Historical Veracity: The Bible vs. Other Ancient Manuscripts

[panzer 4]

is this the same book which was responsible for killing all those enlightened (witches) people during the middle ages?

[AdamWeishaupt]

So you're opposing what I said?

I would not consider either as a historic source, maybe as a tradtion in which sources are reflected from a certain distance under points of view which do not need to be identical with those we would have to connect with actual sources.

Sources would be for me: letters, accounts, inscriptions, etc.

The Bible is a wonderful "source" for the question what does it mean to be a human being. The Iliad provides an outlook on something similar.

[PointOfViewGun]

I would not consider either as a historic source, maybe as a tradtion in which sources are reflected from a certain distance under points of view which do not need to be identical with those we would have to connect with actual sources.

Sources would be for me: letters, accounts, inscriptions, etc.

The Bible is a wonderful "source" for the question what does it mean to be a human being. The Iliad provides an outlook on something similar.

Something tells me you're either not reading my posts properly or you don't have an idea what you're talking about.

Whether you like it or not they're historical sources. There is a reason why a large portion of history courses in universities involve dealing with such sources properly. You obviously haven't taken a single history course. You'd know if you did.

[AdamWeishaupt]

Whether you like it or not they're historical sources.

Ok, I am all ears! Explain, please.

You can say they are sources for ethical considerations, although not really for history because a source would have to be contemporary in a stricte sense.

I understand that this may appear confusing on the first sight because your intention is to say, these are historical texts that can be treated with historical methods. I agree with this but that does not make them sources for history.

[LegionnaireX]

Second, oral traditions and the like are generally quite reliable when it comes to simple facts. People make a big deal about sources being second- or third-hand when it comes to ancient history, but really, this isn't too bad. The First World War is almost a century old, and yet here in Belgium it's simply in our collective memory that the Germans invaded us in 1914 because they wanted to push through to France, that they did not succeed but were stopped in West Flanders around the Yzer river and that a bloody four-year war was fought which the Germans eventually lost.
I don't need to check wikipedia for this. I was told this when I was young by my parents, who had heard anecdotes about it from their grand-parents, whose parents were fighting in WW I. That's knowledge of what happened a century ago, passed on several times, with verifiable accuracy -albeit somewhat romanticised.

So what makes this different from, say, Jewish oral tradition written down in the Hebrew Bible detailing the exodus out of Egypt and the establishment of the Israelite state? Those are oral traditions as well, accepted for centuries as truth although no hard evidence exists to support them. Similarly, the New Testament scriptures, long believed to have been written with the help of eye-witnesses accounts, are oral traditions written down merely decades after the events they describe.

If the scientific position is to take claims of Jesus' miracles with a grain of salt due to human imperfection, is it not also proper to be skeptical of the accounts given surrounding the German invasion of Belgium in WWI?

[PointOfViewGun]

Ok, I am all ears! Explain, please.

You can say they are sources for ethical considerations, although not really for history because a source would have to be contemporary in a stricte sense.

I understand that this may appear confusing on the first sight because your intention is to say, these are historical texts that can be treated with historical methods. I agree with this but that does not make them sources for history.

Take a history course and see it yourself or better, talk to a history professor. Quite a lot of the ancient texts are created by the victor or a ruler with a purpose. Distortion of facts always exists yet it doesn't stop them from being a historical source. Whatever argument you put forward they're at least a historical source for their writing techniques. You can decipher a lot from such sources. Such as how the words used for kings differ from time to time for example the term "basileus" and "wanax" where they point out the difference between types of kingship.

[AdamWeishaupt]

they're at least a historical source for their writing techniques.

What do you think from when the earliest manuscripts of the Ilias or the Bible date? If you know to answer this question, then you understand why they are not as reliable as sources for the time they supposedly refer to (the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age in the Aegean World and the Levant), e.g. contrary to an inscribed object you find in an excavation or a papyrus with an account, or similar stuff. I meant you have beside common sense not many tools at hand to check what could be historical and what not when you read a poetic or religious work refering to events that were already laying back decades and centuries for those who were writing or compiling the work.

