Bible more reliable than other ancient books?

[Haruko]

I'm certain I must have read this claim before, but I didn't really pay attention to it until I read the Christian apologist book The Case For Christ (Lee Strobel) recently. And I was reminded by a much more recent example, when Cheekypunk, a Christian fundamentalist at my forum, submitted a reply in the "Gay marriage and adoption" thread at my forum including this bit:

If you read that article, you would see that the bible, in terms of what we have with us now, is very likely to be what was written at the time. Much more likely than any other ancient document that we have.

I'm sure you, on some degree, believe in other ancient documents, on 'faith'. And if you believe them, then there is even more reason to believe that what the bible says, is what was written.

After reading said book by Lee Strobel, I looked for the dissenter's response, so I checked out reviews of the book by Adam Lee of Daylight Atheism blog and Jeffery J. Lowder of The Secular Web, respectively. Though I read decent dissections of the book by both, I didn't get much of a treatment of this particular issue. I was wondering what your guys' thoughts are on this matter.

[Terralthra]

After following links to the actual article and reading it, it makes some rather blatant false claims. In essence, it uses the New Testament as a basis for examining the textual accuracy of our modern version, and then extends that to the Bible as a whole.

Read the fine print. Even the events of the NT took 50ish years to be written down at all, and it was another 150-200 years before we have even a fragmentary manuscript of them. It was another 100 years for a complete manuscript.

Now, compared to the Roman histories and so on he compares those to is valid enough for the NT, but to extend that comparison (as your forum poster does) to the events of the OT, including Moses, Noah, the creation of the world, etc., is blatantly wrong. If you were to add them to the chart, they'd be at the very bottom, with many thousands of years between the event and the earliest manuscript we have of them.

Trying to assert that the bibliographical evidence in favor of the NT's accuracy applies to the OT is bullshit, pure and simple.

Also, early in the article, he mentions C. Sander's Introduction in Research in English Literary History and the three tests to put a piece of literature to in order to determine its authenticity.

1. Bibliographical (i.e., the textual tradition from the original document to the copies and manuscripts of that document we possess today)
2. Internal evidence (what the document claims for itself)
3. External evidence (how the document squares or aligns itself with facts, dates, persons from its own contemporary world).

The article then goes on to discuss bibliographical evidence, then concludes that the texts are therefore accurate, without even attempting to test them under the 2nd and 3rd tests. Additionally, the author doesn't even discuss the Council of Nicaea and its affect on the accuracy of the current text of the Bible with regards to the excluded texts (including the majority of the Gospels).

In conclusion, his claim is 80% bullshit.

[Haruko]

Mm, actually, I was wrong: I should have said that the reviews address the matter well, but that I'm still interested in getting more input on it, particularly by the members here.

[Zixinus]

The Bible describes events and occasionally people that were real or verified by other non-Christian sources, according to my history teacher. But just because the bible has some truth in it, doesn't make it true on a whole.

[NecronLord]

The Bible describes events and occasionally people that were real or verified by other non-Christian sources, according to my history teacher. But just because the bible has some truth in it, doesn't make it true on a whole.

Correct. For example, Cyrus the Great lived, and it seems likely he did basically what the Bible says he did. We know this because we've found a proclamation by him saying he returned captives to their own lands, promoting religious toleration, abolishing slavery in his empire {and not long enough it was} and similar stunningly progressive things given that he lived two thousand five hundred years ago.

This doesn't mean that god wrote magically on the wall of the king of Babylon to tell him it was going to happen, or any of that stuff. The Cyrus Cylinder, a contemporary source, attributes the whole thing to Marduk for a start.

Nor does the bible broadly conforming to known points in history (Cyrus' capture of Babylon, Roman occupation of Judea, etc. etc.) mean it's accurate in details, or that all of its own 'original characters' are anything but fictions.

