Thanas wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:
I think another way to look at this question is to ask: "Is Homer's Iliad historically correct?" The very question seems utterly preposterous on its face, to the point that no one would seriously ask it at all. And yet, the Bible has no greater claim on historical accuracy than Homer's Iliad does.
Actually, Homer's Iliad has a much more better point, considering its tale of conflict between two ethnic groups and the sack of Troy has been confirmed at least in part by archeological findings. Unlike, say, Genesis.
I have to call bullshit on this. In terms of overall historical usefulness, the Old Testament far surpasses anything written by Homer. In fact, mainstream historians actually rely on parts of the Old Testament to form overall Near Eastern chronologies. Consider, for example, how the standard dating for the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period uses the reference to Pharaoh Sheshonk I, mentioned in
1 Kings 14, as a major anchor point in the overall chronology.
Obviously, the Old Testament is far from a reliable history book. It's heavily mythologized and horribly biased (like most ancient Near Eastern documents), but to dismiss it as pure fantasy, bereft of any real historical value is going way overboard. It is certainly more historically useful than Homer's
Iliad, at least. Sure, a lot of it is pure Hebrew mythology, but that doesn't change the fact that it provides historians with a lot of verifiable information about the Ancient Near East. Allow me to break it down:
The Torah: (Genesis through Deuteronomy)The Torah is essentially worthless as history. It has vague echoes of Near Eastern civilization in the 2nd millennium B.C.E, but since most of it was actually written well into the second half of the first millennium, it's only real value is as an historical record of Jewish cultic beliefs around the time of the Babylonian exile.
Joshua and JudgesThese two books are also mostly worthless as history as well. They provide an extremely condensed, mythologized, and confused picture of the formation of the nation of Israel around 1100 B.C.E. In reality, Israel was not formed via a Blitzkrieg-like conquest through Canaan; rather, slowly, over time, various Semitic tribes settled in the area and replaced the original Bronze Age population. However, the picture is somewhat confused, since the original Canaanite Bronze Age inhabitants actually were destroyed via some sort of cataclysm around the end of the Bronze Age, but this was probably part of the overall wave of invasions that crippled the Hittites and the Egyptians as well.
Samuel 1 and 2Again, mostly worthless as history, other than to establish the existence of the House of David. Most mainstream historians acknowledge the historicity of King David, and there is even a
stele dating to the 9th century B.C.E that mentions "House of David". Also, the court narrative in 2 Samuel is acknowledged by most of mainstream scholarship to be based on contemporary sources.
Kings 1 and 2Despite heavy mythological content, the Book of Kings is an incredibly useful historical source. Many of the personages and major political events in this book can be validated via Assyrian records, and to a lesser extent, Egyptian, Chaldean, Aramean and Moabite record(s). It even serves as a critical reference point in establishing Egyptian chronology during this period. Kings also provides us with invaluable historical information about 1) the expansion and conquests of the Assyrian empire, 2) the fall of Northern Israel and later Judah, 3) the Kings who reigned during this period and the major battles they fought in, (such as King Ahab, who formed a coalition against the Assyrians and fought them in the battle of Qarqar), 4) the expansion and conquest of the Babylonian empire, 5) the Babylonian exile.
Again, all of this is verified by other Near Eastern sources, but the Old Testament accounts give us additional insight into these events and personages. In fact, other than the obviously mythological Elija/Elisha stories and some folksy tales about Solomon, most of Kings, especially the latter half, provides useful historical information, albeit with an obviously biased, pro-Yahweh coloring.
Chronicles 1 and 2The Book of Chronicles is basically a less-reliable version of Kings, with a more mythologized and white-washed retelling of the David story, and so is mostly worthless historically.
Ezra, NehemiahThese two books are incredibly useful historically, and are believed by mainstream scholarship to include the only actual eye-witness accounts in the entire Old Testament. They recount the conquest of Babylon via Cyrus of Persia, and give us information about the reestablishment of a Jewish settlement in Judea, and the rebuilding of the temple.
The Major/Minor ProphetsThese books are mostly worthless historically, however they contain bits of historical information that supplements what we know from Kings.
So, again, it's ridiculous to say that the Old Testament has little historical value, or to compare it's historical value with the
Iliad. Really, the Old Testament provides a wealth of information into Near Eastern politics during the first half of the first millennium B.C. Compare this to the works of Homer, which tell us virtually nothing useful about Mycenaean Greece, other than the existence of certain names and places, echoes of certain Mycenaean weaponry, and the fact that there may have been one or more conflicts over the city of Troy.
Really, this is to be expected, since the Iliad and Odyssey were first written down centuries after the fall of Mycenaean Greece, after Greece suffered the collective amnesia that comes with a multi-century dark age, whereas much of the source material for the Book of Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, and some of the major and minor prophets was contemporary or nearly contemporary with the actual events themselves. Moreover, many of these events are confirmed by other Near Eastern sources. But despite Heinrich Schliemann's romantic blatherings, nothing found during the excavation at Troy has confirmed any specific event which is said to have occurred in the
Iliad, other than the fact that the Trojan war may have some vague basis in one or more real conflicts which happened at Troy.
