The Bible and history

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For a non-archaeological description of Biblical times see: History of ancient Israel and Judah

The article concerns the historicity of the Bible. In other words, it addresses in what ways the Bible is historically accurate; the extent to which it can be used as a historic source and what qualifications should be applied. This is intended to represent the academic viewpoint. For descriptions of religious beliefs, please go to the appropriate subject-matter page.

Contents

[edit] Introduction

All historians of the ancient Near East are confronted with the question of the historicity of the account of the Bible. The text provides a powerful and evocative account of two states, Israel and Judah, and their contact with a range of neighbouring peoples, from their formation to their disappearance, in the eighth and sixth centuries. It also presents a reconstruction of the earlier histories of the region, supposedly from the time of the Creation of the World, and a Universal deluge, down to the supposed creation of a unified state at the time of the monarchs, David and Solomon. There are thousands of works examining the historical nature of this material, examining whether or not it is possible to depend upon portions of this material for historical reconstructions. These views range from those which adopt an almost complete paraphrase of the Biblical material, to those who advocate its almost complete rejection as having almost no historically useful information at all. Those involved in this analysis have often been engaged in bitter disputes, which cannot, by the nature of the Biblical record be resolved from within the Biblical tradition.

William Devers suggest that rather than there being just one history of Israel and Judea there are in fact multiple histories that we can distinguish nine types of history of the area as follows.

  1. Theological history – the relationship between the God(s) and their believers.
  2. Political history – usually the account of “Great Men”, is generally episodic, chauvinistic and propagandist
  3. Narrative history – a running chronology of events, purporting to be factual but always very highly selective
  4. Socio-cultural history – a history of institutions, including their social underpinnings in family, clan, tribe and social class and the state
  5. Intellectual history – the literary history of ideas and their development, context and evolution as expressed through texts and documents
  6. Cultural history – is based upon a larger context of overall cultural evolution, demography, socio-economic and political structure and ethnicity
  7. Technological history – a history of the techniques by which humans adapt to, exploit and make use of the resources of their environment
  8. Natural history – is a grographic history of how humans discover and adapt to the ecological understandings of their natural environment
  9. Material history – as shown in the study of artifacts as correlates of human changes in behaviour.

The struggle emerging between archaeology and conventional Biblical history is that Archaeology can provide assistance in 3,4,6,7,8,9. Conventional “Biblical” textual history can provide assistance in 1,2, 3 and 5. These differences give very different interpretations of much of the material.

There are many different reasons for these difficulties. Firstly there is great dispute over the date of the composition of the texts themselves. Both sides would agree that most of the component books was in place by sometime shortly after the end of the Babylonian exile in about 539 BCE. For the historical books, the Bible itself refers to the use of pre-existing materials, chronicles and annals of the states involved, but we have no idea of how these materials were reworked, and none of them have survived to the modern day.

Most importantly for the historian, the authors were not engaged in writing what we would now recognise as an objective and balanced history, but rather they were engaged in writing a polemic in defense of a specific people, and of one particular religious point of view held by a literate group of people of these states. Within these documents the history of humankind is seen through the particular lens of the relation of the individual and the state to the god Yahweh.

Many though not all of the events, names of monarchs, and identification of places can be found confirmed by non Biblical Iron Age sources, texts found through archaeological excavations in neighbouring states, and by archaeological surveys and excavations within the area of historic Judah and Israel, though materials dating to the previous Bronze Age are very few. But there has been, even within this material, major discussion, debate and argument. Religiously conservative historians, as seen below, are accused by religiously liberal historians of forcing the interpretation of historical facts to fit into one or more particular Biblical interpretations. Liberal historians are criticised by religiously conservative historians for not placing greater faith in the Biblical record as a reliable source for history.

[edit] Conservative religious views

For more details of this debate see Biblical inerrancy

Some people, especially those within Orthodox Judaism and Fundamentalist Christianity, hold that the Bible was written as literal truth, and is therefore inerrant and infallible. Theological conservatives believe it to be historically accurate, even down to smallest details - although most allow for copyist errors. However, not all hold to Biblical inerrancy, adopting instead the doctrine of Biblical infallibility, although this view is very prevalent among religious conservative individuals and scholars. All theological conservatives would agree the Bible is correct in its major historical claims and that not everything in the Bible is to be taken literally (e.g., in obvious cases of non-literal poetry and allegory).

In the field of science, most who believe in biblical inerrancy also hold the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis to be scientifically definitive and in conflict with the scientific theory of evolution, and in conflict with the geologic evidence for an ancient age of the earth (see also: creation science). Some biblical inerrantists[1] also criticize heliocentrism on biblical grounds.

Some conservative Bible scholars include: Norman Geisler, Gary Habermas, FF Bruce, Edwin M. Yamauchi, William F. Albright, Kenneth Kitchen, and Bryant G. Wood.

