Chapter 3 of Provan, Long, and Longman’s book, A Biblical History of Israel, is entitled “Knowing about the History of Israel.” In this chapter, Provan focuses on four reasons why some modern biblical scholars reject the notion that the Old Testament is actually conveying real history at all. He begins by reemphasizing from chapter 2 how the field of modern biblical studies has been “forged in the fires of the nineteenth-century scientific worldview” (60). Because of this, because many modern biblical scholars have been brought up in that positivistic approach to history, they simply have never taken the time to critically reflect on the validity of that approach. They just blindly believe it and accept it as dogma.
The main feature of that methodological dogma is the practice of looking to extra-biblical sources over and against the biblical testimony in order to reconstruct a supposedly “scientific” history of Israel, in contrast to the biblical history of Israel, which is held in suspicion from the start. The problem with such an approach should be obvious. The fact of the matter is that the written testimony of past events (be it for biblical history or any other kind of history) is the primary way we are able to know anything about history. Without the written texts, there simply is no historical framework in which to begin to understand things like archeological evidence.
Now, Provan points out that the irony of this hyper-skepticism of the historicity of the Old Testament texts on the part of many scholars is that, as Meir Sternberg puts it, the very concept of actual “history writing” was essentially invented by the Jews. He writes, “Alone among Orientals and Greeks, it [biblical literature] addresses a people defined in terms of their past and commanded to keep its memory alive…a people ‘more obsessed with history than any other nation that has ever existed’ …[who] ‘stand along among the people of the ancient world in having the story of their beginnings and their primitive state as clear as this in their folk-memory’” (62).
Given the reality of ancient Israel’s “obsession with history,” it truly is astounding to find many scholars today just unthinkingly spouting that tired 19th-century dogma that the writers of the Old Testament weren’t interested in conveying history. How on earth can they justify such a conclusion? Well, Provan notes four reasons.
Reason #1: The Verification Principle
Simply put, the verification principle says that a story in the Bible will be assumed to be unhistorical unless there can be found some sort of extrabiblical evidence to corroborate it. The problem with this is that scholars use the verification principle selectively and arbitrarily. If the text in question is a biblical text, then the verification principle is evoked at every turn; but if the text in question is any other historical text, it is hardly used at all. As Provan correctly states, if the verification principle was applied consistently across the board, we wouldn’t know anything about most history. For example, we only know that Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55-54 BC because he wrote about it. If we applied the verification principle to Julius Caesar’s writings, we’d have to conclude his invasion of Britain never happened.
Of course, to do so would be silly. Yet for some reason, this is exactly the way many scholars treat the biblical text. So when Provan asks, “Why should verification of any testimony concerning the past be a prerequisite for our acceptance of that testimony as valuable in respect of historical reality?” (68-69), the answer is obvious, it really isn’t a prerequisite for most historical texts, just the biblical texts. And that is quite silly indeed.
Instead of the verification principle, Provan says scholars should employ a falsification principle that begins with the assumption that a story in the Bible that purports to be historical actually is historical unless there is found some extrabiblical evidence that proves it false. That doesn’t mean that we need to assume the text is a veritable news account; but it does mean we should assume that it is relating real historical events in some way.
Reason #2: The Biblical Texts Were Written Much Later
The 2nd reason why some scholars reject much of the biblical text as historical is that much of it was written at a later time than when the supposed events actually happened (as John Locke said, “any testimony, the further off it is from the original truth, the less force and proof it has…the more hands the tradition has successively passed through, the less strength and evidence does it receive from them”). Provan pushes back on this assumption by discussing testimonial chains and oral tradition in the ancient world.
To the point, the later biblical texts claim to be collections from early material, some written and some oral. Provan points out that since literacy and writing was not widespread in the ancient world, the oral tradition in those societies was strongly institutionalized to the point where specific people were given the responsibility being “the custodians of the past.” And since the stories were repeated in social and communal settings, that meant everyone listening knew the stories well. If the “selected custodian” made a significant mistake, there was an entire community of people who would readily correct him. For that reason, Provan says, the oral tradition of an ancient society is actually more historically reliable than an individual written account.
In any case, Genesis-Kings was written down roughly between 600-400 BC, at a much later time than the events themselves. That does not mean, though, that those books were created out of whole cloth during that time. Far from it. Provan argues that Genesis-Kings drew upon earlier pre-exilic source material. Hence, it isn’t so much that Genesis-Kings was written between 600-400 BC, as it was compiled, edited, and shaped between 600-400 BC. Provan shows that the campaign descriptions in Joshua 1-11 parallels the style and writing of Thutmose III’s annals from the 15th century BC. He also shows that the account of King Solomon in I Kings 2-11 “matches the Assyrian royal ideals of the 11th-9th centuries but not thereafter.” Thus, it is the style of writing we’d expect if Solomon did indeed live around that time. Finally, Provan argues that the entire account of King Saul’s rise to power may be “partially patterned on an old ritual ceremony for the instillation of the king.”
Furthermore, Provan discusses some recent archeological evidence that testifies to the history of ancient Israel: (A) The Tel Dan Inscription, dated to the 9th century BC, that attests to a Davidic dynasty; (B) Bones from Nile fish and clay bullae whose reverse sides bear the imprint of papyrus that is used to seal letters, thus showing commercial links between Jerusalem and the coast of Philistia, and the use of extensive writing; and (C) The oldest Hebrew inscription in Jerusalem made by scribes in Jerusalem during the second half of the 10th century BC.
The upshot of all this should be clear: “There is every indication, then, that our postexilic authors (or better, editors) had access to already relatively fixed written and/or oral tradition as represented in Genesis-Kings, as well as to other resources” (76). Sure, the texts we have were compiled at a later date, but they were working from earlier sources that were providing testimonial accounts to the historical events in question.
