Historical Accuracy of the Bible

[d.n.irvin]

Thread summary.

To expand, the Bible refers to a six day creation of the universe, an "exodus" leaving no traces at all from two million people and their livestock for forty years, the sun standing still for some time, people vanishing into space, monumental buildings at sites where modern archaologists find nothing, prophesies about places bound to be destroyed but that have survived to modern days, the list is endless.
I'm curious as to how you form your beliefs? Truth Can Withstand Investigationan

Anyway you look at it, the Bible is not a history or science book. You're all welcome to find some spiritual or moral teachings from it, like the necessity of killing everybody who doesn't agree with you, or why eating shrimp is an abomination, but science or history -- not in any way.

BTWid you believe in Santa Clause as a child?

 

[doppelganger]

I'm not sure that 50 years constitutes "long after the fact" and, while many if not most feel that the Testimonium Flavianum is at least a partial interpolation, I believe that it is equally true that most view Antiquities 20.9.1 as substantially authentic.

Long enough that he could have picked up part of the story from a developing tradition. But in any case, the majority of scholars consider the TF to be likely interpolated at least in part.

As for the Antitquities 20.9.1 reference, the line about "brother of Jesus, who was called Christ" is also disputed among scholars. You can read a good summary of the scholars' differing viewpoints and arguments at Early Christian Writings.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Anyone else think that sounds an awful lot like existentialism?

Maybe. It depends on how I would define "existence before essence," and I haven't decided on that yet.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Long enough that he could have picked up part of the story from a developing tradition. But in any case, the majority of scholars consider the TF to be likely interpolated at least in part.

As for the Antitquities 20.9.1 reference, the line about "brother of Jesus, who was called Christ" is also disputed among scholars. You can read a good summary of the scholars' differing viewpoints and arguments at Early Christian Writings.

And a far better one in Whealey's Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times.

Again, I believe it true that most view Antiquities 20.9.1 as substantially authentic, and I provisionally agree with this consensus. And, if it is indeed substantially authentic, there seems little justification for presuming TF to be a complete fabrication.

 

[gnostic]

Truth is Fact - Facts are true

"Truth" does not always requires verification or proof for what they believe to be true, especially something like "religious truth". All that religious truth requires is "faith", so evidence or lack of evidence are ignored.

Fact, on the other hand, needs to be proven or disproven. For facts to be proven true, facts require evidence for verification.

How do you prove that was Garden of Eden? Or that Adam and other earlier patriarchs lived over 200 years? How do you prove that Moses parted the Red Sea? Or is that the Sea of Reeds?

How do you prove that Jesus was healed the sick and drove out demons? How do you prove the existence of demons? More importantly, where are proofs of Jesus' resurrection?

All we have written words in old books, but no evidences of any of these miraculous events taking place, except through belief and faith. The bible may be your "truth", but these are not facts when there are no evidences to prove them.

 

[anders]

I'm curious as to how you form your beliefs? Truth Can Withstand Investigationan

I look at facts. I study what more competent people have found out, and how they found their facts, and how they argue for their views.

BTWid you believe in Santa Clause as a child?

I even believed in (the Christian) God. "When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I Cor. xiii. 11.

 

[sojourner]

The Bible is not a factual document in many places. It is not intended to be history, but Geschichte. It is not intended to be a science textbook. It is not infallible. Never has been, never will be, no matter how hard one wishes it to be all those things. We have a pretty good idea just what constitutes the Bible, and idolizing it does not change what it is one iota.

Who propagates this garbage? Why must the Bible be factual and infallible in order to be inspired of God? Christians are inspired of God, and we certainly are not infallible. To depend upon the factual veracity of Biblical literature as the basis of one's faith is to miss the point of the faith entirely...and to miss the message that the literature provides.

 

[Overwrite]

Josephus

I think you'll find that this source was found to be a forgery hundreds of years ago.

 

[Quagmire]

I'm not sure that 50 years constitutes "long after the fact" and, while many if not most feel that the Testimonium Flavianum is at least a partial interpolation, I believe that it is equally true that most view Antiquities 20.9.1 as substantially authentic.

From what I've read the current scholastic devide is between those who veiw the TF as partial interpolation and those who consider it a complete forgery (which seems to have been the prevailing opinion even among Christian theologians from the late 16th cent until the 1800s when people got bored with talking about it).

As far as 20.9 is concerned, it may well be authentic but if you discard the identifier "called the Christ" as an interpolation (and there are good reasons to), and consider that "James" and "Jesus" were extremely common names at the time (for that matter Josephus ends this same paragraph by mentioning the appointment of another Jesus as the new high priest), there's really no reason to suppose that Josephus was talking about James the brother of Jesus of Nazerreth.