[edit] Liberal/Progressive religious views and secular views

Liberal Christian and Jewish views stress the importance of the moral and religious values inculcated in the Bible. Drawing upon the work of Biblical criticism, Higher Criticism and Form Criticism, these people argue the Biblical account is an important document, impossible to understand outside the historical, cultural, geographic and geo-political contexts of its composition. Liberal religious writers and academics often refer to the creation stories as divinely inspired symbolic, allegorical stories, intentionally simplified to be understood by the people of these times and places. Judaism in particular rejects the notion of one solely literal interpretation of the Bible, and considers historical literalism as a form of idolatry, violating the first commandment. Others say inaccuracies are indeed caused by some stories changing, as in most oral, or partly oral traditions. In addition, some Biblical stories are specifically said to be ahistorical according to Jewish tradition. The Talmud records an opinion that suggests the Book of Job and the story of Jonah and the whale may be allegorical. However this is the only such opinion in the Talmud regarding an entire book.

Religiously liberal views show an extremely wide divergence amongst the various scholars, many of whom strongly disagree with each others' views. Amongst their number are Martin Noth, Julius Wellhausen, Albrecht Alt, J. Alberto Soggin, Rudolf Karl Bultmann, Niels Peter Lemche, Thomas L. Thompson, Israel Finkelstein, Philip Davies, Frederick Cryer, Giovanni Garbini and Keith Whitlam. Religiously liberal viewpoints tend to be strongest in Europe.[citation needed]

[edit] Overview of academic views

Within the academic community, the main discussion revolves around how much weight to give the text of the Bible against counter-evidence or lack of evidence. Generally those giving more weight to the text of the Bible, assuming its correctness unless proven otherwise, and tending to interpret it literally, are called Biblical maximalists, while the opposing view is Biblical minimalism. The debate between the two sides is inextricably tied to how one views historiography: they disagree over how much weight documentary and indirect evidence should be given. Biblical maximalists view the Biblical narrative as a starting point for constructing the history, and correct or reinterpret it where it is contradicted by archaeological evidence. Biblical minimalists start purely from the archaeological evidence, and only consider Biblical accounts of value if they are corroborated by the archaeological evidence.

One of the reasons for the conflict between the maximalist and minimalist schools of thought is the amount of archaeological data found and the estimates of the potential amount of archaeological material found and worked on. Conservatives estimate that only about 2% of the potential archeological material has been found and worked on. [2] [3]. Edwin M. Yamauchi in his work The Stones and the Scriptures summed up the conservative point of view when he wrote, "Historians of antiquity in using the archeological evidence have very often failed to realize how slight is the evidence at our disposal. It would not be exaggerating to point out that what we have is but one fraction of a second fraction of a third fraction of a fourth fraction of a fifth fraction of the possible evidence". Yamauchi estimated in The Stones and the Scriptures that a generous estimate would be that 1/1000 of the archaeological material that once existed has actually been published. Minimalists, on the other hand, argue that what has been found so far is an unselected and fairly typical representative sample of what remains to be discovered, and argue a higher amount of archaeological material that once existed contradict the literal inerrant interpretation of the Biblical evidence, than would confirm it. They argue that Biblical conservatives argue from the point of view of the absence of evidence. Conservatives argue that this does not mean evidence of absence. (Egyptologists excavating the Port city of Mendes, the village of Deir al-Medinah and the Valley of Kings estimate around 10% of sites have been excavated. In Israel, sites excavated greatly outnumber those in any other region of the ancient Near East). Such low figures indicate minimalist and maximalists basing their arguments on the "final evidence," rather than on the "focus", of archaeology are both arriving at very hasty conclusions. Minimalist and maximalist both agree, however, that although the number of parties interested in Biblical archaeology has increased, the political instability and commercial development of the Biblical lands is hampering the collection of relevant archaeological material.

As for any other written source, an educated weighting of the Biblical text requires knowledge of when it was written, by whom, and for what purpose. For example, most academics of both persuasions would agree that the Pentateuch was in existence some time shortly after the 6th century BCE. One popular hypothesis points to the reign of Josiah (7th century BCE). This topic is expanded upon in dating the Bible. This means that the events of, for example, Exodus happened centuries before they were written down, so one should be prepared – indeed one should expect – that telling and retelling through the centuries accentuated the tale, perhaps merged originally unrelated stories, and so on. Analysis of the text suggests that it was written in the Kingdom of Judah, and probably reflects the political ambitions of the kingdom or of the temple. Thus, for example, within this interpretation one should keep in mind that representing Judah and Israel as a unity throughout history, separated only "recently", fitted in with Josiah's political plans for the unification of Judah with the remnants of the Kingdom of Israel.

Finally, an important point to keep in mind is the documentary hypothesis, which using the Biblical evidence itself, can demonstrate that our current version was based on older written sources that were lost. (See documentary hypothesis for details.) Although it has been modified heavily over the years, most scholars accept some form of this hypothesis (the Vatican estimates 90% of scholars). There have also been and are a number of scholars who reject it, for example Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen and the late Umberto Cassuto and Gleason Archer, although most scholars rejecting it do so for religious reasons - Archer and Kitchen are devout conservative Christians (Archer was also a Pastor), while Cassuto was Chief Rabbi of Florence. [4][5][6][7]

[edit] Critique of the Maximalist - Minimalist Dichotomy

The splitting of Biblical Scholarship into two opposing schools is strongly resisted by non-fundamentalist Biblical scholars, as being an attempt by so-called "conservative" Christians to portray the field as a bipolar argument, of which only one side is correct[2]. Examination of the so-called "liberal/secular" views in detail shows many differences of opinion, clearly demonstrating that to portray Biblical scholarship in such "us" against "them" terms reflects a particular sectarian point of view, not supported by the evidence.

