What is the Bible, exactly? I believe that this is the question that MUST be answered before we ever attempt to tackle the problem of "historical reflection."
In all of my discussions I try to help people understand that the Bible is the story of God's interaction with humanity, starting with the first humans, moving through Israel, and then the whole world. My understanding of the Bible is this: "The Bible is the story of the lengths that God is willing to go to in order to redeem his people." Pretty simple, yet so complex.
The Bible really serves three functions:
1. History
2. Literature
3. Theology
The Bible always works from those perspectives, BUT not all three have to be present at any given time. The section being read could be literature and theology, but not history. (Song of Solomon, anyone?) The story can be historical and theological, but not very literary. (The first few chapters of Numbers or the book of Ezra comes to mind.) The important thing to remember is this: No matter what the story concerns, its ultimate goal is to present a theology of Go.
The Bible finds various individuals wrestling to come to grips with a God they don't understand and cannot control. The Bible simply outlines the best they can do. Habakkuk's discussion/prophecy is a good example of this. Habakkuk is a prophet, wrestling to understand a message that he doesn't like. He calls God on the carpet and tells him to answer his questions, because the world doesn't seem fair and nothing seems to be going the way it should. The ultimate message is this: you cannot always understand my ways, you simply have to trust that it will all work out in the end.
The Bible deals primarily with theology: Who is God? What is he doing? What is he calling us to do/be? Can we trust in his ways? The Bible displays raw emotion in this search.
Theology is the primary function of the Bible. History and literature form the secondary functions of the Bible. Thus, the Bible is NOT written as history for history's sake. The Bible can even deviate from history in small ways in order to make its point. (For example, many of the narratives in the Gospels are taken in different sequential orders; i.e. the anointing of Jesus before the Triumphal Entry in John vs. the anointing AFTER the Triumphal Entry in the Synoptics.)
I think the problems we encounter in academia is when we try to make the Bible something it isn't. Those of us in the Western world approach the Bible from our own cultural understanding, not realizing (or caring) that the Gospels are written from a different time and place. No matter how hard we try, we will always be saddled with our Western contextual understandings. Thus, we always approach the Bible with some bias, even an unintentional one, and it colors the way we see the text.
The Bible was never meant to be a science book, so toss that understanding out the window completely. It wasn't even written to be a history book, at least not history from our understanding. Rather, it is the history of Israel's (and the world's) interaction with God. This is the purpose that it serves. It teaches us who God is and what he has done so that we can realize what God can (and will) do in our lives.
What are your thoughts?
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Biblical History?
Two of the most important questions in the study of history are:
1. What historical sources are accurate?
2. How do we determine the historical accuracy of each source?
This question is used to determine whether or not a source is useful for determining the actual events of the past. All sources are inherently biased in some fashion, because history is always written from a specific point of view. The question a historian wants to ascertain is whether or not the source is useful for examining the past.
I am always intrigued, however, that Biblical scholars systematically reject the historical accuracy of the Bible offhand. Every detail is open to argument and speculation:
David never existed (and any reference to David, i.e. the Tell Dan inscription) must be a forgery or the result of the Davidic myth of Israel
The Israelites were not a pastoral society that broke away from Egypt and moved north, conquering Canaan; instead, they were Canaanites who moved from the coast into the interior. Everything else written about them is a myth used to promulgate the “Davidic” monarchy.
The people of Israel were never absolute followers of YHWH; they followed dozens of other gods and didn’t become strict monotheists until after the Exile, although some scholars argue that THAT event never happened either. (Actually, even the Bible supports the fact that Israel wasn’t very good at monotheism!)
The timing of Jesus’ birth is simply off; astrological events from 7BC, random events from 6-4BC, Herod never kills baby boys in Bethlehem; etc.
The Biblical “Historians” are minimalists; they don’t believe much of it ever happened. They believe you can trust the most basic facts: there are a people called Israel living in Canaan who thought that they were chosen by God and placed in a specific location. And… well, that’s about it. Biblical historians take more of the NT at face value, but they negate any possible ideas of miraculous works, strange events, or the resurrection. Jesus was simply a great rabbinic teacher who taught that the tenets of Judaism were being misapplied. Everything else was made up by the disciples.