Reason #3: The Biblical Texts are “Ideologically Loaded”
Ever since the Enlightenment, the prevailing assumption was that scholars should practice rigorous skepticism toward any text that is deemed to be delivering a “religious message.” Provan pushes back on this assumption by arguing that no account of the past is free of ideology. Therefore, it is wrong to assume off the bat that an ideological account cannot also be historically accurate.
Take for example the Assyrian annals of their kings. Scholars routinely use them to substantiate the veracity of the biblical texts, as if the Assyrian annals were “objective history.” But Provan points out that the Assyrian annals are clearly “works of literary art with a political and religious focus,” in which the royal scribes were more concerned with the image of the king they were with “objectively” recording the facts of his reign. Thus, “failures are omitted, successes emphasized, and the whole account is artistically slanted to the point that a careless reader who did not understand their genre and style could be seriously misled about the historical reality to which they seek to refer” (89). Does that mean we should completely discount the Assyrian annals as relating real history? Of course not. It just means we have to be aware that they are relating real history with an agenda in mind. The same goes for the biblical texts.
Provan’s point is simple: “We are only and ever dealing with selective and ideologically focused texts. All historiography is like this. It is written by people possessing both a general worldview and a particular point of view that they bring to bear on reality, seeking selectively to organize the facts of the past into some coherent pattern and in respect of some particular end” (91).
As a side note, Provan also addresses the assumption that archeology is some sort of scientific method that is free of ideology. Not so, says Provan: “All archeologists tell stories about the past that are just as ideologically loaded as any other historical narrative and are certainly not simply a neutral recounting of the facts” (85). Hershel Shanks puts it best when he says, “Good scholars, honest scholars, will continue to differ about the interpretation of archeological remains simply because archeology is not a science. It is an art. And sometimes it is not even a very good art” (85).
Reason #4: Since the Biblical Texts Talk About Miracles, They Can’t be History
This reason crystalizes the positivist approach to history, in that it rejects any claims that do not conform to what modern children of the Enlightenment consider to be “normal human experience.” Of course, that brings us to a basic question, “Normal to whom?” How can a 21st century European or American ascertain what is “normal and common human experience” for the entirety of humanity throughout history?
Being a modern, Enlightenment-influenced person myself, I’ll admit that I always was a bit skeptical of claims of healings and miracles. A few years ago, though, I read Craig Keener’s Miracles in which he went into significant detail regarding miraculous experiences and healings that happen around the world. That book made me realize just how sheltered my “modern American reality” really is. Therefore, I see this positivist notion as extremely arrogant. Provan is correct when he says this positivist reason of “common human experience” is really nothing more than a rhetorical device that really means “the writer’s own individual experience.”
Just because an ancient text claims a certain thing happened that doesn’t conform to your 21st century understanding of the world, that doesn’t mean it should be rejected out of hand. It might mean that you need to not be so close-minded. The world is a lot bigger than your little dot in history.
Conclusion: The Need to Be Epistemologically Open
To be clear, by showing how these four reasons are problematic, Provan isn’t arguing that we should blindly accept everything in the Old Testament as historically true. Blind acceptance isn’t any better than blind skepticism. Instead, Provan argues that the real historian and biblical scholar needs to be epistemologically open to historical testimony, no matter where it comes from, the Bible or otherwise. If we automatically dismiss it for whatever reason, we run the risk of simply “remaking the past entirely in our own image.” If we reject any evidence or testimony that doesn’t already conform to our preconceived notions of reality and history, then any conclusions we come to about reality and history will really just be confirmation bias.
Provan ends this chapter with the following statement: “The fact is that we either respect and appropriate the testimony of the past, allowing it to challenge us even while thinking hard about it, or we are doomed—even while believing that we alone have “objectivity” and can start afresh on the historical quest—to create individualistic fantasies about the past out of the desperate poverty of our own very limited experiences and imaginations.”
I take this to mean that we need to take all historical testimony seriously. We need to think it through and be open to the possibility that some of our assumptions might be wrong. We need to test the evidence, but then let that evidence shape our views. We can’t discount all evidence we don’t like as “ideological,” but then foolishly assume we are “being objective.” We aren’t—we can’t be. We need to let ourselves be challenged.
So let’s see if we can try to inject some balance without my comment being summarily deleted.
The first aspect of balancing the scales needs to be pointed out that, Provan is a Christian.
And further emphasis needs to be made that he is a Christian first and a scholar (albeit a highly qualified and well-respected scholar, no doubt) second.
It is important to stress this point as there are a great many scholars who, I’m sure, hold equally impressive biblical /religious/archaeology qualifications who are not in any way religious.
Now, while it is almost inevitable that bias will creep in, no matter what field of endeavor one pursues, as absolute objectivity is probably impossible to achieve, I am going to assume that the religious biblical scholar, in this case a Christian, accepts the miraculous. This might seem a redundant point to make but it is crucial in order to differentiate the approach made by a non religious scholar and a religious one.
Unfortunately the waters get somewhat muddied after this as there all sorts of science the Christian scholar will accept and thus reject certain aspects of the Bible as being creative or apocalyptic imagery (Licona and the raising of the Dead Saints for example),
As far as the OT goes, we have the creative imagery of Adam and Eve, and of course, Noah and the Flood.
Yet when the subjects of the Patriarchs and Exodus are on the table for discussion things tend to slide sideways somewhat.
From Part 3 of this extended analysis – clever not to use the word review! – the language is all very couched, somewhat oblique in places, and one gets the impression that we are being led to a place where the miraculous needs, or even, must to be considered.
But why should it be considered when there are no objective means to test it?