[edit] Old Testament/Hebrew bible

The Pentateuchal history - the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy - and the Deuteronomic history - the sequence of books from Joshua to Kings - present a continuous narrative from the creation of the world through to the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The remaining books of the Old Testament can also be studied for their historical content, although few of them are presented as history.

[edit] Pentateuchal history

The historical value of the primeval history (Genesis 1-12, taking in the cycle of stories from the Creation to the Tower of Babel), has long been abandoned by both biblical scholars and most ordinary Jews and Christians.

The position of the remainder of the Pentateuch is more complex. In Europe in the first half of the 20th century Albrecht Alt, Martin Noth and the tradition history school argued that the Pentateuch was based on a number of core traditions with genuinely ancient roots, but that the narratives were fictional framing devices which were not intended as history in the modern sense. In America the biblical archaeology movement, under the influence of William F. Albright, argued that these narratives were essentially true, and that the Patriarchs and Moses were real individuals whose stories could be located in the cultural world of the 2nd millennium BCE. In the second half of the century there came a growing recognition that archaeology did not in fact support the claims made by Albright and his followers, and the majority of biblical scholars today do not regard any part of Genesis as historical. This recognition is not, however, universal, and a number of conservative scholars, notably Kenneth Kitchen, continue to work within the Albrightian framework. Mainstream biblical scholarship now sees the Pentateuch as a product of the tenth through seventh centuries BCE, with an extended period of redaction and amendment after that.[3]

[edit] Exodus

The book of Exodus records the Israelites enslavement in Egypt and their subsequent freedom as obtained by Moses. Egypt's detailed historical records do not list Israelite slaves. Some scholars hold that various aspects of the Exodus story are rooted in history, while others see no convincing evidence that the Israelites or their leaders were ever in Egypt. Due to the fact that the personal names of the Pharaohs of Egypt never appear in the Bible and our present knowledge of ancient numismatics, the historicity of Israelite slavery or bondage and the escape of the Israelites from Egypt is a matter of conjecture. According to the biblical account, Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers, is the first of the ancient Israelites to live in Egypt.

The frequency of some Egyptian names in the Bible, (e.g. in particular the Levite names Moses, Phineas, Mereri and Hophni) is suggested by Redford[4] as evidence that some Levitical Israelite ancestors lived for a time in ancient Egypt. The Bible records that Hebrew Israelite slaves are described as building store-cities for Pharaoh called Pithom and Rameses (Ex. 1:11). According to Egyptian records, Rameses II (1279–1212 BCE) commissioned the building of a new capital called "Pi-Rameses" on the eastern delta, which is where Jacob's family settles and their descendants remain until the time of the Exodus (Gen. 46:28–34; 47:1–10; Ex. 8:18; 9:26), and is known to have used Habiru in his building projects. To this may be added elements of Israelite religion and culture that reflect some sort of acquaintance with Egypt. The dimensions of the biblical Tent of Meeting and its courtyard correspond to those of the battle tent of Rameses II.

Beyond the evidence from Egypt is the application of historical method to the Bible itself. The historian asks about a report: What is the likelihood that someone fabricated it? Who had an interest in fabricating it? In the case of the Egyptian bondage and exodus, one asks why Israel would have made up a story of being descended from slaves. Similarly, there is the unlikelihood of Israel fabricating the report of Moses' father-in-law being a Midianite priest. [5]

Looking for hints in the extensive Egyptian records, some scholars since Josephus have identified the Israelites with the Hyksos, a Semitic-speaking people that ruled northern Egypt in the 17-16 centuries BCE. Others suggested the 'Apiru which are mentioned occasionally between the 15th and 11th centuries BCE. The earliest known reference to "Israel" (c 1200 BCE), is the "Victory Stele" (or "Merneptah Stele", referred to erroneously as the "Israel Stele") of the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah, in which among other victories it is recorded that "Israel is laid waste; his descendants are destroyed." Egypt continued to rule the area until the 12th century BCE. Some researchers have speculated that the stories of Exodus simply reflect the liberation of Israel from the Egyptian yoke in the land of Israel as presented in the Merneptah Stele, although the validity of the Stele's claims of victory is questionable, as Egypt continued to rule in Canaan until the reign of Rameses VI, and the Israelite people were not wiped out as recorded.

Some have attempted to relate various plagues to historic events, notably the volcanic eruption in Thera in the 17th century BCE, although this is generally seen as pseudoscience (see Plagues of Egypt). Others see the plague years as related to the period between the reign of Akhenaton and the Bronze Age collapse, when it is known that various pandemics were current in the Ancient Middle East.

The number of Israelites stated in the Bible, 600,000 adult males, (Exodus 12:37), would seem unlikely -- this figure equals or exceeds some estimates for the population of Egypt for the period.[6] The population of ancient Egypt is uncertain however: The record shows significant periodic movements by Asiatic populations in and out of Egypt, in particular retreating to the fertile Egyptian delta in times of drought, but rarely amounts to more than a few thousand. These numbers seem to refer to the total population of the area of Israel during Persian times. Researchers however differ widely in their opinion on the true number. A movement of so many people for 40 years through the Sinai would leave clear archaeological evidence, and yet this seems missing for the whole Biblical period. The historicity of the Exodus continues to be debated by exegetes and historians.

