Is the Old Testament Historically Accurate?

[Kooky]

No, I don't know of any reason why Tacitus might have lied.

Tacitus was holding a political office during a time ruled by authoritarian tyrants and political instability.
It's a bit like asking whether a Soviet historian working under Stalin would have been comfortable writing nothing but the truth, in my humble opinion.

 

[sun rise]

Tacitus was holding a political office during a time ruled by authoritarian tyrants and political instability.
It's a bit like asking whether a Soviet historian working under Stalin would have been comfortable writing nothing but the truth, in my humble opinion.

Accuracy goes up when politics are not involved in the specific item being written about.

 

[Kooky]

Accuracy goes up when politics are not involved in the specific item being written about.

Politics have a habit of creeping into the most innocuous pieces of writing, and this becomes more pronounced the further we go back in history, as the people who are in the habit of writing things down become fewer and fewer in number, and tend to be more and more closely associated with the ruling classes of their respective cultures.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

No, I don't know of any reason why Tacitus might have lied.

Right...but there are inaccuracies in Tacitus.
Modern considerations of historical accuracy and rigour didn't exist in any real way 2000 years ago.

Please note, I'm not talking about his mention of Jesus, or anything controversial here. He confused Mark Antony and Octavias daughters, for example, both named Antonia. He claims complete impartiality, which is basically impossible, yet is quite scathing of Tiberius. And I'd still hold him up as one of the better examples of historians we have access to from ancient (and even later) times.

Many other historians were blending myth with fact, deliberately aggrandizing leaders, accomplishments, peoples, etc.

I wouldn't hold up a factual error in the Bible as proof the Bible is 'wrong', is my point.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Accuracy goes up when politics are not involved in the specific item being written about.

Yes...but there were lots of influencing factors. Even down to how basic factual information was gathered and recorded.

 

[Brian2]

So there cannot be any error whatsoever in any statement on its 1000-odd pages, and if there is then literally everything in the Bible is only lies and nothing but lies?

That's an incredibly defeatist approach to both faith and historical accuracy, if I may say so.

There are discrepancies between different versions of the same events and mostly they can be easily explained.
The attacks on the Biblical historicity go deeper than that however and ends up dismissing the accuracy of whole sections of the Bible and the legitimacy of Judaism and Christianity.

 

[Brian2]

Tacitus was holding a political office during a time ruled by authoritarian tyrants and political instability.
It's a bit like asking whether a Soviet historian working under Stalin would have been comfortable writing nothing but the truth, in my humble opinion.

Has this got anything to do with whether Tacitus lied when he was speaking of Christian persecution under Nero and Jesus death under Pontius Pilate?

 

[Brian2]

Right...but there are inaccuracies in Tacitus.
Modern considerations of historical accuracy and rigour didn't exist in any real way 2000 years ago.

Please note, I'm not talking about his mention of Jesus, or anything controversial here. He confused Mark Antony and Octavias daughters, for example, both named Antonia. He claims complete impartiality, which is basically impossible, yet is quite scathing of Tiberius. And I'd still hold him up as one of the better examples of historians we have access to from ancient (and even later) times.

Many other historians were blending myth with fact, deliberately aggrandizing leaders, accomplishments, peoples, etc.

I wouldn't hold up a factual error in the Bible as proof the Bible is 'wrong', is my point.

I did think you were talking about when Tacitus wrote about Jesus.
I wouldn't hold up a factual error in the Bible as proof that the Bible is wrong either. When it comes to Biblical historical accuracy however, at this point in time modern scholarship has attacked many parts of the Bible and their accuracy and authorship and time of their having been written.

 

[Kooky]

Has this got anything to do with whether Tacitus lied when he was speaking of Christian persecution under Nero and Jesus death under Pontius Pilate?

I'm pretty sure Tacitus never makes a definite statement regarding the existence of Jesus even once, and I think he only ever mentions Nero's persecution of Christians in passing, if at all.

Tacitus' boss Titus, on the other hand, was the guy who sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Herodean Temple.

 

[metis]

It's quite a long piece but a good read. I've excerpted parts below.The headline is click bait but the discussion to me is useful. I've noted how translation can cause issues where "tents" in Hebrew was translated as "homes" - a big big difference as it turns out. The real headline is

An Archaeological Dig Reignites the Debate Over the Old Testament’s Historical Accuracy