The tales of Adam and Even and Noah and the Flood are rejected outright by all but extreme fundamentalists, yet the average skeptic is so often upbraided and mocked for applying a similar degree of skepticism to The Exodus?
If it is perfectly acceptable to reject any notion of a global flood because the hard evidence tells us it simply did not happen then why should any greater leeway be given to the Exodus tale?
There is enough archaeological evidence that shows a perfectly viable alternate history and why the ”Exodus” version was created in the first place. And, while scholars and archaeologists my disagree over details, this is the overwhelming scientific and scholarly consensus and has been for more than a generation!
Yes, all historical testimony must be taken seriously, as there is obviously a message it wants to convey. Whether this message was intended for a more immediate audience or for one hundreds or even thousands of years in the future is not made clear.
But as the evidence regarding the Exodus, for example, does not support the text, then maybe it’s about time those who wish to defend this foundational biblical tale, seemingly at all costs, need to reconsider what that ”message” is?
First, Provan’s being a Christian is irrelevent. When it comes to reading and assessing ancient texts, the important thing is not ruling any text out a priori based on a presuppositional bias.
Second, you continued insistence on “objective means” to test/verify any claims in the Old Testament is precisely the positivist presuppositional bias that Provan addresses in the chapter. To the point, archeological evidence simply does NOT “show a perfectly viable alternate history.” It has not turned up that much evidence that coincides with a wooden reading of certain Old Testament texts, and so minimalist scholars have simply MADE UP their own stories.
Third, besides the core issue isn’t whether or not one accepts the more miraculous claims in the Old Testament. The issue is whether or not one throw out an Old Testament book as historical entirely simply because it has miraculous claims in it. That is the problem with the minimalists. The attitude that says, “Oh, look, it says here that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still! Therefore nothing in the book can be historical!” –that is a highly uncritical and simplistic attitude.
It is highly relevant, just as it was during Albright’s day, andt as it was highly relevant that many of those Israeli archaeologists who first went into the Sinai after the 6 day in ’67 were religious Jews!
It is not solely the minimalist view that is at stake here. Someone like Friedman considers there was an exodus but it certainly did not involve millions.
There are a fair number of Christians who are open minded enough to recognize the evidence simply does not support the bible text.
There is no a priori regarding miracles. It all boils down to evidence. The same / similar criteria that is applied to stories such as Adam and Eve,Noah and the flood and Babel etc is being applied here. And this is the way it should be done.
There is the text and there is archaeology. Do they match? The answer is no.
There is a perfectly good viable alternate history regarding the Israelites: The internal settlement pattern, and as far as I am aware every scholar and archaeologist is in agreement that the hill country was settled by those who were regarded as Israelites.
Made up?
Could you provide a specific example that archaeologists such as Finkelstein, Herzog,or Dever,has made up?
If, even you are going to consider the sun standing still to be creative imagery, then why not the parting of the Red Sea? Which of course you are aware is a mistranslation.
Or manna from heaven?
Furthermore, if the miraculous aspects of the Exodus tale are excluded from consideration one is still left scratching one’s head over the tale.
At what point are you going to state emphatically what was likely a miracle and what was creative imagery?
Is the genocidal campaign creative imagery?
And, as with Parts 1 and 2 there is nothing specific you/Provan is focusing on to be able to determine any sort of historicity.
How much more groundwork are you going to describe before you get to specifics?
And if you are not going to support anything in this analysis with any archaeological evidence then how are we supposed to react to Provan perspective?
ARK: It is highly relevant, just as it was during Albright’s day, andt as it was highly relevant that many of those Israeli archaeologists who first went into the Sinai after the 6 day in ’67 were religious Jews!
LEE: So using this logic, we cannot trust any atheist to write factually about faith matters because he or she is prejudiced against them. Therefore your being an atheist means I cannot expect you to be fair and balanced regarding issues of faith or religion. Especially seeing as how many atheists like Richard Dawkins are out to discredit and disprove religious claims.
ARK: There is no a priori regarding miracles. It all boils down to evidence. The same / similar criteria that is applied to stories such as Adam and Eve,Noah and the flood and Babel etc is being applied here. And this is the way it should be done.
There is the text and there is archaeology. Do they match? The answer is no.
LEE: What kind of archaeological remains would you expect to find for Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand, or his curing Bartimaeus of blindness? These kinds of events are subject to any kind of scientific investigation. You must of necessity consider other evidence.
ARK: And, as with Parts 1 and 2 there is nothing specific you/Provan is focusing on to be able to determine any sort of historicity.
LEE: That you don’t see the importance of analyzing the presuppositions and methodology underlying much OT archaeology is very telling.
You want to jump in the cockpit and fly off without first taking flying lessons.
Pax.
Lee.
Again, you are jumping all over the place and rushing to conclusions before the proper groundwork of addressing how one knows anything about history is laid.
1. There is no “objective evidence” to support the made-up story of “internal settlement.” That is a story certain archeologists and scholars literally made up. They looked at the ruins, concluded that those ruins ruled as the high court of evidence, saw they didn’t match up perfectly with a wooden reading of the biblical text, and so they threw out the biblical testimony entirely and MADE UP their own story.
2. The problem and limitations of archeology is that it is the study of fragmentary ruins. Take a piece of paper, tear off a few corners–those torn off pieces represent the amount of history the archeological evidence has unearthed. You are throwing out full texts that are testimony to historical events, and because you can’t find verifying archeological evidence of that testimony within the fragmentary pieces that archeology has unearthed, you throw out the entire biblical text as unhistorical? That is just a silly, uncritical notion spurned by a positivist worldview. THAT is the problem with minimalists and you–it goes far beyond just questioning/denying the more miraculous claims in the text; it is a complete rejection that the biblical text is even conveying real history.
