Is the Bible historical fact or nonhistorical fiction? (myths, Revelations, Jerusalem)

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by ancient warrior

Many posts seem to be indirectly dealing with this question but don't attack the question headon.

Perhaps we can debate the answer on this thread.

For openers, I'd suggest that the Bible is a collection of folklore.

The problem with such a debate is that it's not possible, mainly because the Bible contains both historical fact and folklore.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but that's how it is. You can't take the whole book and stuff it into one category or the other.

[AREQUIPA]

Remarkable he extent to which many of the posters here (apart from one who answered a quite different qeustion) are on the same page. The Bible is a collection of many items serving various purposes, but essentially having a polemic funcion:

(1) OT. To show that the Jews are God's people and He is looking out for them even if their transgressions sometime means that He allows the Goyyim to give them trouble.

(2) NT, designed to prove that God has enlarged his Abrahamic promise to include the gentiles and Faith in Jesus is what will do it.

That said, and not accepted, they are both useful works in shedding light - even historical - on the ideas and history of the time much as Homer and even the tales of King Arthur may have a historical basis.

[ancient warrior]

Originally Posted by Mircea

Both.

Texts like Kings, Chronicles and Judges are largely historically accurate, although the might contain some embellishments.

Other texts are pure fiction or a corruption of other myths.

Creation is an excellent example. How many people understand the purpose of lighting a Yule Log, or hanging mistletoe and other things related to the holidays?

Few if any (everyone googling now).

Just 300 years ago the Puritans new the meanings behind those rituals, which is why the banned Christmas (and birthdays and numerous other celebrations).

So in just a few hundred years, with books and radio and TV and internet, everyone has forgotten.

And I mention that because Abrahm was born in Nibiru, the city English-speaking people call Nippur (exactly like how Mumbai is Bombay to English-speakers and Iasi is Jassy and Nürnberg is Nuremberg to English-speakers etc).

Terah was chief priest for Lord Ninurta and when a new administrative center was built in the city of Ur, Terah moved the family there to run the operations when Abrahm was about 10 years old.

The New Year was celebrated at the Spring Equinox. The year was 360 days and the celebration began on the 360th day. There were 5 intercalated days, and then New Year's day.

That's 7 Days.

In Sumerian/Akkadian Culture, which existed for thousands of years before Abrahm was born, the day began at sundown.

On the last day of the year, at sundown, Terah and Abrahm (who was training to take his father's place) would climb the steps of the ziggurat. A crowd of people would gather below and listen while Terah read from the 1st Tablet of the 7 Tablets of Creation.

Then on the second night (the 1st intercalated day) Terah and Abrahm would climb the ziggurat again and read from the 2nd Tablet of the 7 Tablets of Creation.

And that continued until New Year's Day, when they would climb the ziggurat and read the 7th Tablet from the 7 Tablets of Creation to the crowd below. Now, the 7th Tablet really wasn't about creation, it was about extolling the virtues Planets in the heavens.

Over time, people used to get dressed up and act out the parts just like Rocky Horror Picture Show. So it must have been fun.

Anyway, Abrahm left eventually and he brought the 7 Tablets of Creation with him, but over time the stories got cut down to just a few lines and the practice of reading them at New Years stopped and then 1,700 years later the whole thing is corrupted from a creation that took place over 4 Billion years to a creation that occurred in 6 physical days.

That's a good example of how myths got corrupted.

A lot of other claims made are not historically accurate either.

The Old Testament claims the Hebrews destroyed 16 cities during their Exodus march.

A christian archeaologist named Albright was tired of people questioning the bible so he thought he would be very clever and go find those 16 cities and prove once and for all that every word in the bible is true.

He failed.

He found 3 cities that were destroyed, but alas, there's no direct evidence that the Hebrews destroyed them (although for sure at least one looks really convincing).

Then to add insult to injury, he found 7 cities that were not destroyed and worse than that, three of those 7 weren't even inhabited at the time of the Exodus and it doesn't matter if you accept the late date or the early date of the Exodus.

Most embarrassingly, one of those cities that wasn't inhabited/destroyed was Jericho, so the story of Joshua walking around 7 times blowing his horn and the walls come falling down is pure fantasy and science-fiction.

He couldn't find the other 6 cities, but it doesn't matter, because he proved the Old Testament isn't completely historically accurate.

The genealogies are accurate to some extent too.