[PainRack]

Let's try this for size.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms novelisation is accurate on many historical incidents such as Cao Cao invasion of Wu, but does this mean that the depiction of Red Battle Cliff was accurate? Or that entirely fictional incidents, both supernatural and "normal" was not added? Its easy to dismiss Cao Cao death at the hands of ghosts as being fiction, but is it so easy to dismiss the fiction of Guan Yu riding through 3 passes and killing 6 generals?

Alternately, what about the broad popular interpretations such as Zhang Fei was hot-tempered and had no stragety, Guan Yu was a noble warrior, Zhao Yun is nobility incarnate and Zhuge Liang is a stragetic genius? In fact, the historical article San Guo Zhi or History of the Three Kingdoms is probably responsible for the propaganda surrounding Zhuge Liang, this despite a prominent military theorist of the Ming and Song period dismissing his so called genius.

Even the popular images of Zhang Fei as a dark black skinned fellow is probably due to operatic conventions than any historical evidence of him being dark skinned.

The impact a known FICTIONAL novel has on popular interpretations of history is already strong enough. Fiction passed off as religious truth possess more power to distort the truth. Cargo Cults, scientology, hell, the cannoisation of Sun Wukong, a known fictional character as becoming both a buddhist and taoist deity should be more than ample warning of taking the veracity of ancient documents as "fact".

[Androsphinx]

I never understood why the infalliability of, say, Kings was of such importance. But when it describes historical events it is generally treated with as much weight as other contemporary texts and records. For example, Sennacherib's army is described in Kings as being utterly destroyed by an angel whilst outside Jerusalem in a single night. Sennacherib's own account records that he sacked Lachish and othe Judean cities, but was paid off by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, accepted their tribute and left. It's not hard to see that both accounts describe the same event, which certainly took place. Here the most plausible explanation is not the Biblical one.

Similarly, in Mesha Stele, Chemosh, the god of Moab defeats the Israelites and forces them to withdraw. In the Bible YHWH defeats the Moabites, but the Israelites then withdraw because the King of Moab sacrifices his own son, whereupon divine wrath forces the Israelites to withdraw.

[Ted C]

It's my understanding that the Bible tends to be pretty good with generalities (where various groups of people lived, what they ate, what the laws were, etc.) but rather poor at specifics (whether a certain person lived in a certain place and accomplished a particular task).

This makes it pretty useful as an anthropological resource, but not so much as a historical one.

[General Zod]

It's my understanding that the Bible tends to be pretty good with generalities (where various groups of people lived, what they ate, what the laws were, etc.) but rather poor at specifics (whether a certain person lived in a certain place and accomplished a particular task).

This makes it pretty useful as an anthropological resource, but not so much as a historical one.

It doesn't even handle generalities too well. Take the Exodus. Where's the evidence that thousands of Jewish slaves marched across the desert until they found Israel? It's effectively non-existent outside of the Bible.

[Zixinus]

Where's the evidence that thousands of Jewish slaves marched across the desert until they found Israel? It's effectively non-existent outside of the Bible.

Then again, what is the impossibility of a slave uprising and wandering away from Egypt territory? Definitely not thousands, a few hundred at best, but even if it happened, what then? For all we know, groups of slaves constantly ran away from the rule of the Pharaoh, who couldn't care less how the slaves that will die under Ra's gaze in the wastelands.

We are talking about the Sahara desert here, one of the largest and meanest ones on the planet. Not exactly ideal archaeological conditions.

[Androsphinx]

We're actually talking about the Sinai desert, but it is pretty bad at preserving things for long periods of time. In any case, the Biblical narrative calls for 600,000 men (not counting women and children) being sustained for forty years, which (suprisingly enough) needs a constant series of miracles to provide food, water and the like. The problem is that no-one in the ANE wrote what we would call history- they wrote self-serving accounts of victories, moralistic stories and eitological myths.

Of course, even if one were to establish that every historical event (from Exodus on) actually happened, that no more justifies the Bible as a basis for religious faith than it would the editorial page of the NYT.