The site had already been conclusively dated by an earlier expedition that had uncovered the ruins of a temple dedicated to an Egyptian goddess, linking the site to the empire of the pharaohs, the great power to the south.
...
the dig at the Faynan copper mines, which were also active around 1000 B.C., was already producing evidence for an organized Edomite kingdom, such as advanced metallurgical tools and debris. At Timna, too, the sophistication of the people was obvious, in the remains of intense industry that can still be seen strewn around Slaves’ Hill: the tons of slag, the sherds of ceramic smelting furnaces and the tuyères, discarded clay nozzles of the leather bellows, which the smelter, on his knees, would have pumped to fuel the flames. These relics are 3,000 years old,
...
Having started out interested in paleomagnetism, Ben-Yosef stumbled into the emotionally charged field of biblical archaeology. His academic position was at Tel Aviv University, the bastion of the critical approach whose adherents are skeptical of the Bible’s historical accuracy. (On the other side, in this simplified breakdown, are the “conservatives” or “maximalists” associated with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who claim to have identified grand structures from the time of the united Israelite monarchy, supporting the biblical narrative.)
...
Their mining operation, in Ben-Yosef’s interpretation, reveals the workings of an advanced society, despite the absence of permanent structures. That’s a significant conclusion in itself, but it becomes even more significant in biblical archaeology, because if that’s true of Edom, it can also be true of the united monarchy of Israel. Biblical skeptics point out that there are no significant structures corresponding to the time in question. But one plausible explanation could be that most Israelites simply lived in tents, because they were a nation of nomads. In fact, that is how the Bible describes them—as a tribal alliance moving out of the desert and into the land of Canaan, settling down only over time. (This is sometimes obscured in Bible translations. In the Book of Kings, for example, after the Israelites celebrated Solomon’s dedication of the Jerusalem Temple, some English versions record that they “went to their homes, joyful and glad.” What the Hebrew actually says is they went to their “tents.”)

Undoubtedly some is and some isn't, but trying to figure out which is which with any given narrative is quite a bugger.

 

[Brian2]

I'm pretty sure Tacitus never makes a definite statement regarding the existence of Jesus even once, and I think he only ever mentions Nero's persecution of Christians in passing, if at all.

Tacitus' boss Titus, on the other hand, was the guy who sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Herodean Temple.

Isn't mentioning Jesus and His death under Pontius Pilate as good as acknowledging the existence of Jesus?
It would be very suspicious indeed if Tacitus had made a point of saying that Jesus existed.
If people want to say that Jesus did not exist then the history we have of Jesus means nothing to them.

 

[Kooky]

Isn't mentioning Jesus and His death under Pontius Pilate as good as acknowledging the existence of Jesus?

Not as far as I can tell. IIRC, he refers to what Christian say about Jesus, but never makes a definite statement whether he believes them, nor gives evidence why he would. It is safe to say that Christians were strongly believed in Jesus, without assuming that literally everything they write about him in their sacred scriptures is necessarily true, in the same way we can, say, talk about Mithras and people's beliefs in him without assuming that he was a historical figure that factually existed.

With that said, Jesus Christ is hardly the only prophet/messiah of pre-industrial times whose historicity is dubious, despite the obvious fact of his cult. Pythagoras for example was a quasi-mythical figure to a similar degree, and yet we can without doubt say that his teachings formed a robust secret society that had lasting and noticeable effects on a number of people, such as Plato and Aristotle.

If people want to say that Jesus did not exist then the history we have of Jesus means nothing to them.

As far as I can tell, outside of the Bible, we have no history of Jesus. We have various collections of third hand claims (Tacitus, Josephus), and that's about it.

 

[Brian2]

Not as far as I can tell. IIRC, he refers to what Christian say about Jesus, but never makes a definite statement whether he believes them, nor gives evidence why he would. It is safe to say that Christians were strongly believed in Jesus, without assuming that literally everything they write about him in their sacred scriptures is necessarily true, in the same way we can, say, talk about Mithras and people's beliefs in him without assuming that he was a historical figure that factually existed.

With that said, Jesus Christ is hardly the only prophet/messiah of pre-industrial times whose historicity is dubious, despite the obvious fact of his cult. Pythagoras for example was a quasi-mythical figure to a similar degree, and yet we can without doubt say that his teachings formed a robust secret society that had lasting and noticeable effects on a number of people, such as Plato and Aristotle.


As far as I can tell, outside of the Bible, we have no history of Jesus. We have various collections of third hand claims (Tacitus, Josephus), and that's about it.

History is a collection of usually third hand accounts of events and people. With Jesus we also have documents which purport to be first hand on some things and closer than most history on other things.
Tacitus and Josephus may be the main extra Biblical sources for Jesus but there are certainly others and most historians accept the historicity of Jesus.
Sources for the historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia
I like the Jewish mentions of Jesus and how they don't claim that He did not exist.
When it comes to the Bible, I see all the New Testament as witness to the existence of Jesus and even though Paul may not have seen Jesus (unknown) it would most certainly be a very stupid man who started to be a disciple of someone whom he knew did not exist. So the Jewish story was not that Jesus did not exist, but that He was a heretic.
We are talking about people (disciples) who lived close to the events and not about people who knew of Jesus as Mithraites may have know of Mithra, from stories only.
The historicity of Jesus is certainly better than that of others in Ancient history whose existence we do not question.