[edit] Deuteronomic history

The scholarly history of the Deuteronomic history parallels that of the Pentateuch: the European tradition history school argued that the narrative was untrustworthy and could not be used to construct a narrative history, while the American biblical archaeology school argued that it could when tested against the archaeological record. The test case was the book of Joshua and its account of a rapid, destructive conquest of the Canaanite cities: but by the 1960s it had become clear that the archaeological record did not, in fact, support the account of the conquest given in Joshua: the cities which the bible records as having been destroyed by the Israelites were either uninhabited at the time, or, if destroyed, were destroyed at widely different times, not in one brief period.

Since the discovery of a 9th century BCE inscription at Tel Dan apparently referring to the "house of David" as a monarchic dynasty, it is more common to assume David was a real historical figure, although this is still hotly disputed. However, a heated debate extends as to whether the united monarchy, the vast empire of King Solomon, and the rebellion of Jeroboam ever existed, or whether they are a late fabrication.

Thomas L. Thompson, a leading minimalist scholar for example has written

"There is no evidence of a United Monarchy, no evidence of a capital in Jerusalem or of any coherent, unified political force that dominated western Palestine, let alone an empire of the size the legends describe. We do not have evidence for the existence of kings named Saul, David or Solomon; nor do we have evidence for any temple at Jerusalem in this early period. What we do know of Israel and Judah of the tenth century does not allow us to interpret this lack of evidence as a gap in our knowledge and information about the past, a result merely of the accidental nature of archeology. There is neither room nor context, no artifact or archive that points to such historical realities in Palestine's tenth century. One cannot speak historically of a state without a population. Nor can one speak of a capital without a town. Stories are not enough."

Proponents of this theory also point to the fact that the division of the land into two entities, centered at Jerusalem and Shechem, goes back to the Egyptian rule of Israel in the New Kingdom. Solomon's empire is said to have stretched from the Euphrates in the north to the Red Sea in the south; it would have required a large commitment of men and arms and a high level of organization to conquer, subdue, and govern this area. But there is little archaeological evidence of Jerusalem being a sufficiently large city in the 10th century BCE (although a still controversial recent discovery might change that), and Judah seems to be sparsely settled in that time period. On the other hand, the Bible does not claim that David and Solomon had any direct administrative control over the region it describes as their empires and is thus not contradicted by the lack of evidence of such administrative structures. Since Jerusalem has been destroyed and then subsequently rebuilt approximately 15 to 20 times since the time of David and Solomon, fundamentalists argue much of the evidence could easily have been destroyed; still, evidence from the Middle Bronze Age and later in the Iron Age has been found in the city, only that of David and Solomon seems missing. The conquests of David and Solomon are also not mentioned in contemporary histories (which are rather meager, since other empires were in decline at the time), which admittedly is an argument from silence. Culturally, the Bronze Age collapse is otherwise a period of general cultural impoverishment of the whole Levantine region, making it difficult to consider the existence of any large territorial unit such as the Davidic kingdom, whose cultural features rather seem to resemble the later kingdom of Hezekiah or Josiah than the political and economic conditions of the 11th century. Moreover the Biblical account makes no claim that they directly governed the areas included in their empires which are portrayed instead as tributaries.

Once again there is a problem here with the sources for this period of history. There are no contemporary independent documents other than the claimed accounts of the Books of Samuel, which clearly shows too many anachronisms to have been a contemporary account. For example there is mention of coined money (1 Samuel 13:21), late armor (1 Samuel 17-4-7, 38-39; 25:13), use of camels (1 Samuel 30:17) and cavalry (as distinct from chariotry) (1 Samuel 13:5, 2 Samuel 1:6), iron picks and axes (as though they were common, 2 Samuel 12:31), sophisticated siege techniques (2 Samuel 20:15), there is a gargantuan troop (2 Samuel 17:1), a battle with 20,000 casualties (2 Samuel 18:7), and refer to Kushite paramilitary and servants, clearly giving evidence of a date in which Kushites were common, after the 26th Dynasty of Egypt, the period of the last quarter of the eighth century.[7]

It is generally assumed that the Biblical account of the history of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, as presented in the Books of Kings, is largely historical, even if not unbiased. Archeological evidence and chronologies of neighboring countries have corroborated the general picture presented in the Bible, although not every detail. For example, the existence of King Ahab is corroborated in Assyrian chronology, where he is mentioned as having participated in the Battle of Karkar. King Omri of Israel is mentioned in the Mesha Stele. Some later kings who paid tribute to Assyria are mentioned in Assyrian records, although these same records claim Jehu was a king of the House of Omri, suggesting that he may have been related in some way to Ahab.