[General Zod]

Then again, what is the impossibility of a slave uprising and wandering away from Egypt territory? Definitely not thousands, a few hundred at best, but even if it happened, what then? For all we know, groups of slaves constantly ran away from the rule of the Pharaoh, who couldn't care less how the slaves that will die under Ra's gaze in the wastelands.

We are talking about the Sahara desert here, one of the largest and meanest ones on the planet. Not exactly ideal archaeological conditions.

So where's the records in Egyptian history? You'd figure such a prominent slave uprising would be recorded and mentioned elsewhere besides the Bible. A couple slaves here and there isn't comparable to the thousands mentioned in Biblical sources.

[Tsyroc]

We're actually talking about the Sinai desert, but it is pretty bad at preserving things for long periods of time. In any case, the Biblical narrative calls for 600,000 men (not counting women and children) being sustained for forty years, which (suprisingly enough) needs a constant series of miracles to provide food, water and the like. The problem is that no-one in the ANE wrote what we would call history- they wrote self-serving accounts of victories, moralistic stories and eitological myths.

Of course, even if one were to establish that every historical event (from Exodus on) actually happened, that no more justifies the Bible as a basis for religious faith than it would the editorial page of the NYT.

You ain't kidding about needing miracles to survive on the Sinai.

Here's a pic I took in 1990 of the Sinai side of the Suez canal.

[Androsphinx]

So where's the records in Egyptian history? You'd figure such a prominent slave uprising would be recorded and mentioned elsewhere besides the Bible. A couple slaves here and there isn't comparable to the thousands mentioned in Biblical sources.

My point was that people didn't write history. They to almost never wrote of their defeats, except to provide a positive spin, or for another agenda, or unless they were so overwhelming they couldn't be got rid of. Between that, and the fact that we have the smallest of fragments of ANE material, it's very hard to know about anything which isn't recorded in the official documents of one or other kingdom, which was then fortunate enough to survive. For example, the first mention of "Israel/Isrir" is around 1300 BC - about the time the chronology of the Bible gives for Exodus . The next one is about 850 BC (the Mesha Stele I mentioned before).

[General Zod]

My point was that people didn't write history. They to almost never wrote of their defeats, except to provide a positive spin, or for another agenda, or unless they were so overwhelming they couldn't be got rid of. Between that, and the fact that we have the smallest of fragments of ANE material, it's very hard to know about anything which isn't recorded in the official documents of one or other kingdom, which was then fortunate enough to survive. For example, the first mention of "Israel/Isrir" is around 1300 BC - about the time the chronology of the Bible gives for Exodus . The next one is about 850 BC (the Mesha Stele I mentioned before).

Clearly you don't know what you're talking about. There would be records of such a massive percentage of Egypt's workforce leaving somewhere besides the Bible. The Egyptians were fastidious record keepers and would have had to account for such a huge loss of labor and make records towards the ends of replacing them. Or do you think that such a massive migration wouldn't make a blip on their financial stability?

[Androsphinx]

Clearly you don't know what you're talking about. There would be records of such a massive percentage of Egypt's workforce leaving somewhere besides the Bible. The Egyptians were fastidious record keepers and would have had to account for such a huge loss of labor and make records towards the ends of replacing them. Or do you think that such a massive migration wouldn't make a blip on their financial stability?

I wasn't suggesting that the 2 million + people the Bible describes could have done that. But there's no reason why thousands, or even a few tens of thousands, could have left Egypt and travelled through the Sinai to Canaan. Indeed, it's hard (not impossible, just problematic) to imagine how such a core racial memory of slavery (not the sort of thing people usually remember and record for posterity) could have arisen without something of the kind. There are Egyptian records of various Canaanite tribes (from an earlier period) seeking refuge in the Nile Delta, so there was clearly traffic between the two areas.

