Vinnie, if that had a shred of validity, how then do you explain the existence of the historicity of an entire culture of people faithfully recorded since the exodus? Have you ever been to Israel…you do accept they really exist right?
Secondly, what about the cities of the old testament. We can trace them from the present day back to OT times. If thats not history, i must be confused.
Third, almost all of the characters of the bible are historical. We can trace the lineage and locations where these individuals lived …even Abraham and his offspring. If thats not also historical???
Fouth, what about New Testament names and places? Pilot, Herod, Jesus, the apostles, John on the isle of Patmos…we have a wealth of historical documentation for the NT
Fifth, what about the Hittites (1680-1100 B.C)…the only record of the Hittites before 1928 was the record in the Bible. My dad (an SDA minister) has been to the gates of the city of the Hittites.
The bible is full of history, your statement there is just plain wrong.
A poster here writes that history doesnt affect his belief or theology. Which is consistent with the main thrust here that historicity dissagrees with science and science cant be wrong so it must be the bible thats wrong or misinterpreted…
To throw a seemingly offtopic spanner in the "historicity doesnt matter"works…did God use the Babylonians, Assyrians, Philistines etc to punish Israel (as the Bible claims), or was it simply a natural result of poor military structure thus paving the way for invasion?
Does God take over people and force them to do His will? Is God so manipulative? Is there no such thing as free will? Jews (and Paul) believed that God makes people hard hearted or rebellious and then punishes them for it!
You know Richard, quoting out of context is exactly why individuals on these forums have corrupt theology in the first place.
Below is the actual context of my post that you referenced…and yes, i do want to go “there” because my claim was summed up with the sentence “The Bible is full of history, your statement there is just plain wrong” and that was the focus of my post (which you have ignored i think)
To expand on the above Richard…
Price and Zondervan in “Handbook of Biblical Archeology” wrote about this and state…
On the other hand, even though archaeology has recovered only a fraction of the whole, that fraction has been overwhelmingly successful in providing a positive confirmation of biblical historicity.
For the most part, those who recorded the Bible were firsthand witnesses to the peoples, places, and events they described. This has been of particular importance in recent debate concerning the chronological seting of the patriarchs and the exodus and in the question of the authenticity of the Gospels in their oral transmission. Whether or not we accept the testimony of the apostles and Gospel writers, they claim a firsthand experience as evidence of the veracity of their theological claims (Luke 1:1–4; Acts 1:21–22; 1 Cor 15:6; 1 John 1:1–3).
The prophet Isaiah also declared that knowledge of the past was essential to understanding the revelation of God in history: “Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” (Isa 46:9). For this reason commemorative celebrations such as the Passover were commanded to preserve and pass on the experience of the exodus generation to their descendants (Exod 12:14, 27, 42; cf. 2 Kgs 23:21; Deut 32:7). This same imperative was voiced in the New Testament with respect to confirming the events related to the ministry of Jesus: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life” Price, Randall . Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology (p. 26). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.
Zondervan quotes William Osborne with the following statement…
disregard for historical veracity leads to an anemic biblical theology, given that the biblical writers themselves viewed the Scriptures as dealing in history. William R. Osborne, “Abraham and History (Part 1),” October 23, 2011,
Gentle Shepard explains the anemic biblical theology statement by saying… Spiritually anemic Christians are not willing to pay the price to follow Christ . Lastly, these Christians can be compared to the five foolish virgins in Matthew 25:1-13 who lacked enough oil in their lamps to keep them burning through the night prior to Christ’s return. Are You an Anemic Christian? – Gentle Shepherd Ministries
For me that price is putting the bible and its internal theology and doctrines ahead of secular science interpretations and theories.
The Bible, unlike evolution, is not nor does it claim to be, a theory!
So can the Bible contain Myth but still be true? No it cannot.
The inspired word of our creator doesnt lie or tell falsehoods.
He (God) doesnt mislead either and archeological evidence has overwhelmingly supported the historicity of the Bible narrative in the majority of cases where the two overlap. So to put to bed the claim that the Exodus isn’t a real historical event…the bible tells us it is and the reason why archeological evidence doesnt support the bible here is because we simply haven’t found that “slam duck” archeological evidence… yet.
You did not answer me you just made your usual assertions. I was not claiming the history was false
. I asked whether God manipulates people? Does he “harden hearts” so that they rebell? Does He “send” other Nations to conquer or oppress? Does He cause problems to solve them?
It is not whether things happen it is why it happened. Judaism attributes actions to God that claims He is directly influencing and manipulating people who do not know or worship Him. Do you think God imposes Himself on people like that?
Exodus 9:12 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses.
Exodus 14: 17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. … I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen.
1 Samuel 6:6 Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When Israel’s god dealt … with them, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?
Hebrews 3:5 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing … the wilderness, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me
Mark 6:52 they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened
It is obviously both yes and no!