[edit] Other books

The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which document the return from exile in the Persian period, are generally seen as fairly reliable history by most scholars [citation needed], although there is little corroboration from outside sources. The Book of Daniel, which purports to tell the story of the Jewish prophet Daniel who lives in Babylon from the time of Nebuchadnezzar to that of Cyrus, is thought to date from Hellenistic times, and to contain mainly fictional elements within an historical setting. Traditionalists continue to defend its historicity and note, for instance, that Belshazzar, described as King of Babylon just before the Persian conquest in Daniel, and long considered to be a fanciful creation of Daniel's author, has been discovered to be the son and coregent of Nabonidus, the last King of Babylon. The historicity of the Book of Esther, which tells of the beautiful and virtuous Esther, a Jewish woman who becomes the queen of King Ahasuerus of Persia and saves the Jews from destruction at the hands of their enemies at court, has also been questioned by many although the initial arguments against it which attempted to relate it to Babylonian and Elamite mythology have subsequently been overturned.

[edit] New Testament/Greek Bible

A large debate revolves around the question of whether the original sources of the Bible were divinely inspired or created by man. As it deals with the supernatural and the ill-documented ancient past, this question is extremely difficult to answer. Ancient literary forms - particularly the practice of teaching theology in story - make proving the biblical account of events even more complex. Even contemporary events can be subject to multiple, contradictory interpretations. See: ancient history

To determine the textual accuracy of a copied manuscript, textual critics scrutinize the way the transcripts have passed through history to their later forms. There are no original documents. The higher the volume of the earliest texts (and their parallels to each other ), the greater the textual reliability and the less chance that the transcript's content has been changed over the years. Still there are families of texts, see New Testament text types. There are more than minor (copyist errors, spelling, etc.) differences. (These problems also arise in the earliest surviving texts of the Old Testament books, as shown by the Dead Sea Scrolls).

The New Testament was originally written in Greek, of which 5,650 handwritten copies have survived[citation needed]. When other languages are included, the total of ancient copies approaches 25,000. The next "ancient" text to come close to rivaling that number is Homer's Iliad which has survived and was copied 643 times [citation needed]. Recognizing this, F. E. Peters remarked that "on the basis of manuscript tradition alone, the works that make up the Christians' New Testament texts were the most frequently copied and widely circulated [surviving] books of antiquity". (This may be due to their preservation, popularity, and distribution brought about by the ease of seaborne travel and the many roads constructed during the time of the Roman Empire). Still at the time of Constantine the Great, only perhaps 10% of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were Christian. By the authority of a list written by Irenaeus in the first part of the second century, the Church, under the Eastern Roman Empire, selected four gospels deemed to have preserved the authentic tradition. (Irenaeus writes four is a magical and complete number, etc.) The many other gospels that then existed were deemed non-canonical (see Biblical canon) and suppressed (see Gospel of Thomas). The collection of books, known as the Biblical Canon, was promulgated in 382 at the Council of Rome, and in 1543-1565 at the Council of Trent.

[edit] Historicity

See also: Historicity of Jesus

[edit] Pontius Pilate

Limestone block discovered in 1961 with Pilate's tribute in Latin to Tiberius. The words [...]TIVS PILATV[...] can be clearly seen on the second line.
Limestone block discovered in 1961 with Pilate's tribute in Latin to Tiberius. The words [...]TIVS PILATV[...] can be clearly seen on the second line.

Pontius Pilate was the governor of Judea until 44 CE. According to the Gospels and Josephus, Pilate sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion for insurrection. The first physical evidence relating to Pilate was discovered in 1961, when a block of black limestone was found in the Roman theatre at Caesarea Maritima, a port city in the province of Iudaea, bearing a damaged dedication by Pilate of a Tiberieum.[8] This dedication states that he was [...]ECTVS IUDA[...] (usually read as praefectus iudaeae), that is, prefect/governor of Iudaea.

[edit] Historicity of Christian beliefs

The historicity, teachings, and nature of Jesus are currently debated among Biblical scholars. The earliest New Testament texts which refer to him, Paul's letters, are usually dated in the 50s CE. Paul himself had never met Jesus during his lifetime, but he claimed his visions of Jesus were divine revelations and hence authoritative. Since Paul records very little of Jesus' life and activities, these are of little help in determining facts about Jesus.[9]

Most modern scholars hold that the canonical Gospel accounts were not written until 70 to 100 CE, four to six decades after the crucifixion, although they were undoubtedly based on earlier traditions and texts. These accounts are not first-hand accounts, and the exact level of the historical accuracy contained in these texts is hotly debated. There are very few non-Christian references to the life of Jesus, and most of these are quite late. Almost all scholars agree, however, that a historical figure named Jesus taught throughout the Galilean countryside c. 30 CE, was believed by his followers to have performed supernatural acts, and was sentenced to death by the Romans for insurrection.[10]

[edit] Historicity of Christian traditions

Some scholars maintain the Jesus we know from the Bible today has many elements that come from the mystery cults.[citation needed]

It has been suggested that this process of assimilation is similar to the way in which peoples in Latin America and Africa have often incorporated elements of their traditional faiths into their newly-adopted Christianity. The New Testament (written in Greek) indicates that the largest amount of early Christians came from the conversion of adherents to Judaism. Within a short time after the Resurrection, Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire and converted Gentiles of various religious backgrounds. They retained many of their religious practices, singing, the playing of music, art etc. It is recorded pagan art took on alternate interpretations, especially in the fourth centuries.[citation needed]

They also point out that even in European traditions, the celebration of the date of Jesus' birth (midnight 24 December) is taken from a pre-existing pagan practice (the winter solstice). Still, the birth of Jesus was not adopted, or known to be practiced by Christians till the second century.