As Dr. Anderson says, Provan’s being a Christian is irrelevant. It doesn’t in any way affect his professional judgment as long as he and his readers are aware of his bias and he attempts to be as critical as possible.His being a Christian no more automatically makes him uncritical than an atheist scholar’s being an atheist automatically makes him uncritical.
The point is that too many scholars have decided that God doesn’t exist and miracles are impossible BEFORE they even begin to critically examine the biblical texts.
This was the problem with Funk, Crossan, etc. and the Jesus Seminar in the 1980s-early 1990s. They started out with the preconceived idea that the NT portrait of Jesus was unreliable/unhistorical; Jesus certainly was a real person, they argued, but 80% of what the gospels record that he said and did in the was invented by the gospel authors. At least they were honest about it. Funk actually stated on the record that the Christ of faith and the Christ of history were two totally different people, and that the.Seminar Fellows were trying to get “behind” the NT texts to thereby discover the “real” Jesus. How is that possibly objective?
Until persuasive proof exists against the possibility of the supernatural, there is no reason to rule out at least the *possibility* of God and the miraculous a priori. Nor to assume that religious historians cannot write factual history. Everybody in the history of the planet writes with some kind of bias/prejudice. Scholars like the ones Provan is taking to task are simply more blatant about it–all the while pretending to be objective.
Pax.
Lee.
I’m not ruling it out. I am simply not convinced.
So ….. convince me.
ARK: I’m not ruling it out. I am simply not convinced.
So ….. convince me.
LEE: What kind of evidence would convince you that Jesus miraculously fed five thousand people? What kind of evidence would allow you to consider that such a thing was even *possible,* let alone probable. Science can’t prove or disprove such a claim. So what type of evidence would convince you that it was at least possible?
Pax.
Lee.
I don’t know what evidence would convince me, but certainly not a highly dubious tale in a collection of largely anonymous books, that you can bet your house on!
However, I imagine an omnipotent deity would not really need any sort of book and know exactly what evidence to produce to ensure there was zero misunderstanding, and no ambiguity whatsoever.
You are the one who asserts that Jesus fed 5000 people (with some bread and fish), so tell me the evidence that Yahweh produced to convince you?
And perhaps you can explain why he has not yet produced the same evidence to convince me or several billion others who are also currently ”in the dark” regarding his omnipotence?
Herein lies the absurdity of your position. The only kind of evidence for God that would convince you is the kind of evidence that ensure “zero misunderstanding and no ambiguity whatsoever.”
You demand absolute certain evidence that would apply to all people, throughout every culture and throughout all of history.
You want a kind of CERTAIN evidence for a God within history that violates every known reality and confine of history.
You’re the one demanding a fairytale to be evidence of a God who acts in history.
Besides, since we are dealing with human beings, what you are asking is an impossibility. As Frederick Buechner said, “Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal Himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there woukd be no room for me.”
We are dealing with an omnipotent god, our supposed creator, who considers we have screwed up the planet he ”gave us”, and who demands our obedience under the threat of eternal torture/torment for non-compliance.
Having his kid brutally executed ( and knowing before hand this would happen) and then blaming us for it seems just a tad mean to me.
So ensuring we all got the instructions right from the get go doesn’t seem too much to ask.
And if this god thinks the best way to achieve this is by revealing himself to select individuals , like you and Lee, then I’m sorry, such a god isn’t worth two bits and obviously isn’t that interested after all.
that seems a p
Reading the biblical text without a certain amount of literary competency is bound to make one look like a fool.
And several billion people on this planet are a testament to just how insightful your comment is.
Where is the like button? Or thumbs up. The issue for Christians like myself is I don’t give a rip about the historicity of these documents. Jewish thinkers and Church history have taught me to read them allegorically and spiritually. All this energy, paper and ink spent to defend something (history) which we really have no access to.
Well, yes, many Church Fathers emphasized that the allegorical/spiritual readings of Scripture are the more important ways to read it. But that doesn’t mean they thought the OT and NT were unhistorical, obviously. They read the OT through the lens of Christ’s revelation, and therefore saw everything in the OT as somehow foreshadowing/pointing toward Christ. But again, that doesn’t mean they didn’t believe the Exodus was fiction.
The problem with the minimalist scholars is that they are arguing that (A) Most of the Bible is flat out fiction and unhistorical, and therefore (B) It is therefore a “worthless myth of bronze age goat-herders.” This is what Ark is pushing.
Since the OT and NT are ancient documents that purport to be about historical events, they are subject to investigation. In addition, they are also creative works–therefore a fuller appreciation and understanding of the OT/NT involves both competent historical investigation and competent literary reading. All that Provan is doing is arguing for a fuller, more robust understanding of what the OT is doing, against the kind of simplistic and agenda-driven dismissals of many minimalists.
Bullsquirt! I am merely accepting of the scholarly and archaeological consensus. Something you avoid like the plague – or ten plagues even.
If the consensus stated that it was historical I would likely accept this as it would have been built upon fairly solid evidential grounds as ALL genuine scientific endevour aims for.
Irrespective of what the scientific consensus turned out to be it would most definitely not include unsubstantiated miracle garbage, of this you can be sure and it’s about time you recognised what genuine history and genuine science is all about anf keep your damn faith in your back pocket!
Tim, I would argue that because Jesus of Nazareth was a real, flesh-and-blood person who lived, died and was raised in actual space-time history, that history matters. As NT Wright often says, being honest to Jesus means taking history seriously.
Besides which, the Church doesn’t exist in a historical vacuum.
As much as the fathers loved allegory, they never pretended as if the real history wasn’t important. They understood that Jesus wasn’t an allegory, nor were his death, burial and resurrection. These were all real events.