The problem is, no one else tries this with other teachings. No one attacks the Quran from an historical point of view; they don’t doubt Mohammed’s existence, even if they doubt things written in it. No one attacks the Buddhist writings for their historical accuracy; they don’t argue that Sidharta Guatama once existed. As for other historical writings: No one doubts the overall accuracy of Julius Caesar’s Gaelic Wars, the writings of Suetonius, the histories of Egypt. No one thinks that Plato never lied, even though he never wrote for himself, his teachings were simply passed down through Socrates and Aristotle. Although we might dispute numbers and smaller events from their statements, we never dismiss them offhandedly or question the authenticity of the individuals they are describing. Even in those religious books we don’t agree with!
Yet this is systematically done to Christianity and the Bible. Even biblical “scholars” like John Dominic Crossan, Michael Borg, Bart Ehrman, etc, argue that the events in the bible are not meant to be taken literally or even historically. Instead, they form a parabolic sequence that describes the growth of Christianity (and Judaism). In The Birth Narrative, Crossan and Borg’s most recent book together, they deny the authenticity of either biblical account of the birth of Jesus. They dismiss not only the virgin birth, but the accounts of Jesus in Bethlehem, the shepherds, the star, the stable, the presence of Joseph… You name it, they discount it.
Where do we start, in a world that sees supposed “biblical” scholars discount the very thing they chose to study?
1. What historical sources are accurate?
2. How do we determine the historical accuracy of each source?
This question is used to determine whether or not a source is useful for determining the actual events of the past. All sources are inherently biased in some fashion, because history is always written from a specific point of view. The question a historian wants to ascertain is whether or not the source is useful for examining the past.
I am always intrigued, however, that Biblical scholars systematically reject the historical accuracy of the Bible offhand. Every detail is open to argument and speculation:
David never existed (and any reference to David, i.e. the Tell Dan inscription) must be a forgery or the result of the Davidic myth of Israel
The Israelites were not a pastoral society that broke away from Egypt and moved north, conquering Canaan; instead, they were Canaanites who moved from the coast into the interior. Everything else written about them is a myth used to promulgate the “Davidic” monarchy.
The people of Israel were never absolute followers of YHWH; they followed dozens of other gods and didn’t become strict monotheists until after the Exile, although some scholars argue that THAT event never happened either. (Actually, even the Bible supports the fact that Israel wasn’t very good at monotheism!)
The timing of Jesus’ birth is simply off; astrological events from 7BC, random events from 6-4BC, Herod never kills baby boys in Bethlehem; etc.
The Biblical “Historians” are minimalists; they don’t believe much of it ever happened. They believe you can trust the most basic facts: there are a people called Israel living in Canaan who thought that they were chosen by God and placed in a specific location. And… well, that’s about it. Biblical historians take more of the NT at face value, but they negate any possible ideas of miraculous works, strange events, or the resurrection. Jesus was simply a great rabbinic teacher who taught that the tenets of Judaism were being misapplied. Everything else was made up by the disciples.
The problem is, no one else tries this with other teachings. No one attacks the Quran from an historical point of view; they don’t doubt Mohammed’s existence, even if they doubt things written in it. No one attacks the Buddhist writings for their historical accuracy; they don’t argue that Sidharta Guatama once existed. As for other historical writings: No one doubts the overall accuracy of Julius Caesar’s Gaelic Wars, the writings of Suetonius, the histories of Egypt. No one thinks that Plato never lied, even though he never wrote for himself, his teachings were simply passed down through Socrates and Aristotle. Although we might dispute numbers and smaller events from their statements, we never dismiss them offhandedly or question the authenticity of the individuals they are describing. Even in those religious books we don’t agree with!
Yet this is systematically done to Christianity and the Bible. Even biblical “scholars” like John Dominic Crossan, Michael Borg, Bart Ehrman, etc, argue that the events in the bible are not meant to be taken literally or even historically. Instead, they form a parabolic sequence that describes the growth of Christianity (and Judaism). In The Birth Narrative, Crossan and Borg’s most recent book together, they deny the authenticity of either biblical account of the birth of Jesus. They dismiss not only the virgin birth, but the accounts of Jesus in Bethlehem, the shepherds, the star, the stable, the presence of Joseph… You name it, they discount it.
Where do we start, in a world that sees supposed “biblical” scholars discount the very thing they chose to study?
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