Followers of the "mythicist" school of thought, most notably Earl Doherty, argue that the earliest Christians, including Paul, did not believe in an earthly Jesus and that the Gospels were originally allegorical stories in the same vein as Jewish Midrashic fables built from imagery taken from Old Testament verses.[citation needed]

[edit] Marginal views

Popular writers such as Immanuel Velikovsky, Donovan Courville and others believe that the lack of archeological attestation of biblical figures is due to errors in the traditional chronology or the dating of archaeological strata. Velikovsky's theories were rejected outright by the scientific community and refuted in detail (see Immanuel Velikovsky). More recent theories, notably those of Egyptologists David Rohl and Peter James are viewed with cautious interest by the scientific community but have not gained widespread acceptance. Indeed, a re-dating on the order of 300 years, as they proposed, is strongly rejected by leading Egyptologists and Assyriologists, notably Prof. Kenneth Kitchen. (see Chronology of the Ancient Near East).

[edit] Schools of archaeological and historical thought

There are two loosely defined historical schools of thought with regard to the historicity of the Bible, biblical minimalism and biblical maximalism, as well as a non-historical method of reading the Bible, the traditional religious reading of the Bible.

Note that historical opinions fall on a spectrum, rather than in two tightly defined camps. Since there is a wide range of opinions regarding the historicity of the Bible, it should not be surprising that any given scholar may have views that fall anywhere between these two loosely defined camps.

[edit] Biblical minimalism

Biblical minimalists generally hold that the Bible is principally a theological and apologetic work, and all stories within it are of an aetiological character. The early stories are held to have a historical basis that was reconstructed centuries later, and the stories possess at most only a few tiny fragments of genuine historical memory—which by their definition are only those points which are supported by archaeological discoveries. In this view, all of the stories about the Biblical patriarchs are fictional, and the patriarchs never legendary epoyms to describe later historical realities. Further, Biblical minimalists hold that the twelve tribes of Israel were a later construction, the stories of King David and King Saul were modeled upon later Irano-Hellenistic examples, and that there is no archaeological evidence that the united kingdom of Israel, which the Bible says that David and Solomon ruled over an empire from the Euphrates to Eilath, ever existed.

"It is hard to pinpoint when the movement started but 1968 seems to be a reasonable date. During this year, two prize winning essays were written in Copenhagen; one by Niels Peter Lemche, the other by Heike Friis, which advocated a complete rethinking of the way we approach the Bible and attempt to draw historical conclusions from it" (George Athas, 'Minimalism': The Copenhagen School of Thought in Biblical Studies, edited transcript of lecture, 3rd ed., University of Sydney, April 29, 1999; see link below).

In published books, one of the early advocates of the current school of thought known as Biblical minimalism is Giovanni Garbini, Storia e ideologia nell’Israele antico (1986), translated into English as History and Ideology in Ancient Israel (1988). In his footsteps followed Thomas L. Thompson with his lengthy Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written & Archaeological Sources (1992) and, building explicitly on Thompson's book, P. R. Davies' shorter work, In Search of 'Ancient Israel' (1992). In the latter, Davies finds historical Israel only in archaeological remains, Biblical Israel only in Scripture, and recent reconstructions of "ancient Israel" are an unacceptable amalgam of the two. Thompson and Davies see the entire Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) as the imaginative creation of a small community of Jews at Jerusalem during the period which the Bible assigns to after the return from the Babylonian exile, from 539 BCE onward. Niels Peter Lemche, Thompson's fellow faculty member at the University of Copenhagen, also followed with several titles that show Thompson's influence, including The Israelites in history and tradition (1998). The presence of both Thompson and Lemche at the same institution has led to the use of the term "Copenhagen school".

[edit] Biblical maximalism

The term "maximalism" is something of a misnomer, and many people incorrectly relate this to Biblical inerrancy. Most maximalists, however, are not Biblical inerrantists.

Most Biblical maximalists accept many findings of modern historical studies and archaeology and agree that one needs to be cautious in teasing out the true from the false in the Bible. However, maximalists hold that the core stories of the Bible indeed tell us about actual historical events, and that the later books of the Bible are more historically based than the earlier books.

Archaeology tells us about historical eras and kingdoms, ways of life and commerce, beliefs and societal structures; however only in extremely rare cases does archaeological research provide information on individual families. Thus, archaeology was not expected to, and indeed has not, provided any evidence to confirm or deny the existence of the Biblical patriarchs. As such, Biblical maximalists are divided on this issue. Some hold that many or all of these patriarchs were real historical figures, but that we should not take the Bible's stories about them as historically accurate, even in broad strokes. Others hold that it is likely that some or all of these patriarchs are better classified as fictional creations, with only the slightest relation to any real historical persons in the distant past.

Biblical maximalists agree that the twelve tribes of Israel did indeed exist, even though they do not necessarily believe the Biblical description of their origin. Biblical maximalists are in agreement that important biblical figures, such as King David and King Saul did exist, that the Biblical kingdoms of Israel also existed, and that Jesus was a historical figure.

