The Bible and History

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Faith1960

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A few weeks ago I posted a question about the census that Scripture says took place around the time of Jesus’ birth, along with a couple links that make it questionable that there was a census taken during that time.
I was told that the Bible is not a history book etc.
Last night during Adoration as I was praying the rosary, I started thinking about what Jesus went through during His last days on Earth and how he suffered for all of us. Then I started to wonder about this and hoped for some answers.
If the Bible isn’t a reliable account of history how can we be certain that Jesus was the promised Messiah? He had to fulfill the criteria listed in prophesy, right? I’m not well versed on the Bible so can posters here tell me exactly which prophesies Jesus fulfilled at the time of his birth and/or beyond, and if there were some that he didn’t fulfill but was still thought to be the Messiah?
Thanks in advace.
 
I hope someone can give you the details, but I was told that Jesus fulfilled over 100 prophcies about him. That is astronmical! No one has ever had so many, to have 1 or 2 would be astonishing. And about the bible, the Old testament was written over a long period of time by many people. Different styles of writing and the purpose of the story told need to be kept in mind, but overall it is the work of the Holy Spirit. There are some very good Bible with explinations of different verses, you may want to look for something along those lines, preferrably approved Catholic versions. The New Testament was written by about 10 people (more or less) and is a more current issue of the young church’s growth in faith. As far as the census, I would bet that it occurred since Jesus was born in Bethlahem not Nazareth. I missed the links you had, but would wonder about who promotes questions like that?
God Bless!
 
All I can contriubute is that the messianic nature of Jesus was apparent immediately after his death and resurrection, if not before. Nobody wrote about it the next day, but it was written about in the lifetime of his disciples (by St. Paul, who ironically did not know Jesus but knew his immediate disciples) and in the next generation (by at least the earliest evangelist Mark, who already calls him the Son of God).
 
Faith1960 said:
If the Bible isn’t a reliable account of history how can we be certain that Jesus was the promised Messiah?
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You are mixing faith and history. Believing Jesus was the promised Messiah is a matter of faith, not of history. This concept is a supernatural one, outside the realm of history. Regardless of what you believe about the bible and history, concepts such as the messiah, the resurrection, the miracles, etc. are outside the purview of history.
He had to fulfill the criteria listed in prophesy, right? I’m not well versed on the Bible so can posters here tell me exactly which prophesies Jesus fulfilled at the time of his birth and/or beyond, and if there were some that he didn’t fulfill but was still thought to be the Messiah?
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An author who already believes Jesus is the Messiah can easily have Jesus fulfill prophecies when they write stories about him decades after his death. There is no “proof” of anything - it is always a matter of faith. And even if one looks for prophecies of a “messiah” in the Jewish writings, there is not the slightest reference to the type type of messiah Jesus is believed to have been. All Jewish references involve an earthly king type messiah who would lead the nation to earthly power and glory.
 
Faith1960 said:
A few weeks ago I posted a question about the census that Scripture says took place around the time of Jesus’ birth, along with a couple links that make it questionable that there was a census taken during that time.
Click to expand...
I do not know of this problem. I think you are looking at a different issue. Jesus was probably born in the spring of 6BC. The calendar changes later confused this issue
I was told that the Bible is not a history book etc.
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Actually the bible is a good history book but not a true history book, which is to say the bible was not written to teach you history. The bible was written to teach you your proper place in the world.
Last night during Adoration as I was praying the rosary, I started thinking about what Jesus went through during His last days on Earth and how he suffered for all of us. Then I started to wonder about this and hoped for some answers.
If the Bible isn’t a reliable account of history how can we be certain that Jesus was the promised Messiah? He had to fulfill the criteria listed in prophesy, right? I’m not well versed on the Bible so can posters here tell me exactly which prophesies Jesus fulfilled at the time of his birth and/or beyond, and if there were some that he didn’t fulfill but was still thought to be the Messiah?
Thanks in advace.
Click to expand...
I’ll let an Old Testament scholar have this section- hope that helps
 
“The purpose of the Bible is not to teach history” is not entirely true and not entirely false.

The Bible DOES contain valid history where such history is involved with true Interventions of God in this world for the purpose of our Redemption. At a bare minimum in Catholic dogma, the historical events of Creation and Fall and the primary events of Christ’s life, as contained in the Creed, are true history, even if, in the case of Genesis 1-3, this history is being described allegorically.

also, I don’t think formal Catholicism considers everything in between the Fall and First coming of Christ as completely irreleveant and that it could all be nothing but complete fiction meant to illustrate moral points, as an ultra-Liberal Modernist would have it. On the other hand, we don’t go to the extreme of ultra-literalistic Fundamentalism, supposing that every freaking little detail of Scripture is accurate in dates, times, places, numbers, etc., to a “T”, for it is commonly understood that if there are certain portions of Scripture that give historical information of a minor degree, and information that is not directly pertinent to our Savlation, then there is possiblity for error.

toward this end, I would say, even looking at the CCC, that the Church sees the OVERALL MAJOR history of the OT as true, but that certain technical details of “history” that are not essential to the general plan of God in the OT to prepare for Christ may be inaccurate, or else deliberately changed by the sacred authors in question so as to present a different spiritual lesson, amongst other possibilities.

