[en] Bible - Ultimate historical source? Yes/No

[Dobber]

I have a question

As I stay in hostel in Jerusalem, I meet here many people from diferent countries and with diferent reasons of their stay here. Big number of them are of course pilgrims...

My question is about the Bible. Do you guys understand it as Ultimate historical source or just one of historical sources?

Coz I found it hard to discuss any historical topic with some of the pilgrims who simply don't accept importance of archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia which prove that the Jewish culture wasn't original and that it was in many aspects inspired by mesopotamian or Kanaanite cultures


Coz archaeological excavations in syria proved that architecture of the David's Temple was inspired by older Kanaanite temples...etc.

so I'd like to know your point of view

Better just buy them a book about Biblical Archaeology and leave them happy! :wink:
Although in your case it's more of a matter of interpretation of the Bible, than of the Bible itself. Because I don't remember anywhere in the Bible to be explicitly written that the old Jews are completely original and "innovative" in all aspects of their culture, so I guess this would be only personal beliefs...

Well, in Bible there are at least two references to Gilgamesh, when the gods make a man from mud and when they flood the world, but save one man and his wife. I haven't read whole Bible, but there probably are many references to other old myths and legends. This probably deserves a thread of it's own.

Elvain, as you know I profess Christianity and believe the Bible is God's Holy Word. But I am a fairly open-minded person. The land where Israel is located was taken from the Kanaanite people by the Jewish people. Even with God giving direction for the Temple building, there would definitely be influence from the Kanaanite architecture of the region.

This is a very interesting discussion and really deserves an own thread, if you're still interested in it.

Angryminer

Now it has it's own thread, anyone else with any ideas?

[Moryarity]

Nice discussion and I guess it is well situated in the DMZ as opinions might largely differ...

so here are my 2 Cents:

One has to seperate two "parts" of the bible (and I do not think of old and nem testemony) but those parts regarding historical persons and incidents (as are leaving of Egypt etc) and those parts refering to it as "gos holy words"....

As I see it: a part of the bible is an early try to record history in a way to pass on to following generations by telling stories about incidents, that really happened, but over the generations, some, if not most of those "real" incidents has been "filled" with mythological extensions and extensions including the "believe". So that now, the bible is composed of historical stories and things, that has to do with believe.

And one should consider that many mistakes has been interpretated into the bible while translating it into the different languages...

"young woman Mary" has become " virgin Mary" and that there are many misinterpretings like that people think of an apple, when talking about fall of man, although it is only stated, that is has been a "fruit"

[Mircoslavux]

nice thread
bible covers many secrets and pictures, which are still not so good understable for us....

very interesting polemic is already in Genesis about the first woman - as we know - in bible is written Eva, but it is really?

according some research sources it was Lilith and not Eva, Lilith was created like Adam...but she "fallen down" and inclinated to Satan...then God decided to create Eva from Adam's rib - this is a mark, that the woman should be "subordinated " to man...
But why was the stage about Lilith taken out from official Bible???

here are some interesting data about Lilith:

Lilith as Adam's first wife

The passage in Genesis 1:27 — "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them" (before describing a mate being made of Adam's rib and being called Eve in Genesis 2:22) is sometimes believed to be an indication that Adam had a wife before Eve.

A medieval reference to Lilith as the first wife of Adam is the anonymous The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, written sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries. Lilith is described as refusing to assume a subservient role to Adam during sexual intercourse and so deserting him ("She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.'"). Lilith promptly uttered the name of God, took to the air, and left the Garden, settling on the Red Sea coast.

Two important observations should be made here: Lilth left the Garden of her own accord, before the Fall of Man, and is without Original Sin. She knows the name of God, making her an extremely powerful, and perhaps unique, cosmological being, as knowing God's true name is to have control of Him. [citation needed]

Lilith then went on to mate with Samael and various other demons she found beside the Red Sea, creating countless lilin. Adam urged God to bring Lilith back, so three angels were dispatched after her. When the angels, Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, made threats to kill one hundred of Lilith's demonic children for each day she stayed away, she countered that she would prey eternally upon the descendants of Adam and Eve, who could be saved only by invoking the names of the three angels. She did not return to Adam.

The background and purpose of The Alphabet of Ben-Sira is unclear. It is a collection of stories about heroes of the Bible and Talmud, it may have been a collection of folk-tales, a refutation of Christian, Karaite, or other separatist movements; its content seems so offensive to contemporary Jews that it was even suggested that it could be an anti-Jewish satire [4], although, in any case, the text was accepted by the Jewish mystics of medieval Germany.

The Alphabet of Ben-Sira is the earliest surviving source of the story, and the conception that Lilith was Adam's first wife became only widely known with the 17th century Lexicon Talmudicum of Johannes Buxtorf.

In the late 19th century, the Scottish Christian author George MacDonald incorporated the story of Lilith as Adam's first wife and predator of Eve's children into a mythopoeic fantasy novel in the Romantic style.

The role of Lilith as Adam's faithless wife has parallels with the ideas about Eve herself in the Unification theology of Sun Myung Moon.