The correct theology that you have not considered is that in the Old Testament Sanctuary Service, the scapegoat represents the notion that ultimately Satan is responsible for all sin. The ultimate blame is laid on him…that’s the meaning of the scapegoat being cast out into the wilderness. Being cast out of the heavenly sanctuary is exactly happened to Lucifer after the war in heaven:
Revelation 12:7 7Then a war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8But the dragon was not strong enough, and no longer was any place found in heaven for him and his angels. 9And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
I think its pointless to blame God for the consequences of rebellion…that’s kinda like your kids having a go at you for enforcing household rules (such as being home at a reasonable time instead of kids out in the streets in the middle of the night)
I am sorry Adam but the lack of free will is ingrained in Judaism and also in Old Testament scripture and is the basis of Paul’s view of sin. If you are going to deny it you are denying a large chunk of scripture.
The scapegoat has all sins transferred onto it. Christ is the ultimate scapegoat. It has little or nothing to do with Satan. Satan is the adversary, or one who holds the opposite opinion to you. Satan is not a specific person or being.
You appear to be mixing up doctrines.
As I said above, Judaism blames God for its demise, not only as the prosecutor but also as the one responsible fr their disobedience. LIke your view on sin. it is not their (our) fault which makes any repentance a mockery. If it isn’t my fault I cannot be blamed for my actions or be judged for them. Removing free will is the ultimate defence. As long as someone or something is controlling me I cannot be held responsible.
If you are going to take Scripture at face value you have to believe that God (or sin) controls you and therefore you are not in control. If so then Christ’s death is pointless because you have nothing to be forgiven. You are not responsible for your sinning!
That applies if your actions are being controlled by God Himself (as in Judaism) or sin (Original Sin)
I am not comfortable with the mental gymnastics required to see the Bible as inerrant – approaching outright dishonesty.
I think there is a confusion of truth with accuracy. Put a microphone at a random place and record the sounds (or a video camera for that matter) and what you get will all be perfectly accurate. What it lacks is meaning and relevance. What is so “truthful” about it? I would thus argue that truth is more than accuracy, and to add meaning and relevance requires considerable alteration of the raw data. It requires an imposition of ourselves upon it, fitting it all into the context of our own lives and thinking and thus adding a considerable amount of subjectivity to it.
This is why human memory is far from accurate. If all we had from our memory was accuracy, it would be useless to us.
In other words, the Bible only contains truth BECAUSE it contains myth – human experiences (of whatever) filtered through a considerable amount of thought, meditation, and prayer. …until the writers of the text (and God behind it) actually had something to SAY!
Unlikely enough to be impossible. Cattle might have been regarded as sacrifice material, though, so the thought isn’t too far off.
More likely they viewed the calf as Yahweh’s footstool, a common thing in Egypt, and thus regarded it as the indication that Yahweh was with them – after all, when you offer a god a footstool, he’s not going to refuse, is he?
True, but that fits the golden calf incident: they still adhered to the thinking that had prevailed at Babel: if you prepared a suitable place for a god to show up, he was obligated to do so. Indeed that’s ordinary human thinking; even among those who know that their salvation happened two millennia ago on a hill outside Jerusalem it is common to find (ourselves) thinking, "If I do this, then God must . . . . " ( the magical thinking behind the “Name it and claim it!” deviance).
Keep in mind that today we consider the authority of some writing to come from its conformity to science and other facts; back then the question was from whom the text came; if the source had authority to speak on a matter, that was its authority.
Actually it isn’t – something can be “filled with history” without actually being history writing.
Non sequitur: just because the places are real doesn’t make the characters real. If it did, you would have to assess Tom Clancey’s novels or John Grisham’s as being about real people.
To take inspiration from a certain reply to a certain Israelite commander–
yes.
Yet that’s what YEC relies on! It ignores the historical part of “historical-grammatical”!
But you don’t do that – you insist on forcing the scriptures to fit a modern worldview that is alien to the text. YEC rests on a concept that comes from scientific materialism, the idea that to be true something must be 100% scientifically and historically correct.
Yes, but no – what’s ingrained is a non-binary view of responsibility. I think I’ve used my experience as a lifeguard as an illustration before: if there was an accident from someone not following rules while I was on the stand, it was 100% my fault and 100% the fault of the person who ignored the rules. Ancient near eastern people would have had no problem with that; to them it would be thought obvious.
Adam just tries to make things binary in a different way.
On the one hand, I think it is helpful to realize that most the old Testament stories were not history in the modern sense and were not simply recording events as they happened. As a result, it is probably not possible to reconstruct exactly what happened during the time of Judges, the Exodus, the story of Abraham, etc. I think what is most important is that it all somehow happened and God was active in it. The Bible reflects the perspective of the people at the time living through it. The New Testament is different in that it is more proto-historical in its approach making it more likely that the principle events happened more or less as described. On the other hand, I think it is strange for Christians to dismiss a story as non-factual just because it contains mythological or supernatural elements. After all, we do believe that a man rose from the dead. Why not also believe in a talking snake, a magic tree, or that leviathan or behemoth were actual animals? Did it all literally happen in that manner? I don’t know. I think the only miracle we are required to believe in as Christians is the miracle of the Resurrection, that and the miracle of God creating the universe somehow. Nonetheless, I think it would be giving in too much to a sort of post-Enlightenment naturalism to reject parts of the Bible just because they contain elements that we would associate with mythology today.