[Tankbuster]

So what makes this different from, say, Jewish oral tradition written down in the Hebrew Bible detailing the exodus out of Egypt and the establishment of the Israelite state? Those are oral traditions as well, accepted for centuries as truth although no hard evidence exists to support them.

Mainly, the difference is time. The time between when oral traditions get written down and when the events they narrate took place, is -in the case of Exodus, or King Arthur or Robin Hood- measured in centuries rather than decades. That makes all the difference in the world.

And the nature of the events described is important to take into account as well. Basic facts (places of battles, who attacked who in a war) are generally remembered with at least some degree of consistency, whereas other aspects (miracle stories, depictions of battles themselves) quickly become mythologised and romanticised.

Similarly, the New Testament scriptures, long believed to have been written with the help of eye-witnesses accounts, are oral traditions written down merely decades after the events they describe.

The gospel of Mark is written as little as four decades after the events it narrates. That's 1970. That is well within living memory and that's why the odds are good that the basic facts have been preserved rather well.
Just like your parents could tell you quite a bit about what life was like in the 1970's.

If the scientific position is to take claims of Jesus' miracles with a grain of salt due to human imperfection, is it not also proper to be skeptical of the accounts given surrounding the German invasion of Belgium in WWI?

Wars happen. They're big, hard-to-miss events that are quite prevalent in our species. People are keen to romanticize them and the like, but they're not going to miss on basic facts.
Miracles, on the other hand, are singular and abnormal events, which we know people are easy to fool with (charlatans, faith healers, magicians, frauds). They are suspensions of the laws of nature and are far more extraordinary claims. That's why they require more evidence.

The concern about how oral traditions shape a story isn't even important in the case of the New Testament miracles. Even if we had eye-witness testimony we couldn't trust the depiction of miracles, because we know from modern experience that people are abysmally bad at doing that.
With basic facts, not so much.

[AdamWeishaupt]

Miracles are a literary genre. A certain type of stories in antiquity simply requires to tell a miracle.

Apollo needs to shoot darts around on people. Zeus gets a child from a cow. Piramus and Thisbe transform into trees.

No miracles would be like a Spiderman comic without jumps between skyscrapers.
Spiderman would be the story about man who went jogging in Central Park. How interesting ...

You need and get miracles when the story requires them. This is possible because stories create worlds of their own with exciting possibilities.

[Helm]

I'm sure Jesus was some kind of spiritual healer as there were quite supposedly a few around at the time it wasn't just him who could do most of these things. Whether they actually had any genuine paranormal powers is open to question but I'm open minded on it. Even if Jesus did the bible may well have been exaggerated a little.

[PointOfViewGun]

What do you think from when the earliest manuscripts of the Ilias or the Bible date? If you know to answer this question, then you understand why they are not as reliable as sources for the time they supposedly refer to (the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age in the Aegean World and the Levant), e.g. contrary to an inscribed object you find in an excavation or a papyrus with an account, or similar stuff. I meant you have beside common sense not many tools at hand to check what could be historical and what not when you read a poetic or religious work refering to events that were already laying back decades and centuries for those who were writing or compiling the work.

Way to go providing a relevant response that's the product of proper reading of a post...

[AdamWeishaupt]

What?

[Tankbuster]

Miracles are a literary genre.

In a sense. The gospels, however, are not part of this genre. And for two reasons:
a) miracle stories as a genre in themselves are usually set in some distant past and with little or no connection to contemporary events - the gospel of Mark, on the other hand, talks about a very recent figure (who lived less than four decades ago) and who is set firmly in a realistic frame
b) the earliest gospels contain miracles as a means, not as an end. And even in the later gospels, it's clear that the message is not: "This guy is important because he can do miracles"
The message is: "This guy can do miracles, because he is important".

[AdamWeishaupt]

It's certainly possible to say, the gospels are a genre of their own within oriental Hellenistic literatures of the Roman period.

