A book I think you would enjoy and find helpful would be James Kugel's HOW TO READ THE BIBLE (2007). He's a retired professor of Hebrew Bible from Harvard who now lives and teaches in Israel. On page 62 he makes an important observation about the use and purpose of sacred writings to the people of antiquity and how modern scholarship inevitably (and perhaps unfortunately) impacts how we approach such texts today:

“One question often asked by modern scholars about the stories of Genesis is: why was this written down? Underlying this question is the notion that there is nothing in the biblical world that quite corresponds to our idea of ‘literature.’ Books were certainly not written for individual readers to purchase and read at their leisure; but even the idea of literature, of fictional worlds visited for a time and enjoyed, is a bit out of place in the biblical world. The same is true of our idea of ‘history,’ that is, the systematic narration of past events to give people a knowledge of what happened long ago. Stories set in the past were told, but it was usually with a specific purpose in mind, especially texts purporting to talk about earliest times. That purpose was neither literary nor historical, at least not in our sense. The purpose was to explain the present.”

David A. Pendleton

Eric,

On the following quote:

"The Babylonian explanation for the flood could have been totally amoral and mythological, while the Hebrew mind assumed that the judge of all the earth acted justly (cf. J2 Gen 18:24).”[13]

While I, like you, am very interested in the sources and cultural contexts of certain Biblical passages, I think the most interesting questions are ones that revolve around the theology of the writer/redactor.

You briefly touch on this when you mention the differing "philosophies" of J1/J2 and the Babylonians.

I think an important point of comparison in both stories is the reason the deities/Yahweh destroy the earth with water. In the case of Gilgamesh, it is because the humans are making too much noise and disturbing the god's sleep. In the Genesis account it is because "humans do evil continually."

This points us to the moral/ethical core that lies at the heart of Jewish theology, and eventually Christian theology, and differentiates it from others; there is a moral order to the world (instead of irrationality and chaos) and God is concerned about the way human's treat each other and judges accordingly.

"The myths propagated by the ancients were an attempt to make sense of a past they knew all too little about."

David, thanks for recommending Kugel's book which I have read and found it to be wonderfully descriptive of how the Hebrews read and interpreted and reinterpreted their Scripture through the years. It appears that Christians have been guilty of reading the Bible as literal, factual history, unaware, or ignoring the manner in which the the Jews related to their Scripture: that the stories were explanations of why things were the way they found them.

This points out the danger of teaching the Bible in religious schools, particularly elementary, that regard them as accurate and true in every detail. Once the student begins to widen her horizons and discovers that all ancient literature was written for a different purpose than what our expectations are today, she becomes disenchanted with those Bible stories, realizing they are far too mythical and like other fables of the Cinderalla and Aesop's tales, they contained a moral message that was much more effectively a teaching tool that mere facts ever could satisfy. All ancient tales, the Bible not excepted, had a hidden meaning--some of which may not be discerned by us moderns--but were understood well by the early hearers, as they were transmitted orally for perhaps millennia before being written. Each telling, gave opportunity for the story teller to add a little and there are no originals to substantiate any of them.

The idea that you present here is very narrow-sighted. There is no basis in the Hebrew of Genesis to conclude that, first of all, Genesis 1-11 should be interpreted any differently than the rest of the book, and second of all, that there are different writers of the Genesis account.

And, contrary to the first quote you shared, it is not "commonly acknowledged" that these portions of Genesis are considered to be mythical. Only those who do not believe in the authority of scripture, and those who have an agenda to accept the so-called "enlightenment" of science "acknowledge" such an idea.

I would challenge anyone to demonstrate the basis by which they can conclude that Genesis 1-11 is myth, whereas the rest of the book is not. What, especially in Hebrew, indicates such a sudden shift in genre - except the very narrow-minded idea that says, "Wait a minute, a talking snake goes against my scientific agenda. It must be mythical." Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the text of Genesis indicates that there is a division in genre in these portions, as if, in Genesis 12, the author all of a sudden says, "Now let me tell you about some real events, that actually took place."