It was a Semitic custom to maintain genealogies and some historical information on clay tablets, usually to justify claims to an area of land, dominance over other clans or tribes, or legitimacy to rule. That is no different than in the recent era when rulers claimed “divine-right” or legitimacy through ancestors, altered texts to claim an historical right to rule or some kind of “manifest destiny” to lay claim to a region and so on.

Since clay tablets were not paginated (i.e. numbered), lines were repeated (catch-lines) to show continuity from one tablet to the next. The following is evidence that the first 36 chapters in Genesis were recorded on clay tablets:

1:1 God created the heavens and the earth.
2:4 When they were created

5:2 When they were created
6:10 Shem, Ham, and Japheth

10:1 Shem, Ham, and Japheth
10:32 After the Flood

11:10 After the Flood
11:26 Abram, Nahor, and Haran

11:27 Abram, Nahor, and Haran
25:12 Abraham’s son

25:19 Abraham’s son
36:1 Who is Edom

36:8 Who is Edom
36:9 Father Edom

36:43 Father Edom

I’ve taken the liberty of grouping the tablets by their catch-lines for the not-too-intelligent.

As you can see, there were about 8 original tablets ending with the lineage of Edom. These tablets no doubt formed En and contain separate source documents E1, E2 … En from which the main E source was compiled and edited sometime around 800 BCE or so, by someone living in Israel (i.e. the Kingdom of Israel).


So there you go, and of course that proves XX-moses didn't write the Pentateuch, although be might have written some of the tediously boring often funny laws.

I call him XX-moses because "moses" is not a name. It is part of a name. Normally it would be prefixed like Ptah-moses, Ra-mosis etc etc, so apparently some people found the name of XX-moses offensive and struck the name of the Egyptian deity.

RESPONSE:

Excellent. Do I find another history buff here?

[ancient warrior]

Originally Posted by Thomas R.

There are many books in the Bible. Some of them are poetry, some are historical, some are maybe like fables, and so forth.

My faith's view as I understand it is that the Bible has a human and divine author. Much of it is also allegorical so more about teaching a message than being a literal description of actual events past or future.

QUESTION:

How does your faith's view establish that the Bible had any divine authorship? Is this only held by faith alone?

[ancient warrior]

Originally Posted by Fred314X

The problem with such a debate is that it's not possible, mainly because the Bible contains both historical fact and folklore.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but that's how it is. You can't take the whole book and stuff it into one category or the other.

RESPONSE:

Yep. That's what folklore is.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by hljc

The answer is right there down at the local Church of Jesus Christ....

I think they got the wrong answer again.

[Miss Blue]

The bible is a whole library of literature containing fact, fiction, mythology, prose, poetry, songs, historical facts..If one reads the bible without believing it is "God breathed" or without the intent to criticize believers it can be rather interesting..Many Christians find comfort and peace of mind in a couple of the books.I like the Proverbs, because there is much wisdom there for everyday life..I also read the gospels because I do believe that Jesus existed and many of his teachings and words are found there..

[nimchimpsky]

I'd venture to guess it's a mix of historical fact and folklore. There's probably a grain of truth here and there, but then it got exaggerated for the purposes of storytelling over the years and then got written down to become what we now have as the Bible today.

[ancient warrior]

Originally Posted by Miss Blue

The bible is a whole library of literature containing fact, fiction, mythology, prose, poetry, songs, historical facts..If one reads the bible without believing it is "God breathed" or without the intent to criticize believers it can be rather interesting..Many Christians find comfort and peace of mind in a couple of the books.I like the Proverbs, because there is much wisdom there for everyday life..I also read the gospels because I do believe that Jesus existed and many of his teachings and words are found there..

RESPONSE:

Yes indeed. Once upon a time in a literature course the Bible, among other writings, was studied as just literature, with the understanding that we were not examining it's theology.

If you like Proverbs, have you explored Kahil Gilbran's The Prophet?
This isn't a religious writing, it's fictional, but still contains similar (inspirational?) material.

Kahlil Gibran The Complete Prophet Poems

[ancient warrior]

Originally Posted by nimchimpsky

I'd venture to guess it's a mix of historical fact and folklore. There's probably a grain of truth here and there, but then it got exaggerated for the purposes of storytelling over the years and then got written down to become what we now have as the Bible today.

RESPONSE:

Precisely! Folklore contains some historical fact. What is an interesting exercise is to try to separate the fact from the fiction (non-fact) in the Bible.

History buffs find this an interesting exercise.

Someone noted that the bible contains subjective writings which it presents as objective reporting. The trick is to separate the two.