[Himster]

My point is, given the above, while Tacitus, Herodotus, Caesar, Pliny the Younger or any other ancient writer or historian may not have been making extraordinary claims, their writings, in effect, amount to a bunch of hearsay from often uncited original sources. In addition, it is true that many of our earliest manuscripts of historians such as Tacitus are several hundred years younger than the originals which have been lost. How do we know they have not been greatly altered, interpolated etc, if we don't have the original copies? Much the same argument is put forward by Ehrman to cast doubt on biblical veracity.

Ah, I see.

My question is this: given that written sources are a huge part of understanding history, how do historians verify the claims made in such works? How do we know anything for certain about our past if our main sources are copies of copies of copies of books written by people with definate biases? Or is the answer that we don't know for sure, and can only approximate?

Unverified historical accounts are just that: unverified historical accounts. There's not much to debate. But the bible isn't just a historical secondary source, it is also (and primarily) a theological work, in this regard it can be considered a primary source, but obviously claiming it to be a primary source because it in itself claims to be a primary source is absurd, but then again if you consider the definition of "dictionary" to be in a dictionary is self refuting, that doesn't mean a definition of "dictionary" doesn't exist.

[AdamWeishaupt]

Exactly.

[hellas1]

It should be sincere and unbiased research, that's all that counts.

Noah's flood is confirmable.
"waters prevail until all the high mountains are covered fifteen cubits deep." It's physically impossible for that amount of water to have ever existed on earth: Research before you judge.

What? What are you actually saying?

It is NOT physically impossible for that amount of water to have ever existed on earth.
WHO told you that it wasn't? Evidence for what you stated please.

Do you think that given the Biblical account of the lifespan of people back then, that people didn't inhabit a large portion of the planet Earth? Were they stupid or something?
Furthermore, Genesis says that in the days of Peleg the earth was divided. That doesn't mean "Good versus evil" man. Ask a Jewish Rabbi about that.......

Lastly, MANY cultures speak of a great flood with 8 people surviving which exactly matches the Hebrew Genesis account but not the Gilgamesh Epic narrative of the flood story with Utnapishtim.

Food for thought.
hellas1.5

[AdamWeishaupt]

Correct:
-> George Smith (1872)

[Tankbuster]

Do you think that given the Biblical account of the lifespan of people back then, that people didn't inhabit a large portion of the planet Earth? Were they stupid or something?

No, the Biblical account is just wrong.

[basics]

Look you guys, the gospels or scrolls that we have are not necessarily the originals for a few good reasons which I again try to explain. Firstly, the church just after Pentecost was overwhelmingly Jewish so communication between churches in those days would be in Aramaic/Hebrew, why? Because anything Gentile was assumed to be unclean including its language.

Paul had to journey to Jerusalem to face down James and Peter basically on the same subject and that was not for many years later. James was insisting that Gentile converts be circumcised to make them legimate before the Law and Peter acquiesced. So in effect they were making them Jewish which was not compatible with the Gospel at all, not in the Spiritual sense.

As the church grew it grew around synagogues, meaning that letters sent to it would not be in Greek but Aramaic/Hebrew for obvious reasons. Unsaved Jews still under Law were obliged to hate nonJews. Now this is something that modern theologians seem to have overlooked and done so miserably, why? Because it delays the Gospel writings to a period that is not necessarily true and that because what they have is in Greek.

We know that letters were being sent out almost from the beginning and most likely the first by converts shortly after Pentecost. These would be from Jew to Jew and little if any in Greek. Indeed if we take Paul as an example there was none more Jewish than him yet he was gifted with tongues, not for Jewish consumption but that he could spread the Gospel to Gentiles.

But the thing about him is that he always preached to the Jew first before reaching out to the Gentiles, the reason he needed that gift. So my argument is that the letters that the original churches were obliged to exchange would be in the Jewish tongue and only converted to the Greek as and when they became predominant in the churches and that would only have been after the churches were put out of the synagogues.

The important thing here is that house churches sprung up and the same must apply in that these originals would have been the homes of predominantly Jewish converts until their numbers were superceded by the Gentiles who were born again. So the big question is where are all the original letters in Aramaic/Hebrew? Is it really possible that none have survived meaning that what we have is what discerns our knowledge about these times?