That was one problem with Rudolf Bultmann’s “dehistorization.” If Jesus wasn’t a real person in real space-time history, then he doesn’t have any real claim on or stake in, history. Then you have the enlightenment split-level world where the powers-that-be run the world down here while God, assuming he exists, stays up in heaven and doesn’t bother with anything down here. That’s a form of Gnosticism which Irenaeus in particular, would we quick to condemn.
Pax.
Lee.
Arkhenaten, one of the issues you’ve continually raised is the validity of the miracle stories in the Bible, right? You object to the biblical accounts, including that of the Exodus, primarily because the accounts are saturated with stories of miracles and you don’t believe miracles are possible, right? Or you haven’t seen any evidence so far, right? So what kind of evidence would convince you that miracles, which are not verifiable by scientific methods, are the very least *possible*?
As for the Israelite settlement at Kadesh-barnea, what do you expect to find? A 3,000 yr-old piece of graffiti in OT Hebrew reading “Moses and the Israelites were here”?
Pax.
Lee.
Show me where in the text it says they settled in Kadesh Barnea. I’ll save you the hassle: it doesn’t say that, anywhere.
ARK: It is comments like this that render your entire argument unworthy of any serious response.
Stick with faith, Lee. It seems to be working for you.
LEE: I wasn’t trying to be snarky, but based upon three weeks of reading your posts it seems like that’s the only kind of evidence you would consider persuasive. However as you well know, or should know, archaeology is rarely that certain or specific. As Indiana Jones said “X NEVER marks the spot.” (Of course that was to set up a joke however the point was still well-made). Yet people often find–or don’t find–exactly what they expect to find or not to find.
But even if there *were* compelling evidence of an Israeilte presence at Kadesh-barnea, you’d still be left with the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. I’m wondering what kind of evidence you’d find persuasive for that.
Pax.
Lee.
ARK: Well, this nearly made me spit my coffee all over my laptop!
LEE: You’re misunderstanding me. Even if there were solid archaeological evidence for the Hebrew occupation of Kadesh-barnea, you’d still be left with the claim from Exodus that the Hebrews left Egypt via a miraculous parting of the Red Sea. How do you prove/disprove such a claim?
With the texts in the Torah for the Exodus and the occupation of Canaan, you are only being so skeptical because these accounts are set forth in a collection of *religious* texts. Josephus recounts these exact same stories as historical events and yet you give him a free pass..Why? Because Christianity doesn’t base any of its truth-claims, other than Jesus’ mere historical existence, on Josephus. If it did, you’d chuck him out, too.
How do you KNOW the miraculous parting of the Red Sea is impossible? You DON’T. You only ASSUME it is impossible because your positivist worldview says that anything you haven’t personally experienced is impossible.
Dr. Anderson’s right. You’re trying to blow off the underlying epistemology. But that would be like trying to build a house by starting with the roof first, *before* you lay the foundation and put up the framework of the walls.
Ignoring the very basic yet crucially important question of HOW we know what we know, the METHODS by which, in this case historians and archaeologists, study the past and decide what is “historical” and what isn’t, is your main problem. You have uncritically bought into the positivist notion that religious bias invalidates an author’s historical objectivity before you even begin to examine these texts.
So what kind of evidence would convince you to take the Israelite occupation of Palestine seriously?
Pax.
Lee.
No, in fact I did not misunderstand at all. There is no evidence they were in Egypt as described in the bible. And this s only the start of your problems.
Where and when did I ever give Josephus a free pass?
You seem to delight in devising scenarios where you and I are having this dialogue that is solely a figment of your imagination.
*Sigh* I’m pretty sure that, even a 1st year bible student who has any interest in this tale knows that there was no Red Sea crossing.
And if you don’t know why then maybe you need to sign up for an online course from the Ron Wyatt school of archaeology.
Failing this you could always ask for your money back from whatever institution granted you your history qualification.
Oh, I do take their occupation of Canaan seriously, just not in the way the bible describes.
ARK: And in the same speech he gives to his class he also says:
”Archaeology is the search for facts.”
and …
” …. we cannot afford to take mythology at face value.”
LEE: And I agree with him. Yet we also can’t afford to ignore it as nothing more than “mythology.” Remember Troy. The scholarly consensus was that Troy was a “myth” and yet, Schliemann, an amateur archaeologist with a predisposition to believe Troy actually existed, overturned the scholarly consensus when he discovered it exactly where Homer’s mythical poem said it would be.
And as Dr. Anderson, citing Provan, keeps saying, with archaeology it isn’t as simple as Joe Friday’s “Just the facts, ma’am.” Because the “facts” need to be interpreted and put into some kind of scheme that makes sense.
Archaeological evidence has to be EVALUATED and then INTERPRETED.
The “facts” are the actual physical objects unearthed/discovered at Kadesh-barnea. But without further assessment and interpretation, that’s all they are, a bunch of really old physical objects with no historical/social/cultural context.
My late 80-some year-old cousin Tom, had a 16th-17th c. Spanish halberd–I’ve actually seen it. He had it authenticated by an expert. Yet without having it authenticated by that expert and without the story of how his Native-American gr-grandmother found it on her trek back home to AL from Indian Territory in the 1840s, in an area which the Spaniards had explored in the 16th-17th c., it’s just a funny-looking old poll-axe. Should some archaeologist dig that halberd up 500 years from now they’ll have to do some investigation a) to find out if its authentic b) to determine how a 16th c.Spanish halberd got to Florence, AL.
The fact: an old halberd. The “interpretation” of the “fact”: what is it, how old is it, and how did it get to Lauderdale County, AL to be discovered in the remains of a late 20th c. ranch-style home?