For a more in-depth exposition on this topic, please see my post "The Mythical Book of Genesis?" available here: http://newenglandpastor.blogspot.com/2008/06/mythical-book-of-genesis.ht...

How about this novel idea? Maybe their are so many flood stories from a variety of cultures that have filtered down to us today, because the event itself IS TRUE! The myth making came as, over time, subsequent cultures with differing theological and world views made sense of it according to their own traditions. And could it be that the biblical moral and actual view of the event is the one true explanation...just as YHWH is constantly called the one and only true God, even by Jesus himself? (Jn. 17:3).

In fact, Jesus, in his call for readiness for the eschaton, refers to the days of Noah as a literal event, and comparable to God's final, cataclysmic intervention into human history. Did Jesus view the deluge as myth? If so, did he view the parousia as myth as well? Interesting that Peter, in reference to these matters wrote that "we do not believe craftily devised fables." Hmmm.... But I guess Jesus and Peter weren't as enlightened as us.

Also interesting that I once read that the Chinese character for salvation translates literally as "eight people on a boat." Where did that come from? However, if this is a mythical translation, someone please correct me.

Thanks...

Frank

No one's education, and most especially in theology, is complete without a thorough knowledge of literature, both ancient and modern.
Stories have always been a part of all the world's cultures. Those who have studied the humanities, and world literature are most cognizant of the reason for, and importance of a people's literature in understanding of a particular era as well as the peoples of that place.

For the times of the Hebrew bible, there were the Sumerian, Canaanite, and Babylonian cultures, and when these Bible stories were finally put down in writing, rather than orally,
they then became canonized, but not until that time. Before their writing, these stories were told and retold for perhaps thousands of years and passed along between the various cultures forming a tapestry of connectedness which cannot be easily pulled apart. This is easily shown by the commonality of similar stories found in other native groups. To presume that the Hebrew story tellers were totally isolated from all surrounding cultures is to be deficient in knowledge of the Middle Eastern world.

Those who proclaim "The Word" would do well to inform themselves about much more than one group of people in this world's history and present a narrow, uninformed view that affects everything else that is said. It may appeal to the uneducated, but those who have are knowledgeable of the world's history will form opinions about everything else that such a person wants to convey.

It can be compared to the evangelist who wishes to speak against the idea of evolution and has very little knowledge of biology, geology, archaeology, who will come across as an uneducated speaker. Caveat Emptor.

"The idea that you present here is very narrow-sighted. There is no basis in the Hebrew of Genesis to conclude that, first of all, Genesis 1-11 should be interpreted any differently than the rest of the book, and second of all, that there are different writers of the Genesis account." -- Shawn Brace

You may call it narrow-sighted -- and indeed I agree that the designation of specific authors to specific sections of the Torah seems presumptuous (i.e. I agree with you, there is reason for skepticism). This perspective is, however, the widely prevalent Documentary Hypothesis, trademark conjecture of the Historical Critical Method of Biblical interpretation. This is the zeitgeist of academic theology, and so when I searched for peer-reviewed papers on the subject it is the paradigm I was presented with, and I chose not to challenge it in this particular exploration.

"And, contrary to the first quote you shared, it is not "commonly acknowledged" that these portions of Genesis are considered to be mythical. Only those who do not believe in the authority of scripture, and those who have an agenda to accept the so-called "enlightenment" of science "acknowledge" such an idea." -- Shawn Brace

..which is the bulk of the academic community (Humanities included -- I'm not just talking scientists), of the people who dedicate their lives to learning and thinking upon these things. I don't mean to make an appeal to authority -- none of this establishes the truth of the perspective -- but I do feel like your strong reactions result from an unfamiliarity with the academy (An unfair accusation, I know, since by glancing at your blog it looks like you've been through seminary... and I see a Berrien County Youth Fair t-shirt :-P, woot!).