[Elvain]

Elvain, as you know I profess Christianity and believe the Bible is God's Holy Word. But I am a fairly open-minded person. The land where Israel is located was taken from the Kanaanite people by the Jewish people. Even with God giving direction for the Temple building, there would definitely be influence from the Kanaanite architecture of the region.
What I originaly wanted to discuss is this thing.

Some people I met told me that God gave the Jews exact measurments for the Temple, I don't know where in the Old Testament this is supposed to be. Those people absoltely declined any possibility of copying from surrounding nations, because it was God who got the idea of the Temple and it was Kanaanites who copied it from the Jews. And when I said that arhaeological researches prove that those temples were older, I was told that the Archaeologists lie, because The Bible says something else.

That's the point.

There is something written in the Bible what is denied by later researches (the Flood's location etc.)

I see the Bible as a literal masterpiece made by Humans, but at the same time I respect belief of those who believe it is something else... but only to the point they start to argue that this is other sourdes who lie or copy from the Bible.
The Torah was written up to the 6th century BC, Mesopotamian or Kanaanite myths are known from copies which are much older. If someone claims that it were Kanaanites and Mesopotamians who copied those myths which are known in Mesopotamia even before the history of the Jews has started(1200BC), it is very hard for me to discuss any hiistorical ropic with him because he doesn't respect the basics of historiography.

The Topic of the First man and woman is very interesting. I personaly see it as a matter of interpretation of only one source and only one belief. it's so deep in history of a human specie that we can't research it in various sources.

My personal interpretation of historical parrs the Old Testament is that those are chronicles written to legalize Jewish claims to the Holy Land and description of their fates in religious point of view (at that time there was - of course - no ireligious POV) so I see it as a historical source that describes the story from one side (as all of historical books until 20th century)

The land where Israel is located was taken from the Kanaanite people by the Jewish people.I know but the problem is now that later it was taken by the Romans and then by the empire of Islam... and the land became mostly Arabic.

Some people claim that land for Jews because the God has given it to them in the Old Testament. As I understand the Bible as Jewish chronicle, I see no reason why they should withe that it was Goid who given the land to other nation (Arabs)
And now both claim it as land given by God in their Holy scriptures. It is the biggest fault to use religious texts as legalization of Political goals. Religious texts legalize history as status qou, they should not be followed to WRITE history.

That is my heretic point.

Sorry to be so long

[Traveller]

Elvain, as I've been raised as a Protestant since nearly 5 years old, I would mention that f.e. there are "prophecies" (or "implications") of the restoration of Israel. F.e., IIRC, it is said in the Revelation that at the end the whole world would gather at the hill of Megido (which, unknown why, was reformed as the day of Armageddon) to wage war on Israel. This hasn't happened yet, so it's a plus for the Israeli claims of that land... :wink:
And btw, it's funny that today the country is called Israel, while most of the "Israelis" are actually Judeans...
Anyway, it seems they don't have that book of Biblical archaeology, which we have at home, here at the office, so I can't tell you what's the position of it about the schemes of the temples. But it's an interesting question...

And, Mirco, that's an interesting story there. Although in the middle ages, when Christianity was already the main religion, there were many and many heresies, teachings and such, with different stories about the "true Christianity". F.e. I remember a story of our Bogomils about the fall of Satan and it was funny that one of the reasons why 1/3 of the angels followed him, according to the Bogomils, was that Satan offered them lower taxes in wheat et. :lol:


P.S. If this would be an "official" thread of the Christianity/religions + history, I could paste two parables, which I translated for a friend last week. They're quite nice...

[Dobber]

What I originaly wanted to discuss is this thing.

Some people I met told me that God gave the Jews exact measurments for the Temple, I don't know where in the Old Testament this is supposed to be. Those people absoltely declined any possibility of copying from surrounding nations, because it was God who got the idea of the Temple and it was Kanaanites who copied it from the Jews. And when I said that arhaeological researches prove that those temples were older, I was told that the Archaeologists lie, because The Bible says something else.

That's the point.



And these people do not think that other people besides the Jewish were worshipping some form of god. They think the Jews have a patent on temples? The Egyptians had built temples to their gods way before God gave direction for the temple David built. The non-Jewish peoples had temples to house their idol gods. I believe God gave the measurements for the temple and the plan layout, but these builders certainly had ornamentation and architectural influence from the architecture they had seen and experienced. Man is constantly copying ideas from other men. And afterall they were building this temple in an area that was captured from the Kanaanites and all the buildings around them had Kanaanite influence in their architecture.

[People's Republic of China]

I am a fanactical Messianic Jew. This means I believe and accept Yeshua Ha-Masheach (Jesus Christ) as G-d and Messiah. This also means that I believe that the Bible is in fact G-d's Holy Word. Completely inerrant and factual.

Please reply respectfully.

[Angryminer]

You can count on respectful treatment of your opinion and believes in this section. That is something we set great value on.