Note, however, there is a wide array of positions that one can hold within this school, and some in this school overlap with biblical minimalists. As noted above, historical opinions fall on a spectrum, rather than in two tightly defined camps.

[edit] Increasing conflict between the maximalist and minimalist schools

In 2001, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman published the book The Bible Unearthed. Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts which advocated a view midway toward Biblical minimalism and caused an uproar among many conservatives. The 25th anniversary issue of Biblical Archeological Review (March/April 2001 edition), editor Hershel Shanks quoted several biblical scholars who insisted that minimalism was dying, [8] although leading minimalists deny this and a claim has been made "We are all minimalists now"[11]. In 2003, Kenneth Kitchen, a scholar who adopts a more maximalist point of view, authored the book On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Kitchen advocated the reliability of many (though not all) parts of the Torah and in no uncertain terms criticizes the work of Finkelstein and Silberman, to which Finkelstein has since responded. In the short term, there are no signs the intensity of the debate between the minimalist and maximalist scholars will diminish.

Writing about scholars who 'are completely deaf and blind to clear evidence', Jennifer Wallace describes the view of archaeologist Israel Finkelstein in her article Shifting Ground in the Holy Land, appearing in Smithsonian Magazine, May 2006:

He [Finkelstein] cites the fact – now accepted by most archaeologists – that many of the cities Joshua is supposed to have sacked in the late 13th century B.C. had ceased to exist by that time. Hazor was destroyed in the middle of that century, Ai was abandoned before 2000 B.C. Even Jericho, where Joshua is said to have brought the walls tumbling down by circling the city seven times with blaring trumpets, was destroyed in 1500 B.C. Now controlled by the Palestinian Authority, the Jericho site consists of crumbling pits and trenches that testify to a century of fruitless digging.

However, despite problems with the archaeological record, some maximalists place Joshua in the mid second millennium, at about the time the Egyptian Empire came to rule over Canaan, and not the 13th century as Finkelstein or Kitchen claim, and view the destruction layers of the period as corroboration of the Biblical account. The destruction of Hazor in the mid 13th century is seen as corroboration of the Biblical account of the later destruction carried out by Deborah and Barak as recorded in the Book of Judges. The location that Finkelstein refers to as "Ai" is generally dismissed as the Biblical Ai as it was destroyed and buried in the 3rd millennium. The prominent site has been known by that name since at least Hellenistic times, if not before. Minimalists all hold that dating these events as contemporary are etiological explanations written centuries after the events they claim to report.

David Ussishkin argues that those who follow the biblical depiction of a united monarchy do so on the basis of limited evidence while hoping to uncover real archaeological proof in the future[12]. Gunnar Lehmann suggests that there is still a possibility that David and Solomon were able to become local chieftains of some importance, but he shows that Jerusalem at the time was at best a small town in a sparsely populated area in which alliances of tribal kinship groups formed the basis of society. Jerusalem was at best a small regional centre, one of three to four in the territory of Judah and neither David nor Solomon had the manpower or the requisite social/political/administrative structure to rule the kind of empire described in the Bible[13].

[edit] Archaeology and modern Israeli politics

Biblical archaeology is sometimes politically controversial, especially when it touches on the United Monarchy period, as some Israelis seek to use the existence of the Kingdom as support for a Greater Israel today. Arguments against the historicity of the Kingdom (or perhaps an existence in a smaller and less impressive form), or against the historicity of a recognisable Exodus, has led to charges of anti-Semitism from Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review.[citation needed]

[edit] Mid-Eastern Analogies

"Bible stories such as the Creation story, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, Joseph and his brothers, Moses, Daniel in the lions' den, etc. have been regarded as historical tradition for millennia. The stories from the 8th century adult collection, The Arabian Nights, as always fictional fantasies. There are curious similarities. Both make use of the names of real people and places. Both contain frequent declarations of faith to the Divine and devoted persons that perform healing miracles. Both contain elements of the marvelous: talking animals, demons, witches, prophetic dreams, magic, etc. and the mundane that make them memorable. Both use the number forty repeatedly. Both, supposedly, began as the products of oral storytellers. Both make use of the interesting practice of word plays. (These are lost in translations).Both have virtually become part of the cultural heritage of the West. Both contain stories that have remained unrivaled and have stood the test of time." (Dawood 1978)