Indeed. When I see these OT stories as “mythical” it is not to say they are fictional and absent of any historical content (excepting only Job and possibly Jonah, and I do not say they are mythical but rather homiletical). To be sure there are exaggerations of the stories due to a misuse of language (such as equating the word “earth” with the planet), but these are really just details and not so essential to the story (especially when you don’t equate humanity with the biological species).
On the other hand, even the events in the NT are not described in the detailed manner of a scientific experiment. The narrative can be completely accurate without the necessity of understanding the events as contrary to the laws of nature. Possible explanations in accord with natural law abound. I am frankly adverse to reading magical elements into the story which simply do not agree with our experience of life in the present because that would make the stories into works of fantasy as far as I am concerned. Which is not to say that every event even in the present are 100% explained by natural law – more is allowed than many assume.
That is sort of a pet peeve of mine as well. Examples that bother me:
Goliath is almost always presented in VBS and evangelical stories as being 9 ft 6, when in the Septuagint his height is 6 ft. 6. Which is right, the Hebrew text or the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls? Never do you hear the options, only the higher figure in most churches, changing him from a giant of a man to a mythical giant, sowing the seeds of doubt when kids are older rather than allowing it to be believable.
Samson. Presented as a heroic figure with super strength gotten from his magic hair, rather than a tragically flawed figure whose strength was used by God despite himself.
The Garden of Eden. A land “in the east” from whence all the rivers flow and inhabited with talking animals and magic trees. To portray it as literal and physical again is to sow doubt and invite disdain.
So you would not accept the witness of someone who claims to have been associated with (Seen, been receiver, or instigator) of an event that would seem to break our understanding of natural “law”? Especially if here is no logical, or clear “natural” explanation?
Does the resurrection qualify as “magical” or breaking natural law?
(apologies if you have answered this elsewhere)
Just because you have never had such experiences, does that justify complete scepticism of the “supernatural”?
As I understand it, God does not place us in situations that are beyond our current beliefs or understanding. To do so would be the equivalent of “proof”. Admittedly Christ’s miracles are referred to as “signs” but the culture of the day would seem to be able to accept the miraculous without scepticism or question. It is probably one reason Christ came when He did. I doubt that HIs ministry would receive the same affects in modern day society, let alone the utilisation of Capital punishment for theological gain.
I have accepted such witnesses. Something having no natural explanation is not the same as something which is contrary to the laws of nature.
Not as Paul explains it in 1 Corinthians 15. And I don’t think the witness of events in the gospels force any such conclusion.
I believe in the supernatural. …like God, for example. What I have good reason to be skeptical about are claims that something violates the laws of nature. I think God made those for a good reason and I see no logic in God violating them just to impress savages who wouldn’t even know the difference anyway. To be sure, many things can look like a violation of those laws… such as in a magic show. But it just means there is an explanation we cannot see. And there is far less shown and described in the Biblical accounts than what I see in a magic show.
In general principle I do not measure reality by my own personal experiences. But the laws of nature go far beyond my own personal experiences to those of millions of scientists. Am I going to deny the validity of my own experiences if they don’t agree with the conclusions of science? No. But neither am I going to jump to the conclusion watching a “magic show” that the laws of nature have been violated.
Jesus said… “only an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign.” So Jesus is hardly commending this. He and the Bible say that people can be misled by looking for such signs. Jesus came because He was needed and this was apparently the earliest time He could accomplish as much as He did. I don’t think this says anything whatsoever about a later time being a less effective time for Him to have come. After all we live on the foundation of what Jesus brought to us, and I would expect and do see that it has been effective in bringing us closer to God.
during the course of the “Author Talk” video, Wright what translation of the Old Testament he recommended, and his immediate response was: Robert Alter’s: 3-volume set, The Hebrew Bible A Translation with Commentary [Definitely not cheap].
Regarding Alter’s translation, I came across this review: The Godless Bible.
There’s a difference between seeking signs and encountering them. The signs in John’s Gospel are the sort that we can say should have made sense to the people who witnessed them but in reality only got recognized as signs after the Resurrection and Ascension put everything in a new light.
Accepting that miracles happen is not seeking signs, it’s acknowledging that they can be encountered. A rather scathing sermon by a Lutheran priest/pastor comes to mind: there were some college students who’d been going to gathering after gathering where miracles were purported to happen, and he made the obvious connection to people demanding/seeking signs. A bunch of those students got the point, but others blithely decided it didn’t pertain to them and just kept on their way.
When I say “magical,” I mean unexplained by science as we understand it today. I would agree that miracles do not need to violate natural law. God created the universe so he can manipulate it in ways that we do not know how to but that do not violate natural law. The point of miracles in Bible mostly seems to be to get people’s attention rather than to get around natural law. That being said, our faith does involve events, like the resurrection, that current science cannot explain, not the same as violating natural law, and I think it only makes sense for Christians to comfortable with that and not dismiss a story as mythology just because it involves something like a talking snake, which does not necessarily violate natural law but does imply that said snake is no ordinary snake.