Our intrepid archaeologist could just decide its a fake and leave it alone, because as everyone knows there were no Spanish conquistadors anywhere near Tom Hendrix’s house in Lauderdale County, AL. Assuming he was familiar with the story of Tom’s gr-grandmother finding it in on the way back from OK, but not knowing that Tom had it authenticated by an expert, he could simply assume the story was an old legend with no basis in fact because Tom was biased, after, all. He probably *wanted* it to be real but it wasn’t..In this case ALL of our archaeologist’s assumptions would be WRONG.
Do you see what I’m saying here?
Pax.
Lee.
You might enjoy this article … depending on how open-minded you are, of course.
https://thesuperstitiousnakedape.wordpress.com/2016/06/26/kadesh-barnea-gaza-the-exodus/
If you are already going to descend into childish antics this early in the morning, they will be deleted.
When reading the biblical text, it gives numbers regarding the Exodus community, and there is a translational question involved. The evidence is the text.
Enns is great. He’s not God. Again, I havent addressed the Exodus or Conquest yet. I’m not to that point in the book.
And again, with Kadesh Barnea: The argument that says, “Look there’s no evidence of 2 million people living in KB, like the Bible claims they did, therefore it’s all fiction!” is a horrible argument, given the fact that the Bible doesnt say that.
1. Good lord. Grow up. Perhaps there was a glitch in Word Press. Maybe, given the fact that we’ve had this discussion before and I’ve said numerous times that Genesis 1-11 was myth, and maybe, since I’ve repeatedly told you I know what I wrote, maybe there was a glitch. It happens sometimes. Perhaps the best response would have just been to say, “Oh, okay…that was wrong, and that would make sense, given what you’ve told me numerous times before.” Maybe that would be a better response than to accuse the person who is personally going to write a 12-part blog series JUST FOR YOU, despite the fact you have routinely acted like a belligerent and foul-mouthed troll.
2. Yes, you can.
3. Yes, I’ll cover that issue when I get to it in the book. “So, no then. Got it”–A particularly childish and asinine response. Par for the course with you.
4. Deuteronomy 2:14 is the one place that leaves very little room for differing interpretations. FROM THE TIME we travelled FROM KADESH BARNEA UNTIL we crossed the Wadi-Zered was 38 YEARS. Illuminate me, please, how that sentence can be interpreted as, “We lived in Kadesh Barnea for 38 years”? This is the exact problem Provan has been pointing out–many minimalist scholars simply are literality incompetent. They don’t know how to read.
The text of Deut. 1:46 (the last verse in that chapter) says: “And so you stayed in Kadesh many days—all the time you spent there.”
According to Strong’s the word trans. “many” is *rab,* which simply means “much or many.”
Vs. 1 of chapter 2 picks up with “Then we turned back and set out toward the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea . . .”
The text doesn’t specify how long a period they were there. Simply based on a surface reading it doesn’t look as if they stayed there more than a few weeks or moths maybe. But I’m no textual Hebrew scholar.
Pax.
Lee.
Ark, I haven’t read a lot on this topic, but what litle I have read convinces me this whole issue is more complex than you are allowing for.
For example, there is evidence for the Hebrews being slaves in Egypt–namely the texts of Genesis and Exodus. Whether or not you consider these texts convincing or not, they’re still evidence.
But since you’re tetchy regarding such religious texts, we know, for instance, that there *were* groups of Semitic slaves in Egypt, we know that Egyptian slaves’ brick-making procedures closely resemble what we read in Exodus. We know there were groups of Semites in ancient Egypt slightly after the accepted date of the Exodus who worshiped Yahweh.
Then there’s a 13th century BC poem “The Admonitions of Impuwer or The Lord of All,” which portrays Egypt devestated by a series of plagues and uprisings very like the Exodus plagues, including rivers of blood and which culminates in the escape of a group of Egyptian slaves.
And because of the harsh climate of the eastern Nile Delta where the Israelites would’ve been if the Exodus account is indeed based on historical events, with its muddy soil, there wouldn’t be lots of papyrus or even archaeological remains.
As for evidence of the Exodus itself, as author Philippe Bohstrom reminds us:
“The absence of evidence of a sojourn in the wilderness proves nothing. A Semitic group in flight wouldn’t have left direct evidence. They would not have built cities, built monuments, or done anything but leave footprints in the desert sand.”
As for the Egyptians, we know they weren’t above altering the historical record for propaganda purposes tomake themselves look better. What Pharaoh would want to admit that a group of hick Canaanite slaves bested him and his army?
And why would Israelite scribes purposely invent such a humiliating history for Israel’s origins? If they were inventing tall-tales why not have a story which made Israel top dog and Egypt the vassal kingdom? Or at the very least they could’ve invented a climactic batle in which Israel defeated the Egyptians. But instead their scribes portrayed their people as weak, powerless, fickle, and apostate (the golden calf) and continually lacking in faith, ready to throw in the towel and go back to slavery in Egypt as soon as the going got tough. It was their god, YHWH, through his prophet Moses who saves them, and notvany military prowess of their own. Then when they finally reach Canaan they chicken out rather than start the invasion. Not a very stirring, heroic epic, is it? And yet that group of people has recounted that unlikely, improbable story every year at Passover for 3,000 years.
As for scholars of the Exodus, Philippe Bohstrom writes:
“However many Egyptologists or archaeologists dance on the head of a pin, each will have his own perspective on the Exodus story. None will have any evidence beyond contextual evidence to suport their theories.”
So yes, there’s way more to the Exodus account having a historical basis as than you would have us believe. As I said, I haven’t read a lot on this subject, but what I have read shows that it isn’t nearly as cut-and-dried as you’ve said. Just the articles I found through google alone demonstrate as much, not to even mention the two or
three academic books I’ve read on the subject.