Also to consider, I know there’s a place in the CCC, I believe in the beginning section concerning “Revelation” in which the primary BIG BIG covenants of the OT are referenced, and what would then be assumed to be historical in some sense. If memory serves me right, the ones given are:

The Flood and Covenant with Noah
The Confounding of Languages at Babel and calling of Abraham
The Exodus and giving of the Law
The general age of the Prophets

In conclusion, I think we have to be balanced here: There is true MAJOR history of God’s Intervenation in our world between the Fall and First coming of Christ that was necessary to prepare the way for the Messiah, and undermining the great essentials of this will certainly undermine the very foundation of Christianity itself. On the other hand, if there are minor discrepancies between certain dates or order of events in a minor episode of Scripture, or one text says there were “700 baths in the building” and another says there were “1800”, do we start to become fanatically overzealous and connive to argue how to get around it, when it could either be a slight inaccuracy or else a deliberate changing of details of the sacred author to draw a different moral or spiritual meaning?
 
Your faith seems rather easily shaken. We’re not even sure when Jesus was born. Even if we did, how would anyone, 2000 years after the fact, be able to prove any of it.

The apostles believed in it enough to go to the ends of the earth and die horrible deaths in testimony to it. This is what convinces me. Maybe one or two of the apostles, but, all of them? And what of the martyrs of the past and the present?

You need to read up on your Saints. That is what you need to do.
Read up on the incorruptibles. Only God can do that type of miracle. Look for your faith in people who had it, not in people specifically looking to undermine it.

I am reading about the Cure D’Ars. What a true believer he was.
 
Since I don’t watch news very often on TV, the characters are dated, but when you watch the news, do you ever notice that Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings all have different views of the same event? They tell you about it colored with their own bias. The same can be said of the historical events in the Bible.
 
Ceil-1 said:
You need to read up on your Saints. That is what you need to do.
Read up on the incorruptibles. Only God can do that type of miracle. Look for your faith in people who had it, not in people specifically looking to undermine it.

I am reading about the Cure D’Ars. What a true believer he was.
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I have read some, online. Unfortunately, some things I’ve read have suggested other explanations for their preservation such as soil conditions etc.
 
The census you are talking about is part of what is known as an “Infancy Narrative”. Jesus has only two infancy narratives - one is in Luke and one in Matthew - and they are very different.

An infancy narrative is a kind of story that we find in scripture, both in the old and new testaments, as well as in the culture in which our biblical ancestors lived, but not in our own culture. Because the literary form *infancy narrative *is unfamiliar to us we might inadvertently misunderstand what we are reading. As is true of every story in the bible, we must correctly understand the literary form we are reading in order to understand what the author intends to say.

The author of an infancy narrative is not responding to the question “How can I tell the story of this person’s birth exactly as it occurred?” but to the question “How can I tell this story so that the reader understands just how great this person became?” An infancy narrative is not written from a point of view contemporary with its subject’s birth; it is written in hindsight in the light of subsequent events to teach what came to be known about the person over time. The birth narratives of Jesus were written after the resurrection, after the disciples had come to understand Jesus’ true identity.

Once we understand the point of view of the author of an infancy narrative, we can’t help but ask, “Are infancy narratives historically accurate?” The infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke have a historical core. However, the author is not trying to describe events exactly as they occurred, as would a historian. Rather, the author is trying to describe events so that the listeners, or readers, understand the significance of events within the context of their lives.

It’s interesting to note that when we read of the origins of Alexander the Great or the Caesars or the Pharoahs, we casually pass over, with a knowing smile, the stories of divine origins, celestial events that accompanied their births, geologic upheavels, omens and portents because we know these were fiction meant to dramatize the importance of these individuals. We know that these “infancy narratives” were common then and mostly unused in our enlightened time. That people then and now recognize them as fiction even though the fiction was teaching something very important. Then we read nearly identical stories written during the same era by similar Greek oriented writers and the literary form screams “Infancy Narrative”. However, the name “Jesus” is in there so we mysteriously foget everything we know and say that this must be literal history! And if that’s not bad enough, we also ignore the impossible to reconcile date conflicts, the significant “historical” events for which there is no record, and the references to Jewish rituals which did not exist.
 
