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the Bible as history -- almost -- maybe
Seeds of actual events might have inspired much of the Old Testament. What we know is real is Assyrian conquest and captivity of Samaria, Babylonian conquest and captivity of the Jews, resettlement under the Persians, and after that is recorded history
What we can intimate is taken from actual events, but is written from the perspective of the writer, embellishing and adding supernatural influences is: the Flood, Patriarchs of some sort to give rise to a distinct people, Egyptian influence of some sort, settlement in the Levant by descendants of the Patriarchs. We know, from a stele composed in the time of Rameses II's successor, that Israel did exist as a distinct people, with certain territory.
What could be and yet hasn't a parallel in extrabiblical sources is the David-Solomon era. We do know that two kingdoms did exist with separate kings, whose names are recorded in other sources.
The Old Testament hints at such things as movement of humans from a hunter-gatherer society to an agrarian (the curse in Genesis 2) and the first conquering empire (Tower of Babel).
The importance of the Old Testament is dissemination of a system of values; i.e., precepts on how to interact with others, and the spread of these values to this particular part of Humankind, then further spread through the Western World via Christianity.
What religionists fail to do, however, is concentrate on these values. As the Talmud says, "All else is but commentary". The matter is not the Truth or untruth of writings; it is that we all can value the precepts that can make each of us, as individuals, transcendent of the entire argument.
The main precepts to be taken from all these writings would occupy less than a page yet they are more valuable than all the rest of the writings put together. And this certainly agrees with the quote my son used.
posted by
Xeno-x
on July 29, 2008 at 11:22 AM
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gold_dust -and others: no one is arguing that there are not some historical
references in the bible that can be verified.
There most certainly are a number of them but in themselves, they do not prove any type of accuracy for the remainder of the bible's contents. As a matter of fact some of the historical references found in the bible have been proven to be nothing more than biased chronicles slanted towards the perspectives of their respective authors. The reality of the points of historical reference found in the bible is that it lends neither credence nor condemnation to the notion of the bible being fiction.
The existence of verified historical reference lending validity to the bible is simply an argument that sounds good, it really does no such thing. It instead merely indicates that the authors wrote about some events they were familiar with. It borders on absurd to suggest that any type of confirmation beyond the existence of these references can be gleaned from archeology. We have no way of knowing the accuracy of the vast majority of the contents of the bible, much of which is written in editorial fashion. A good article on this is found: HERE
posted by
gomedome
on July 29, 2008 at 10:47 AM
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"But it is possible that the Bible is pure fiction."
some of it is possible, but there is evidence that much of what appears in the Bible happened, or at least has roots in reality.
but that is beside the point. People are a little bit too attached to their bibles---almost to the level of idolizing the bible.
posted by
FineYoungSinger
on July 29, 2008 at 5:36 AM
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oh yes, i'm sorry, but you are sooo wrong about that there is no evidence - Bible is proven to be displaying a lot of history facts very accurately, so it is much more than fiction
posted by
gold_dust
on July 29, 2008 at 2:31 AM
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kooka_lives - some portions of the bible we can be sure are factual
There are the page numbers and the book title . . . outside of a few vague references to real historical events, that's pretty well all we know that is not fiction.
In answer to the question you pose in this blog's title: By comparison to believing that this book is the inspired word of God to finding out that it is nothing more than the sum total of mankind's wishful thinking (a position I've maintained all along), it would have nowhere near the same inspirational value that it does now to those people. . . . but if the question where; can similar levels of inspiration be found elsewhere? . . . . absolutely.
posted by
gomedome
on July 28, 2008 at 9:33 PM
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Kooka, I entirely agree with your very last sentence!
That said, I do think there has been enough archeological evidence to prove that many components of the Bible are historically accurate. The rest -- I am willing to accept on faith.
posted by
JanesOpinion
on July 28, 2008 at 5:53 PM
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