Btw, I find it interesting that an atheist would choose the name of a heretical monothiestic Egyptian pharaoh as a screen-name.
Pax vobiscum.
Lee.
Care to elaborate? Because for someone who admitedly hasn’t read too much on the subjeci I think
I understand the basic complexities of the subject better than some so-called experts.
Pax.
Lee.
I read your linked article on Kadesh-barnea. There are number of red flags.
1. Red Flag No. 1. It’s an unsourced popular piece from an atheist website. There are a few links to other articles John Zande has written, but no links to scholarly, peer-reviewed articles on academic websites, no footnotes/endnotes, no bibliograohy, etc.
Who is John Zande? I’ve never heard of him. Is he a professional archaeolgist or historian? No. From alI I can gather he’s an atheist with a website who’s written a couple of popular books. In this case his agenda is to disprove the historicity Exodus account. How can I trust his objectivity?
I couldn’t seem to find Zande’s resume or his professional credentials online. What I did see gives me the impression that he’s like Richard Carrier, an amateur with an axe to grind who has developed an online following of like-minded atheists who happen to share his views.
Do you seriously not underetand the difference between academic and popular sources? Because based on this, I don’t think you do. You seem to only read articles on popular atheist internet sites. You cannot cite such as scholarly sources, not if you wish to be taken seriously. Zande isn’t an academic historian or an archaeologist. Thus citing his opinions as “proof” are not gonna fly. You need to expand your reading beyond atheist bloggers who already agree with you. You couldn’t get by with such shoddy research methods in a college class. Zande does not count as a critical source.
2. Red Flag No. 2. He begins with a number of fallacious assumptions, starting with his uncritical acceptance of the figure of 2.5 million Israelite refugees, with no discussion as to how or why he thinks that number is accurate.Then he uncritically takes for granted that the Hebrews camped at Kadesh-barnea for forty years–which the text doesn’t actually say–thus necessetating a fortified, walled city with government buildings, theaters and other recreational facilities (did ancient Canaanite societies even HAVE theaters?), a water supply, a standing profesional army, to adequately house, feed and protect said 2.5 million people. Yet 20,000 wandering Bedouin-style nomads living in tents wouldn’t need a walled, fortified city, certainly not if they didn’t stop there for any great length of time.
I’m gonna stop with two.
Pax.
Lee.
He is using the biblical text of course, which states there 600,000 men on foot.
Include women, children, the elderly and significant others who were described as along for the ride and it is not difficult to extrapolate from the figure of 600,000 to reach 2.5 million idividuals.
Of course, if the bible text has been wrong all these years …..
Well, has it? And how do you know?
After your rants to Dr.Anderson yesterday I said I was done with this disussion so I don’t know why I’m letting myself get sucked back into it.
A serious skeptic who had done his homework would know that you cannot always take ancient historians’ figures at face value. Their goal was not an accurate head count, thus often pad their numbers. Medieval chroniclers did it all the time, yet nobody argues the Battle of Agincourt never happened simply because the chroniclers on both sides inflated the numbers. These chroniclers weren’I intending to mislead or lie and no one accused them of doing so. I suspect many skeptics know all of this, but ignore it in order to take cheap shots at the biblical texts. Such skeptics routinely try to deconstruct the Bible based upon a wooden, literal interpretation of a particular text when the author of said text never intended it to be taken literally. That is either dishonest, faulty interpretation, or both.
Honest skeptics who’ve actually done their homework should also be aware of the way biblical translations work–and either you do and single out the KJV for your literal interpretations because you know its vulnerable on that score, or you’re extremely poorly informed.
A critical thinker wouldn’t have to be reminded of this.
Pax.
Lee.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that other numbers mentioned in the bible using the same methodology (math) are then thrown out of kilter.
And as an historian and a Christian and a serious student of the bible you are no doubt aware of such passages and wouldn’t need a rank amateur and skeptic like me to point these out.
Therefore, you either take the figures at face value and realise (as most serious scholars, historians and archaeologists) we are dealing with geopolitical foundation myth.
Similar problems arise when certain people try to rearrange the date of the ”Conquest” to fit some sort of presuppositional model that such a conquest as described actually took place!
I think there was a bloke called Rohl (maybe?) who did this.
Bryant Wood is another, and didn’t Kitchen have a serious disagreement with him over it?
Can’t be bothered to trawl Wiki. It’s there somewhere.
As you point out, however ….
.
Neither would a critical thinker need to be reminded that any alteration to the tale to fit what some might call a more reasoned approach will then have to explain all the supernatural stuff.
And let’s be honest, only a non-critical thinker will believe that the Red Sea ( or any body of water) was actually parted by supernatural intervention!
As you seem to believe the supernatural was all part and parcel of the tale then, be my guest ….. explain it.
Regards
Ark
Please stop trying to post your frothing at the mouth diatribes.
Please be even handed regarding your deletion practices.
One could be forgiven for thinking that comments about flying aircraft into tall buildings and bombing abortion clinics were frothing at the mouth rantings of non critical thinking fundamentalists.
Rest assured, if he started to routinely post comments equating all atheists with Stalin’s gulags or the Khmer Rogue, I would delete such asinine comments. And that is why I delete your comments. You can’t distinguish between thinking Christians and nutcases. So stop.
Stop trying to re-post things I have deleted.
Okay, so you admit Zande is not a scholar. Then what are his credentials that I should give any weight to his opinion?