Faith1960 said:
A few weeks ago I posted a question about the census that Scripture says took place around the time of Jesus’ birth, along with a couple links that make it questionable that there was a census taken during that time.
I was told that the Bible is not a history book etc.
Click to expand...
It is entirely possible that a minor census taken in an obscure country Rome considered barely worth its notice would not survive over time. A lot of the history we have of ancient Rome is copies of copies of copies. And there is no divine guarantee that secular history will come down to us or that it wouldn’t be corrupted or things left out of it. So, I wouldn’t put too much stock in the fact that historians haven’t found record of the census taken by Caesar Augustus or any of the other Roman Caesars.
Last night during Adoration as I was praying the rosary, I started thinking about what Jesus went through during His last days on Earth and how he suffered for all of us. Then I started to wonder about this and hoped for some answers.
If the Bible isn’t a reliable account of history how can we be certain that Jesus was the promised Messiah? He had to fulfill the criteria listed in prophesy, right? I’m not well versed on the Bible so can posters here tell me exactly which prophesies Jesus fulfilled at the time of his birth and/or beyond, and if there were some that he didn’t fulfill but was still thought to be the Messiah?
Thanks in advace.
Click to expand...
Books have been written on the topic of the prophecies Jesus fulfilled, so the topic is too complex to answer here. I suggest you do a bit of research online or ask your pastor for reference works to help you with this question.

Briefly, as to the prophecies Jesus didn’t fulfill, they are ones he is yet to fulfill at the end of the current world, when he comes again. But, he is the King and Savior of the World now, in and through his Church. When he comes again, he will assume in person his titles and privileges prophesied in both the OT and NT.
 
Faith1960 said:
If the Bible isn’t a reliable account of history how can we be certain that Jesus was the promised Messiah? He had to fulfill the criteria listed in prophesy, right? I’m not well versed on the Bible so can posters here tell me exactly which prophesies Jesus fulfilled at the time of his birth and/or beyond, and if there were some that he didn’t fulfill but was still thought to be the Messiah?
Click to expand...
  1. If you want at least a starting list of some of the prophecies that were fulfilled, simply read the Gospels, especially Matthew. The inspired authors themselves will let you know which prophecies they saw Jesus as fulfilling, when they say things like, “to fulfill what was written by the prophet” etc.
  2. It’s not like there was this established list of prophecies that was extant at the time of Jesus birth, with people going around seeing who fulfilled what. These “prophecies”, when read in the context of the Old Testament and without the help of knowing the actual life of the Messiah, don’t really jump out of the text (with a few exceptions) as being “obvious prophecies”. It’s only in the light of the life of Christ that people went back to their Old Testaments sic] and found that it spoke in a profound way of him. And things that had always meant one thing to them now suddenly took on another meaning as they were read with Christ in mind. So, the prophecies didn’t “prove” Christ even to 1st century Christians. They were merely evidence of a Christ they already believed in on other grounds.
 
I have heard it said by some Bible scholars that Quirinius served as a ruler in Syria on TWO occasions, only one of which he was actually fulfilling the office of governor. The gist of the argument is that he may have been ruling Syria in a lesser capacity when the census was taken, so that there is, in fact, no mistake in Luke’s account. Me, I believe the bible, not modern faithless scholars who try to pick the New Testament apart. A few decades back, remember, there was serious doubt that Pontius Pilate ever even existed. Now there is hard evidence that he did. Keep your faith strong.

Love,
Jaypeeto3 (aka Jaypeeto4)
 
As far as the incorruptibles go, I have not heard of just anybody being incorrupt. It seems to be a phenomenon of particulary holy people. If there are just regular people like us, I have not heard of them. In any case, soil does not explain the rose scent some of them have, as well as other signs. I regard these things as signs from God having to do with something in their life. There are so many, St. Lucy, St. Catherine of Siena. I have seen St. John Neumann. Bl. Margaret of Castello is a particularly intriguing one since she was nothing but a beggar abandoned by her parents. Her body is over 800 years old. Yes, I think God is telling us something.

If it were just here or there, I could see your point that all these things, including Old Testament cities and what not. However, the evidence is overwhelming century after century after century.

I encourage you to study the faith from several different angles, and several sources from different times. This should give you a better perspective. I think you are being tempted away from the faith. You have the naysayers, now look to some believers and see what they have to say.
 
Faith1960 said:
I have read some, online. Unfortunately, some things I’ve read have suggested other explanations for their preservation such as soil conditions etc.
Click to expand...
There are “other” explanations for a lot of things. Consider the human conscience. One explanation is that God imprinted on the heart of all men some basic moral principles. Another explanation is that we are all just programmed by the societies in which we live. One is right, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be “other” explanations.

The book of Mormon or Koran. My explanation is that two individuals created two books. A believer’s explanation is that they were inspired. I have my reasons, they have theirs. Only one is right, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be “other” explanations.
 
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