As for the egyptians keeping records - it is well known that the Egyptians had a well-developed bureaucracy and kept many records. However, we have almost none of them. Papyrus doesn't keep very well for three thousand years, even in the desert. We have almost no written records from that time. For example, the names of the Pharoahs are recorded on a series of monuments put up by different pharoahs at different times - for the New Kingdom, we have three contradictory lists, and a fourth preserved by Manetho, a 3rd century BC historian (and even his work survives only in fragments).

I can't emphasise enough how ridiculous the idea of looking over the Egyptian budgets for the period 1350-1250 BC and trying to identify from economic patterns (or lack thereof) whether there was an Exodus is. Nothing like that exists on any level whatever.

[General Zod]

I wasn't suggesting that the 2 million + people the Bible describes could have done that. But there's no reason why thousands, or even a few tens of thousands, could have left Egypt and travelled through the Sinai to Canaan. Indeed, it's hard (not impossible, just problematic) to imagine how such a core racial memory of slavery (not the sort of thing people usually remember and record for posterity) could have arisen without something of the kind. There are Egyptian records of various Canaanite tribes (from an earlier period) seeking refuge in the Nile Delta, so there was clearly traffic between the two areas.

Perhaps it's well remembered because slavery was retardedly common back then. But there's no reason to believe that thousands of people traveled through a massive desert all at once in the first place without proof besides a dodgy collection of stories and questionable oral teachings. There's enough evidence that the Trojan War occurred outside of Homer's texts, and it was relatively small-time compared to something of this magnitude.

As for the egyptians keeping records - it is well known that the Egyptians had a well-developed bureaucracy and kept many records. However, we have almost none of them. Papyrus doesn't keep very well for three thousand years, even in the desert. We have almost no written records from that time. For example, the names of the Pharoahs are recorded on a series of monuments put up by different pharoahs at different times - for the New Kingdom, we have three contradictory lists, and a fourth preserved by Manetho, a 3rd century BC historian (and even his work survives only in fragments).

And yet the Bible is supposed to be accurate?

I can't emphasise enough how ridiculous the idea of looking over the Egyptian budgets for the period 1350-1250 BC and trying to identify from economic patterns (or lack thereof) whether there was an Exodus is. Nothing like that exists on any level whatever.

I can't emphasize enough how ridiculous the idea of looking over a collection of oral stories and mythologies for accurate historical knowledge is.

[Androsphinx]

Perhaps it's well remembered because slavery was retardedly common back then. But there's no reason to believe that thousands of people traveled through a massive desert all at once in the first place without proof besides a dodgy collection of stories and questionable oral teachings. There's enough evidence that the Trojan War occurred outside of Homer's texts, and it was relatively small-time compared to something of this magnitude.

I don't think I made myself quite clear before. The Biblical account describes millions of people - more than 600,000 men between the ages of 20 and 60. When you say "thousands" (not even the "tens of thousands" I mentioned before), you are describing an event three orders of magnitude below the Biblical account. To which are you referring? And you do realise that when you talk of "remembering", and suggest a reason why the Exodus might be remembered, you are in fact arguing against what you just said? Not to mention that, classically, the Greek force at Troy was a thousand ships - an army well in the tens of thousands.

And yet the Bible is supposed to be accurate?

I posted a little way up about how the Bible records events which occur elsewhere. I certainly never claimed the accuracy of the biblical account, I only said that there is no reason why some thousands could have left Egypt and left no trace for people looking 3500 years later. My point was that concrete historical records of any kind in Egypt are extremely limited, and show considerable evidence of both bias and tampering in the events and people they chose to record. A slave rebellion of some description would never have made the cut.

I can't emphasize enough how ridiculous the idea of looking over a collection of oral stories and mythologies for accurate historical knowledge is.

Do you have no idea how history works? There are no ANE newspapers, history books or documentaries. The only written evidence we have are the small fragments which archeologists find, and whichever texts survive. And all the texts are oral stories and mythologies. Manetho, whom I mentioned before, draws heavily on them. So does Herodotus, the first person we could begin to call a "historian".