As for the number 2.5 million, I thought we settled that above? The actual numbr was probably closer to 20,000. I’m fully aware of what the text says but I also know that ancient historians often inflated their figures. Zande seems to be uncritically taking the text at face value here with no discussion of the fact that not everyone accepts the 2.5 million figure as accurate. Because that would undermine his argument that the Hebrews needed a giant city which would’ve left archaeological remains. His argument against the Exodus stands or falls on a literal reading of the text which would necessitate a giant Hebrew metropolis being built at Kadesh-barnea which was occupied for forty years and thus would’ve left archaeological remains. But no such remains have been found to date, so obviously the story is bogus. With authors like Zande it’s all or nothing; either everything in a biblical historical narrative literally happened precisely the way the text says it did or none of it happened at all. That is an unprofessional, a-historical way of reading a historical text which Zande would never advocate with any other ancient historical narrative, however because it’s a biblical text then different interpretive rules apply. Now he has a diffrrent hermeneutic in which a wooden, literalistic interpretation is always to be preferred because it’s much easier to demolish. Again, it goes back to methodology. Atheists typically don’t understand (or don’t want to understand) the nuances of historiography.
And, again, the text nowhere says they lived at Kadesh-barnea for 38 years. It says it took 38 years to travel from Kadesh-barnea to the Wadi Zered. And the text simply says they stayed at Kadesh-barnea for “many days.”
And I didn’t mean there are complexities in the parting of the Red Sea. I meant the whole issuse of the Israelites’ presende un Egypt as slaves and the subsequent exodus is more complex than you’re willing to admit. Skeptics criticise Christian fundamentalists for their literal, wooden interpretation of biblical texts then attempt to desconstruct those same biblical texts based on an identical wooden, literal interpretation. That’s what Zande apprars to be doing.
Pax.
Lee.
Ark, your insistance on using the Authorized Version is just what a KJV-only Baptist or Church of Christ fundamentalist would do.
To admit what everyone–most Protestant Christians and even honest atheists–accept, that the KJV hasn’t been considered an accurate translation by anyone for over one hundred years would undermine your argument.
I’d post the late Prof. Jack Lewis’ (of Harding Garduate School of Religion) critique of the problems with the KJV from his book on biblical translations but I can’t put my hands on my copy right now and you’d just ignore it anyway. Basically, the KJV was based on the earlier work of Erasmus, who used the best GK mss he could find, which were 12th c. Byzantine texts. That was three or four hundred years before the discovery of Codex Vaticanus and before Tischendorf discovered Codex Sinaiticus, both of which date to the mid-4th c. These mss are used for modern translations rather than the inferior ones Erasmus used in the 16th c. which were used to create the Authorized Version.
It’s these kinds of statements, assuming you’re serious, that convince me you don’t have a clue.
Ark, what kind of fundie were you?
Pax.
Lee.
Same as I am now. The best kind! – A critical thinking secular humanist.
ARK: The problem with this line of reasoning is that other numbers mentioned in the bible using the same methodology (math) are then thrown out of kilter.
And as an historian and a Christian and a serious student of the bible you are no doubt aware of such passages and wouldn’t need a rank amateur and skeptic like me to point these out.
Therefore, you either take the figures at face value and realise (as most serious scholars, historians and archaeologists) we are dealing with geopolitical foundation myth.
LEE: I never said ancient historians always do this, but they certainly did it a lot with battles and populations. The critical thinker doesn’t simply take everything he reads at face value.
ARK: And let’s be honest, only a non-critical thinker will believe that the Red Sea ( or any body of water) was actually parted by supernatural intervention!
LEE: Au contraire, my friend. It is the critical thinker who does not rule out the existence of phenomena that science can’t explain. Only someone extremely close-minded would hold the view that science can explain all the mysteries of life. Scientism is the antithesis of critical thinking.
If you disbelieve the Exodus account, then you, the skeptic have to put forward a reasonable counter-explanation which explains why the Hebrews would invent such a strange, ignoble myth of their national/spiritual origins, knowing that other nations would scoff and ridicule them for it.
And you have to explain how such a silly “geopolitical foundation myth” has managed to endure for over 3,000 years. I mean, nobody believes the story of Romulus and Remus anymore, and haven’t for 2,000 years.
Pax.
Lee.
ARK: Please be even handed regarding your deletion practices.
One could be forgiven for thinking that comments about flying aircraft into tall buildings and bombing abortion clinics were frothing at the mouth rantings of non critical thinking fundamentalists.
LEE: Please do us the same courtesy and don’t insinuate that if “indoctrinated” Christians will grow up to steal babies from their cribs and leave changelings in their places. Obviously I’m being tongue-in-cheek, but I think you get my point. Those kinds of arguments were asinine when Richard Dawkins made them in *The God Delusion* back in 2006.
If you can’t take it don’t dish out as we say in the States.
Pax.
Lee.
I am deleting Ark’s comments today. I’m over 100 from last night. Ignore him.
Dr. Anderson, I’m reminded of the definition of “insanity” attributed to Einstein which says that the def. of insanity is repeating the same action over and over expecting different results each time. That describes me. I keep hoping that he’ll calm down and be reasonable, but that just doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen.
Pax.
Lee.
Rational people make the mistake they can reason with the unreasonable. He simply is NOT going to stop, so I have to treat him like a child and just not let him say anything for awhile. The irony is that I’m just about to get into the issues he’s been complaining about for the past year.
DR. ANDERSON: Rest assured, if he started to routinely post comments equating all atheists with Stalin’s gulags or the Khmer Rogue, I would delete such asinine comments. And that is why I delete your comments. You can’t distinguish between thinking Christians and nutcases. So stop.
LEE: Indeed! One of my dearest friends (a retired physicist) is an atheist (his wife is a Christian in the Prot. Church of God tradition). There’s no one I respect more than this couple. The Dr. himself is more of a Christian than a lot of Christians I know.
Pax.
Lee.