Jesus churches, the doctrine of Jesus, or the Jesus believers in the first century.

And further, even internally, that is, when the Bible itself is examined, the gap widens.

Roger Pearse

The entry point to my online collection of the Chronography is here. The problem with the text was that it was published in bits; the MGH contains some of it, ILL contains more, and so on. But all of it is at my link.

The text is a collection of interesting stuff, put together as a birthday present for a Roman noble named Valentinus, with illustrations by a famous artist, Furius Dionysius. The materials in it are of uncertain date, but the list of sections is:

Part 1: title page and dedication
Part 2: images of the personifications of the cities of Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople and Trier
Part 3: images of the emperors and the birthdays of the Caesars
Part 4: images of the seven planets with a calendar of the hours
Part 5: the signs of the zodiac
Part 6: the Philocalian calendar
Part 7: portraits of the emperors
Part 8: list (fasti) of the consuls to 354 AD
Part 9: the dates of Easter from 312 AD to 411 AD
Part 10: list of the prefects of the city of Rome from 254 to 354 AD
Part 11: commemoration dates of past popes from 255 to 352 AD
Part 12: commemoration dates of the martyrs
Part 13: bishops of Rome
Part 14: The 14 regions of the City
Part 15: Book of generations
Part 16: Chronicle of the City of Rome

The calendar is the only ancient text or archaeological record that tells us that a Roman festival existed on 25th December.

Why is all this relevant? Well, it isn't really relevant to this thread, but it's interesting anyway, and perhaps relevant to look at a text like this, on which no-one has any axe to grind, and use it as a standard of reference for more controversial things. Hey, it's interesting to search out these corners of antiquity anyway! But the thing is to treasure what has survived, rather than finding excuses to pretend it didn't. IMHO, anyway.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

rlogan

It's a tough one, yes.

That's why we have to accept a man coming back from the dead, ordering thousands of pigs into the sea, virgin birth, following a star apparently only three people could see, etc -

Basically, if it is written down then it must have happened.

Analyst

James Bond (007) novels mention places and times. That hardly implies that they are true histories.

The most interesting part of the NT is what Paul says about Peter, and what he has Peter saying about Jesus. I wouldn't, however, assume anything, not even that Peter was a Jew. I certainly doubt that Paul was Jewish.