 

[logician]

Most scholars think the XIan bishop Eusabius was the source of the Josephus forgeries, written to try to make a little history that was not there of the Jesus myth that was created.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

From what I've read the current scholastic devide is between those who veiw the TF as partial interpolation and those who consider it a complete forgery (which seems to have been the prevailing opinion even among Christian theologians from the late 16th cent until the 1800s when people got bored with talking about it).

I would be interested in seeing that substantiated.

As far as 20.9 is concerned, it may well be authentic but if you discard the identifier "called the Christ" as an interpolation (and there are good reasons to), ...

Would you be willing to share some of them?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Most scholars think the XIan bishop Eusabius was the source of the Josephus forgeries, written to try to make a little history that was not there of the Jesus myth that was created.

Please support that nonsense.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Please support that nonsense.

For one thing, no sources before Eusebius have Josephus describing Jesus as "the Christ", along with the other mentions in the Testimonium that cast him as more than human.

Everything (or at least the important stuff to anyone looking for extra-Biblical evidence of a divine Jesus) just kind of "appears" for the first time with Eusebius.

While that's not direct evidence that he was the one who committed the forgery, it puts him on my list of top suspects.

Not sure about the "most scholars" part, though.

 

[Quagmire]

I would be interested in seeing that substantiated.

No probs Jay, although that would entail more work than I feel like doing on a friday night. I'll try to get to it sometime this weekend.

Would you be willing to share some of them?

Just off the top of my head (again, I'll try to go into more detail later on);

Josephus was meticulous about identifying the charactors he wrote about. Even if he was talking about someone he'd already went into detail about in a previoius book he would still give a recap for the sake of clarification.

Take Judas the Gallilean for example; Josephus meantions him at least 3 times in 3 different places and each time he gives at least a brief description of the man and his activities to bring the reader up to speed.

This was typical of Josephus. He never assumed that the reader had read anything he'd written previously or took it for granted that anyone would just automatically know anything about the person he was writting about (he even identifies the Roman emperors according to their order of succesion).

Something as obscure as "James, the brother of Jesus, called the Christ" wouldn't have meant anything to a Roman audience (his primary target audience) and he had no way of knowing it would mean anything at all to posterity.

Most Romans wouldn't even know what the word "Christ" was supposed to mean in this context.

Logically (IMO) if Josephus had bothered to mention Jesus at all, especially for the sake of identifying a charactor involved in the event he was recounting at that moment, he would have explained what the term "Christ" implied, and he would have specified who it was that was calling him "the Christ" (as it stands it gives the impression that "Jesus=Christ" was a universally recognisable connection, sort of like "Elvis=The King", which of course it would have been to a later christian interpolater)

 

[gnostic]

Josephus

Josephus was probably not even born, when Jesus was crucified. So Josephus is not contemporary of Jesus.

I am not sure it right or not, but from what I understand, Josephus had a lot of thing to say and write about Herod the Great, particularly when there is something bad to say about him, but there absolute no mention of Herod being involved in slaughter of children at the time of Jesus' birth in Matthew 2:16-18. You would think that Josephus would write something about that, considering how he write about his own son Antipater, when he paranoiacally suspected treachery, and how he had slaughtered his wife and her family. For that matter, Josephus make no mention of Jesus' miracle birth.

 

[d.n.irvin]

So Why doesn't anyone want to talk about or comment on the historical correctness of this Bible prophecy?

Afraid perhaps... truth to strong for some of you?

1260 Day Prophecy
check out post 75-79 in "Is Bible prophecy reliable?"
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55011&page=8

 

[Quagmire]

So Why doesn't anyone want to talk about or comment on the historical correctness of this Bible prophecy?

Afraid perhaps... truth to strong for some of you?

1260 Day Prophecy
check out post 75-79 in "Is Bible prophecy reliable?"
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55011&page=8

For the same reason we're not talking about tap dancing penguins; it's not the topic of this thread.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Josephus was probably not even born, when Jesus was crucified. So Josephus is not contemporary of Jesus.

Close enough.

 

[anders]

Close enough.

Josephus' exact time doesn't matter, because I find it obvious that the TF is a later insertion. To take one of the reasons:

Ant. XVIII.III.2 ends

... there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded; and thus an end was put to this sedition.

A disaster to the Jews. Cutting out the TF makes sense when continuing:

About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder; and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome

Now image 3, the TF, inserted. Reading 3-4 now states that Jesus appeared alive to "those who loved him" and that there still were Christians, and that this is "another sad calamity". Explain that!

 

[d.n.irvin]

For the same reason we're not talking about tap dancing penguins; it's not the topic of this thread.

Truth Can Withstand Investigation

Doesn't seem like any of you are interested in Truth, as it relates to the Bibles Historical accuracy. Especially since Bible prophecy is taking place as we speak.