Obviously, the accuracy improves the closer the composition is to the events it describes. The general academic consensus is that the earliest strands of the Pentateuch are about 9th century, give or take 100 years, and may contain a few earlier sources. They describe events which supposedly took place 4-500 years before that, and thus can hardly be regarded by historians as reliable for the details of the events they describe.

Kings, on the other hand, seems to be based on records of the kings of Judea/Samaria, and describes events which were more or less contemporaneous. Unsuprisingly, they tend to describe the same events as external sources, from a different perspective.

What we do know is that in the 13th century a bunch of new people show up on the archeological record, in a settlement pattern which indicates some sort of association between them, and a direction of migration from the south-west - that is, from Egypt. These people, and any number of other groups (the eitological narrative in Genesis speaks of twelve sons, remember?) ended up, by the late 9th century, with a written tradition of slavery and miraculous redemption from Egypt, which contains a number of details (travel itinery, names of cities and people) which indicate some knowledge of Egyptian history. Oh, and any number of Egyptian practices, including circumcision, phylactaries, shrine structure and cultic practices. In light of all this the suggestion that a small-scale wave of migration took place from Egypt, which formed the basis for the later narrative seems eminently logical.[/i][/quote]

[Zixinus]

So where's the records in Egyptian history? You'd figure such a prominent slave uprising would be recorded and mentioned elsewhere besides the Bible. A couple slaves here and there isn't comparable to the thousands mentioned in Biblical sources.

I question whether it was actually thousands. We are talking about mythological book as a history source here, exaggeration is not only possible but assured. I guess that in reality, if anything like this happened, it was a couple of hundreds at the very best. Probably less then that.

And I don't think that the Egyptians kept records on every occasional slave uprising or escapes. I am not particularly familiar with ancient Egyptian scholar work, but I'm pretty sure you will find some references to some slaves and even groups trying to run away. Either the iron grip of their lords, the Pharaoh of Ra made quick work of them, and nobody could care less if there were any survivors.

I can't emphasize enough how ridiculous the idea of looking over a collection of oral stories and mythologies for accurate historical knowledge is.

And I don't think anyone here is seriously thinking that the Bible is a accurate historical source. I think all that is being said, that a slave uprising that ended up going to the desert to escape the Egyptian army, is not impossible. Remember, legends and myths do have some basis to their stories, wrapped behind the several layers of poetic and storytelling wrapping.

And even if there were a group of escaped slaves that made it to Israel, what then? It's not impossible, if you know how to walk the dessert. Doesn't mean that it was some invisible deity that did it all.

[General Zod]

I question whether it was actually thousands. We are talking about mythological book as a history source here, exaggeration is not only possible but assured. I guess that in reality, if anything like this happened, it was a couple of hundreds at the very best. Probably less then that.

Or perhaps it never happened at all.

And I don't think that the Egyptians kept records on every occasional slave uprising or escapes. I am not particularly familiar with ancient Egyptian scholar work, but I'm pretty sure you will find some references to some slaves and even groups trying to run away. Either the iron grip of their lords, the Pharaoh of Ra made quick work of them, and nobody could care less if there were any survivors.

So there's no proof that it ever happened. Right.

And I don't think anyone here is seriously thinking that the Bible is a accurate historical source. I think all that is being said, that a slave uprising that ended up going to the desert to escape the Egyptian army, is not impossible. Remember, legends and myths do have some basis to their stories, wrapped behind the several layers of poetic and storytelling wrapping.

And even if there were a group of escaped slaves that made it to Israel, what then? It's not impossible, if you know how to walk the dessert. Doesn't mean that it was some invisible deity that did it all.

So where's the actual proof that it ever happened at all? The Trojan War was long thought to be a myth but there's still more proof to support it than the nonsense in Exodus.

[Ted C]

It's my understanding that the Bible tends to be pretty good with generalities (where various groups of people lived, what they ate, what the laws were, etc.) but rather poor at specifics (whether a certain person lived in a certain place and accomplished a particular task).

