Historical problems with the old testament

[preacher_of_christ]

I go with the view that the bible authors often didnt intend to write exact history, and my question was based on this approach. Wether or not we can interpret it in a way, still in communion with the church, so that the historical difficulties are theological and not history since history seems to indicate this.

 

[preacher_of_christ]

Catholic Christ.

 

[whatistrue]

How is reading an article (unless you wrote it) going to answer a question about your evidentiary standards or your reason for making an assumption?

 

[midori]

You realize that Biblical Archaeology has been a thing since, say, the times of St. Helena?

People like being able to point to a place and say, “This happened here.” It’s human nature.

That’s why the early Christian community remembered and passed on its oral history— “This happened here” and “This happened there” and “This is where that was.” And when things stopped being so illegal and death-sentencey and the Church was allowed to own property— that’s when we were first able to put up churches over holy spots to permanently mark them as being places of historical significance.

Over time, and a few schisms later, however, it stopped being cool to accept such traditions at face value. “Oh, St. Peter is claimed to be buried under the altar at the Basilica of St. Peter— but who knows.”

Biblical Archaeology as a science is only about 150 years old. It’s a field I’m not personally very fond of— because if it wasn’t for Christianity, no one would care about the doings of a little backwater tribal community in the middle of nowhere a few thousand years ago, especially when you’ve got cool people, like the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Etruscans, the Cretans, the Persians, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Incans, the Indus Valley civilization, and a bazillion other civilizations that have contributed so much to art/literature/science/history. And because such a humble group of nobodies are important because of their role in salvation history— well, it’s a magnet for all sorts of people who are happy to tear down Christianity, by attacking its historicity.

Honestly, I don’t really trust any ancient civilization’s ability to count. While the Egyptians were very advanced with their math, they were also not worried about accuracy when it came to factual reporting of events, and some numbers in ancient society don’t necessarily mean that particular number, but that particular number is symbolic of something. Sort of like how it’s a bit smarmy to say, “Well, there were only 400,000 people there, so why is anyone calling it The Million Man March?” The point isn’t that there’s a million people exactly, but the point is, there’s a lot of people marching about a thing.

But I presume the Exodus happened, because why else would Passover be such an important thing for Jesus? If anyone knew it was “just a symbolic legend”, it would have been him. But for him, his passion and sacrifice were the next step in redemption history— and it was important for him to firmly connect it with the commemoration of Passover, a previous step.

 

[midori]

For me, I don’t look at the historicity of the Exodus as being something to be proven on the basis of “here’s evidence of a bunch of people wandering through the desert for 40 years.” Heck, we couldn’t even figure out what had happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke within 3 years of their disappearing, and they’d left a message. But rather, I look at it from the Egyptian side of things, especially in relation to the 10th Plague.

With the Death of the Firstborn, Pharaoh did not die. So if we were to pin it into history, what pharaoh was not an eldest son and presumptive heir, who succeeded his father, and was himself not succeeded by an eldest son?

That, of course, would be Amenhotep II. He was born to a minor wife, and his elder brother, Amenemhat, was the heir presumptive. But it was Amenhotep II who became pharaoh. And his own successor was Thutmose IV, who as we know from the famous Restoration of the Sphinx and the Dream Stele, we also know he wasn’t first-in-line either.

A second issue would be a pharaoh who possibly died or disappeared abruptly from the historical record, based on whether or not he died at the Red Sea crossing along with all his chariots. And that matches up with Amenhotep II again… if you take a look at some stele inscriptions regarding the Asiatic campaigns.

Me, I like the Amenhotep II theory because it puts it within a century of Akhenaten. So a lot of the drama-llama that went along with it might not have been so much of “can’t lose these valuable slaves!” but perhaps had a lot to do with Theban priests clinging to their temporal power, and having a very strong feeling of deja vu, not-this-again.

But even over the last 150 years, for a culture that’s as well-documented as Egypt, our understanding has come leaps and bounds. One of my books by Budge, for example, pins Amenhotep II to 1566 BC… go ahead and compare that to our current understanding of the timeline.

 

[Pai_Nosso]

Israel was never a “large monarchy” but there is plenty of evidence of Israel from it’s neighboring empires.
Babylon, Assyria and Persia all mention Israel.

 

[po18guy]

But its inerrant right? And if the author intended to write history it should be that way?