[edit] Conclusion

Whatever the scholar's attitude to the text of the Bible, it is impossible to ignore its importance in shaping our ideas of the history of the ancient Levant in general, or in particular the states of Israel and Judah. Many modern ideas, customs and traditions stem from concepts and events first present in this part of the world, and modern history and archaeology also shows us that these states did not exist in a vacuum, but were themselves shaped by events, customs, traditions and historical events in other parts of the ancient Near Eastern world, particularly in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Books from within the Bible also give us insights about Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian Empires, not available elsewhere. They give us a chance to see the events surrounding people living in small states living in the orbit, and eventually conquered and incorporated into these large regional empires. Thus for example, it is possible to see the Assyrian monarchs meddling in the internal affairs of Israel and Judah, from specifically an Assyrian and a certain Judean or Israelite point of view. While, as a result there are obvious discrepancies caused by these differences of point of view, these would seem to refer to the same events and confirm each other in basic outline. Such a valuable source of information is not available from the other Syro-Palestinian states of the ancient Levant.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Schadewald Robert J. (1981) "Scientific Creationism, Geocentricity, and the Flat Earth" (Reprinted from Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 1981-1982) [1]
  2. ^ Spong, John Shelby (1992) "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" (Harper)
  3. ^ Finkelstein, Israel and Silberman, Neil Asher (2001), "The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts" (Free Press)
  4. ^ Redford, Donald B. (1993), "Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times" (Princeton Uni Press)
  5. ^ Encyclopedia Judaica (2007) - The Pentateuch
  6. ^ http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/people/#rem2
  7. ^ Redford, Donald, op cit, p.305
  8. ^ Clayton Miles Lehmann and Kenneth G. Holum, _The Greek and Latin Inscriptions of Caesarea Maritima_, in the book series The Joint Expedition to Caesarea Maritima: Excavation Reports, no. 5, series editors Robert J. Bull, Edgar Krentz, and Olin J. Storvick, ASOR editor Larry G. Herr (Boston, Mass.: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2000), pp. 67-70, item 43, "Pontius Pilate Dedicates a Building for Tiberius," with a photograph labelled plate XXXVI; the end-notes to pages 67-71 are on p. 249. The word Tiberieum is otherwise unknown: some scholars speculate that it was some kind of structure, perhaps a temple, built to honor the emperor Tiberius.
  9. ^ John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew Volume I, Doubleday, 1991.
  10. ^ John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew Volume II, Doubleday, 1994.
  11. ^ http://ajtp.iusb.edu/Back%20Issues/January1993CompleteIssue.PDF
  12. ^ Ussishkin, David, "Solomon’s Jerusalem: The Texts and the Facts on the Ground" in Vaughn Andrew G. and Killebrew, Ann E. eds. (2003), "Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology: The First Temple Period" (SBL Symposium Series 18; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature)
  13. ^ Lehrmann, Gunnar, "The United Monarchy in the Countryside: Jerusalem, Judah, and the Shephelah during the Tenth Century BCE", in Vaughn Andrew G. and Killebrew, Ann E. eds. (2003), "Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology: The First Temple Period" (SBL Symposium Series 18; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature)

[edit] References

  • Biran, Avraham. "'David' Found at Dan." Biblical Archaeology Review 20:2 (1994): 26-39.
  • Cassuto, Umberto. The documentary hypothesis and the composition of the Pentateuch: eight lectures by U. Cassuto. Translated from the Hebrew by Israel Abrahams. Pp. xii, 117. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1961
  • Coogan, Michael D. "Canaanites: Who Were They and Where Did They Live?" Bible Review 9:3 (1993): 44ff.
  • Davies, Philip R. 1992, 2nd edition 1995, reprinted 2004.In Search of 'Ancient Israel' . Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
  • Dawood, N.J. 1978. Tales from the Arabian Nights, Doubleday, A delightful children's version translated from the original Arabic.
  • Finkelstein, Israel and Silberman, Neil A. 2001 The Bible Unearthed. New York: Simon and Schuster
  • Garbini, Giovanni. 1988. History and Ideology in Ancient Israel. Translated by John Bowden from the original Italian edition. New York: Crossroad.
  • Harpur, Tom. 2004. "The Pagan Christ. Recovering the Lost Light" Thomas Allen Publishers, Toronto.
  • Kitchen, Kenneth A. 2003 On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
  • Lemche, Niels P. 1998. The Israelites in History and Tradition London : SPCK ; Louisville, Ky. : Westminster John Knox Press.
  • Mazar, Amihai. 1992. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible: 10,000-586 B.C.E. New York: Doubleday.
  • Na'aman, Nadav. 1996 ."The Contribution of the Amarna Letters to the Debate on Jerusalem's Political Position in the Tenth Century B.C.E." BASOR. 304: 17-27.
  • Na'aman, Nadav. 1997 "Cow Town or Royal Capital: Evidence for Iron Age Jerusalem." Biblical Archaeology Review. 23, no. 4: 43-47, 67.
  • Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies. Manchester U. Press, 1975.
  • Shanks, Hershel. 1995. Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography. New York: Random House.
  • Shanks, Hershel. 1997 "Face to Face: Biblical Minimalists Meet Their Challengers." Biblical Archaeology Review. 23, no. 4: 26-42, 66.
  • Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God, Eerdmans, 2002 (1st edition 1990)
  • Steiner, Margareet and Jane Cahill. "David's Jerusalem: Fiction or Reality?" Biblical Archaeology Review 24:4 (1998): 25-33, 62-63; 34-41, 63. This article presents a debate between a Biblical minimalist and a Biblical maximalist.
  • Thomas L. Thompson. 1999. The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past. London.
  • ________. 1992. The Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Sources. Leiden and New York: Brill.
  • William G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2001
  • Wood, Bryant G., "Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence," Biblical Archaeological Review 16(2) (March/April 1990): 44-58.
  • Yamauchi, Edwin, The Stones and the Scriptures. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1972.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Old Testament/Hebrew Bible:
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