This makes it pretty useful as an anthropological resource, but not so much as a historical one.

It doesn't even handle generalities too well. Take the Exodus. Where's the evidence that thousands of Jewish slaves marched across the desert until they found Israel? It's effectively non-existent outside of the Bible.

True, true. Enslavement of the entire Hebrew population in Egypt has no archaelogical support, but that's one of those "historical" information points that isn't likely to be accurate, as opposed to a "cultural" information point (like the Babylon was a regional power, Asherah-worship was a significant rival religion in the area, etc.) of the sort that tends to be more reliable.

[Ted C]

So where's the records in Egyptian history? You'd figure such a prominent slave uprising would be recorded and mentioned elsewhere besides the Bible. A couple slaves here and there isn't comparable to the thousands mentioned in Biblical sources.

Naturally, Pharoah purged all records of the divine ass-kicking he received, don't you know?

[Androsphinx]

Put simply there are three lines of arguement:
1 - archeological evidence of a wave (or two) of migration into Canaan from the South-West during the 13th century (+/- 100 years)
2 - a strong - indeed core - oral tradition of a migration from Egypt, including details of egyptian life and the route between the two regions.
3 - a significant number of Israelite practices which appear to be Egyptian in origin.

It's clear that the early Israelites were a migrant population, not native to Canaan. From where did they migrate? From the geography of Canaan and the archeological record, there are only two options - from the SW (Egypt) or from the East (Mesopotamia). By far the larger school of thought holds by the first alternative.

On a side note, the OP was that the Bible should be considered to be -more- reliable than other ancient texts. I've taken the position that its historic sections should be treated -equally- to other sources of the period - a position which is not my own, but is - unsuprisingly - the position of almost all non-fundamentalist ANE scholars. You seem determined to advance the position that the Bible is somehow less reliable than other sources in a similar condition, and I don't know what you think that the basis for that is.

[General Zod]

Put simply there are three lines of arguement:
1 - archeological evidence of a wave (or two) of migration into Canaan from the South-West during the 13th century (+/- 100 years)
2 - a strong - indeed core - oral tradition of a migration from Egypt, including details of egyptian life and the route between the two regions.
3 - a significant number of Israelite practices which appear to be Egyptian in origin.p

There may very well have been waves of migration. But attempting to use the Bible as proof of a massive slave uprising and 40 year trek across the Sinai? Absurd.

On a side note, the OP was that the Bible should be considered to be -more- reliable than other ancient texts. I've taken the position that its historic sections should be treated -equally- to other sources of the period - a position which is not my own, but is - unsuprisingly - the position of almost all non-fundamentalist ANE scholars. You seem determined to advance the position that the Bible is somehow less reliable than other sources in a similar condition, and I don't know what you think that the basis for that is.

I'm not seeing any evidence as to why it should be treated as more reliable given all of its hilarious contradictions and inaccuracies. Did I mention the massive translation and retranslations along with the fact that most of its documents were written several hundred years after the events they described occurred by multiple people? Yeah, real reliable source there.

[Androsphinx]

There may very well have been waves of migration. But attempting to use the Bible as proof of a massive slave uprising and 40 year trek across the Sinai? Absurd.

No-one here did anything of the kind. That was the OP, once upon a time, but we were quickly sidetracked.

'm not seeing any evidence as to why it should be treated as more reliable given all of its hilarious contradictions and inaccuracies.

Again, no-one is arguing that is should be"more" reliable. Just that it's a historical source like other historical sources. The bits which describe contempory events are quite good, the bits which describe events hundreds of years ago - like any such texts. In fact often when there are contradictions, by identifying the shared elements we can detect earlier strata, divergences and which parts of the narrative are more authentic.

Did I mention the massive translation and retranslations along with the fact that most of its documents were written several hundred years after the events they described occurred by multiple people

Well, almost all the Bible is avaliable in the original languages - Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. And as I mentioned above, the multiple sources can assist us in looking for the more historical elements.