 

[muhammad_isa]

The historicity of Jesus is certainly better than that of others in Ancient history whose existence we do not question.

Of course it is.
The only reason that I can see for people claiming he probably didn't exist, is so their souls can deny the message that he was sent with.
They then don't even have to argue about anything he might have been reported to have said.

 

[Brian2]

Of course it is.
The only reason that I can see for people claiming he probably didn't exist, is so their souls can deny the message that he was sent with.
They then don't even have to argue about anything he might have been reported to have said.

Well it's a good way to get rid of the problem.
Muhammad also got rid of the gospel message by denying history and claiming that Jesus was not killed on the cross. The gospel message is not there without that death and without the death there is no resurrection either.

 

[muhammad_isa]

The gospel message is not there without that death and without the death there is no resurrection either.

That is not true.
The 3 synoptic Gospels are reports of what Jesus actually said.
That is the message of the Gospel.
If you mean that the Christology agenda of the NT canon is not there .. that is obviously true.

The Gospel of John was included for its Christology. It's author asserts philosophical opinions in much of it.
We get the phrase "an honest John", from the fact that the gospel keeps on telling us "it speaks the truth" etc.

 

[Kooky]

History is a collection of usually third hand accounts of events and people.

Well, no. History is made up of a wide variety of sources - literary and material, fictional and factual, primary, secondary and tertiary. The reason why so much of ancient history reads like a list of kings and rulers is because these people are typically those whose existence is most firmly attested in primary, secondary and tertiary sources:

For example, we know for a fact that Gaius Iulius Caesar existed because we have not only contemporary second hand records from friends, rivals and enemies, but also coins minted in his name, records of some his speeches, and official Roman records noting his consular reigns, and so on.

This is one major reason why historians struggle with prominent figures who came from relative obscurity, as they are generally not considered important enough to record by the elites who would be the primary source of literary sources in history. This is compounded when we look at religious figures like Jesus, Mani or Pythagoras, because then we may have secondary sources of their existence, but they tend to come almost exclusively from inside the religious movements they founded, and therefore have a vested interest in not only making the facts surrounding their supposed founders conform to a narrative that fits their place in that religious movement, but to also omit or even outright expunge any facts that do not.

With Jesus we also have documents which purport to be first hand on some things and closer than most history on other things.
Tacitus and Josephus may be the main extra Biblical sources for Jesus but there are certainly others and most historians accept the historicity of Jesus.
Sources for the historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia
I like the Jewish mentions of Jesus and how they don't claim that He did not exist.
When it comes to the Bible, I see all the New Testament as witness to the existence of Jesus and even though Paul may not have seen Jesus (unknown) it would most certainly be a very stupid man who started to be a disciple of someone whom he knew did not exist. So the Jewish story was not that Jesus did not exist, but that He was a heretic.
We are talking about people (disciples) who lived close to the events and not about people who knew of Jesus as Mithraites may have know of Mithra, from stories only.
The historicity of Jesus is certainly better than that of others in Ancient history whose existence we do not question.

Nobody who wrote down anything about Jesus of Nazareth - the historical figure, not the divine entity - was contemporaneous to him. All writings we have about him not only post-date his death by at least 20-30 years (as in the case of Mark's gospel) or more (as in the case of everybody else), but they are exclusively written by the members of the religious community he allegedly founded, and so are inherently biased towards a certain narrative.

I agree with your argument that there are many other historical figures of whom we know just as little as Jesus, and I also agree that, much like Pythagoras, he was likely a historical figure that factually existed. But anything beyond that is going to be conjecture.

 

[Twilight Hue]

The old Testament obviously has some real names and places like many titles of fiction has, but the accounts are certainly not true or at best incredibly distorted.

 

[Brian2]

That is not true.
The 3 synoptic Gospels are reports of what Jesus actually said.
That is the message of the Gospel.
If you mean that the Christology agenda of the NT canon is not there .. that is obviously true.

The Gospel of John was included for its Christology. It's author asserts philosophical opinions in much of it.
We get the phrase "an honest John", from the fact that the gospel keeps on telling us "it speaks the truth" etc.

I believe the gospel of John was included because people knew John and that he was there when Jesus spoke and lived.
But I was not speaking about the Christology of the NT canon, I was speaking about the death of Jesus as an atonement for sin, which we can get through faith in Jesus.
No death, no atonement.

 

[Brian2]

I agree with your argument that there are many other historical figures of whom we know just as little as Jesus, and I also agree that, much like Pythagoras, he was likely a historical figure that factually existed. But anything beyond that is going to be conjecture.

If you say that the writings in the New Testament are from within Christianity so they are therefore distorted and lying about things, then anything beyond Jesus existence is unknown.