It does not err in matters of faith and morals. If we seek absolute authenticity, then we must discount the parables of Christ - not a shred of evidence that any one of them represented actual persons, places or things. If we discount His parables, we begin to discount Him, no? Now, the message which they conveyed - that is quite another thing.

How do we check the facts in Song of Songs? How do we check the facts in any personal expression of love? If we force our 21st century fact-based, accuracy-check desires upon a love story written by God, we will inevitably come away disappointed.

Who desires that?

 

[preacher_of_christ]

You can learn some about the subject.

 

[GiftofMercy]

preacher of christ I am kind of disappointed that you have not really answered my question.

this is how you answered

Not as much evidence as one might expect.

and I then asked

What does one expect? What have you discovered so far

I am sure you have investigated evidence so lets discuss it

 

[whatistrue]

So you have no desire whatsoever to respond to what I actually wrote. No problem. Where’s that Ignore button?

 

[Gorgias]

Absence of evidence can be evidence against it since it seems like there would be a lot of evidence.

“It seems like there would be”? That’s pretty shaky grounds for a conclusion, don’t you think?

For it to stick, you’d have to demonstrate that there is plenty of evidence for other similar civilizations in that time and place. Then, you’d have to show that there’s appreciably less for the events depicted in Scripture as opposed to the other cultures.

Finally, you’d have to explain why you’re willing to believe other cultures’ narratives of their ancient history, but not the narratives of the Israelites.

I go with the view that the bible authors often didnt intend to write exact history

Why? Did they intend to write history any less than other writers of their period and location?

 

[qui_est_ce]

So you have no desire whatsoever to respond to what I actually wrote. No problem. Where’s that Ignore button?

It’s called sea-lioning.

 

[goout]

I go with the view that the bible authors often didnt intend to write exact history, and my question was based on this approach. Wether or not we can interpret it in a way, still in communion with the church, so that the historical difficulties are theological and not history since history seems to indicate this.

The bible is a collection of books written by human beings inspired by God to communicate saving truth.
Because the bible is a collection of literature written within the human condition, you can expect different types of literature. We typically call these “genres”.
Poetry
History
Lament
Praise
Prophecy
etc etc.,…

The Catholic Church takes the bible as a whole, and interprets it through the eyes of Christ who is the fulfillment of revelation.
We do not take the bible as the fundamentalist literalists do: interpreting the words in rigid journalistic fashion according to our own modern contexts.

The bible is rooted in history, obviously. But it is not a “history book”. The bible conveys facts about the world around us, but it is not a science book.

The bible is incarnational just like Christ. Christ is rooted in human history and that contributes to saving truth, and yet the fact that he was born in the year 0 is not the heart of salvation. It just contributes to the inspired literature.
The fact that Christ is fully human with a body is not a statement of scientific truth, yet his physicality is a facet of saving truth.

 

[vern_humphrey]

But its inerrant right? And if the author intended to write history it should be that way?

In most cases, the author meant to redact or record tradition. Most of Genesis, for example, was composed orally, and told for generations around the campfire. Over time, slightly different versions came about, and the redactor solved the problem of multiple versions by writing them all down – that’s why there are two versions of the creation of man, two versions of Noah loading the Ark and three versions of the king asking if Sarah is Abram’s wife.

So whom do you charge with historical inaccuracy – the original composer, those who followed him and passed on the tale, or the redactor?

 

[preacher_of_christ]

Yes, but my question was how one can apply these methods to not be in conflict with whats historically probable yet be in communion with the church.

 

[preacher_of_christ]

There is no historical inaccurasy since its theology for people thousands of years ago and can’t be compared to modern scientific methods.

 

[preacher_of_christ]

Theological writings were probably not inteded to be scietnifi history in other cultures either, however they probably believed it to be true but we cant view the Bible authors out of how others behaved.

 

[preacher_of_christ]

OT history is not my main interest so i go with general historical methods.

 

[Gorgias]

we cant view the Bible authors out of how others behaved.

Perhaps, and yet, we can’t do what you did, either: you made a claim about the authors of Scripture that wholly pluck them out of the genres of their time and place, and claim that they were less reliable than other writers of their era and culture. Especially considering that’s a claim made without any sort of appeal to evidence, it’s a pretty flimsy assertion.

 

[poche]

Not really what?