But that is also the weak point of this discussion:
We have few evidence here and thus we mostly state our own opinion. This opinion however remains untouched and respected until we can find evidence to either supports or contradicts it. But we have no evidence and thus we can just state our opinion.
Which is what I'll do now:
When I read the bible I interpret it in a specific way. I read the words and understand them in a specific way. A different person will understand them differently. The bible isn't unambiguous. History teaches us the horrible consequences of this.
Thus I personally don't treat the bible as an ultimately correct resource. If I wouldn't do so I would have severe problems talking with someone about the bible because we could make contradicting statements which are both reasoned by different sections of the bible.

I am aware that there are sollutions to this problem. However, as far as I understand those sollutions they are merely a predefinition of how the bible has to be understood and thus differ among religious institutions. Thus they don't solve the problem but delay the differences of interpretation to a higher level, from personal to institutional, which I regard as even worse.

By the way I'm not religious at all. But I do enjoy participating in discussions about religion and thus I have also read most parts of the bible.

Angryminer

[Elvain]

This also means that I believe that the Bible is in fact G-d's Holy Word. Completely inerrant and factual.So how is it possible that there are parts of the Bible that are proved to be Wrong by other historical and also archaeological sources?

how is it possible that God reveals something in one book and then enables that there are various other sources that prove that his "Holy and inerrant word" is wrong?

What the Bible says about Assyrians goes against known historical sources from all of known contemporary world (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia)
I have red those parts of Bible which can be understood mainly as historical sources and believe me, there is no diference between the way of writing of the Bible and the way of writing of other historical chronicles which are written in order to legalize and legitimate their existence which was based on agression.

The Jews came to Israel because it was given to them by their God. Bohemia was given to Bohemians by their God. The World was given to Muslims by their God. And everything was written in order to describe why and how did the God supported the nation...

If everything you know about something says one thing and just one source says something else, does it mean that everything is wrong and the one source is right? Even if you know the one was made in order to contradict the others?

[People's Republic of China]

The Bible is continually attacked from all sides throughout history, and the Bible always wins in the end, so I'm not worried about anything. People who go looking for evidence against the Bible always get defeated in the end. Maybe not in their lifetime but in the future.

The Bible is correct about the Assyrians, the other sources do coraberate the Bible.

PS: It's probably pointless, this debate.

[Elvain]

The Bible is continually attacked from all sides throughout history, and the Bible always wins in the end, so I'm not worried about anything. People who go looking for evidence against the Bible always get defeated in the end. Maybe not in their lifetime but in the future.

The Bible is correct about the Assyrians, the other sources do coraberate the Bible. You misunderstand me.
I don't attack the Bible. And neither did the historians and archaeologists. They just found sites which were mentioned in the Bible. They found that the way New Jerusalem was described (by the Jews) as the capital of the world fits rather to Ninive than to Jerusalem. And with objective way of critical stzdy of the Bible they realized that those parts of the Bible were written in times when Ninive was the capital of the world. It surely is an accident.

The Bible describes Assyrians as ruthless barbarians with no culture, however, Ninive and other assyrian cities which were excavated show they had rather high level of culture.
Most of political rivals throughout history are always described as ruthless and cruel barbarians, no matter how high their culture was. Of course that one-sided historical sources do such statements. But such one-sided sources are always proven wrong. And so it is and was with the Bible.

And you, as christian should know that Truth is something that is above human arguments.

I don't claim the Bible is all wrong. Some parts were proen to be right. It is masterpiece of literature, but the thing is that it is not 100% correct. It is word of men claiming to be God's word, as all contemporary sources

After Nabucadnessar II. captured Jerusalem he took the elities of the Jews to Babylonia primarily not to exterminate the nation but to profit from their knowledge. However the Bible states something else. There is an evidence that the Jews were feed by babylonian kings

PS: It's probably pointless, this debate.with with the way you are opened to other sources than the Bible I am sure it is

[Angryminer]

Elvain, would it be possible for you to give pointers towards your sources if they are available? Surely the discussion can only be about wether these sources are correct or not. There is no room for discussion between "I think the bible is correct" and "There are sources that say it isn't", thus we can only discuss the value of the sources.

Angryminer

[Elvain]

the sources are the Bible, the excavations of Ninive and other Mesopotamian cities and all what was found there.

Later I can give you citations of books of czech academic experts on Mesopotamian history and possibly mention their main historiographical sources.

At the same time, could you write here the passages what the Bible says about Assyrians and Babylonians?

but does theology respect academic critical method of research?

I'm affraid it is pointless to find sources because close-minded theologians will just say: Bible says it is different. No matter that you can even touch it is not. Go to the Louvre in Paris, go to Berlin's museums you will find how poor was the culture of barbarian Assyrians and Babylonians. You can touch it!
Or are these fake sculptures made by anti-biblists?
No, those are excavations made by good christians who just want to find the truth and are opened to something new.

If you show me one single proof of that all what was burried underground for thuosands of years is a lie while the bible which was many times re-writen in order to say what is good for one side, I will then respect it.