Defense of scientific philosophy is for another thread, but I see we would have much to bicker about in that regard. Science is freakin' amazing, and it's not out to kill truth or eat your babies.

"How about this novel idea? Maybe their are so many flood stories from a variety of cultures that have filtered down to us today, because the event itself IS TRUE!" -- frank7

Ah, that is one hypothesis that must be considered when looking at myth, and of course it crosses everyone's mind.

I would respond to both Frank and Shawn by asserting that of all the branches of intellectual pursuit that could cast doubt on literal interpretation of scripture, not astrophysics, not geology, not evolutionary biology or neurobiology, but anthropology is most to blame (I'm sure this has been observed many times before, but I'm paraphrasing Holmes Rolston III, who told it to me and a couple fellow students at a conference this spring). I would recommend How We Believe by Michael Shermer (2000).

That is to say that the more you learn about myth (i.e. oral story-telling of any sort, true or otherwise) and culture -- even from just a simply playing a game of telephone -- the more you realize that the things people believe and propagate are ludicrous. A swell example is the Cargo Cults. We can't trust oral tradition, folklore, wives tails, popular [mis]conceptions, whatever you want to call it. And from within that realization, we're less likely to consider vaguely similar stories to be the result of a truth, and more likely to consider them the result of human nature, or to have branched off from the same story-telling tradition.

I would have loved to treat this topic more lucidly, but it's late and my g/f's waiting for me to call.

SigmaX

Eric,

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reflections. As a matter of fact, yes, I did attend the seminary (as well as doing my undergrad work at Andrews, so I am quite Andrews-ed out) and I am very familiar with the so-called Documentary Hypothesis Theory. Such people, instead of examining a given text objectively, start with certain presuppositions that force them to interpret literature contrary to what the original author(s) intended. It is not a coincidence that this theory was concocted by Juluis Wellhausen, around the same time that the theory of evolution was becoming popular. I think you can easily see the connection.

As such, it is rather difficult to have a conversation if we are speaking from two different paradigms. I am committed to Mosaic authorship, and that the Bible is God's inspired word. Of course, I am only committed to this insofar as I see evidence for it - which I have and do - in scripture. From what I can gather, you are a Secular Humanist, which is fine with me, if that is what you are committed to. Thus, it would be challenging for us to discuss these matters if I think God inspired the Bible, and you do not.

With that being said, as I pointed out, not everyone maintains the Documentary Hypothesis theory. There are many liberal scholars who do, and there are some who do not. There are some conservative scholars who do, and there are many conservative scholars who don't. To say that "most" hold to this theory would be a gross exaggeration of the facts. Of course, when you pick up a secular commentary on Genesis, and they say that "most" accept this theory, these commentators only count those scholars who subscribe to their theory, and anyone who does not is simply "narrow-minded," "fundamentalist," or whatever other label they may want to give them. But if a person is allowed to make the rules, then it is awfully easy to label others who disagree with you as such.

The bottom line is: if a person simply reads the text of Genesis objectively, and follows wherever it leads, there is no basis at all for distinguishing between the first 11 chapters of the book, and the rest. Either the whole book is myth, or the whole book is historical.

"From what I can gather, you are a Secular Humanist, which is fine with me, if that is what you are committed to."

You are correct.

"Thus, it would be challenging for us to discuss these matters if I think God inspired the Bible, and you do not."

Agreed, it is a difficult ravine to cross. I do find such discussions of value, however, and am very interested in points of view, handling biases, etc.

"To say that "most" hold to this theory would be a gross exaggeration of the facts."

You are probably correct, and I apologize for my slightly hyperbolic reaction. I was reacting strongly to your strong intitial reaction -- now that we've calmed down I think honesty comes easier :-P. I am not a theology student, I should confess, and have very limited familiarity with these matters (Ergo the use of terribly outdated sources in my original post :-P).

"Either the whole book is myth, or the whole book is historical."

Hmm. Let's not forget that myth is historiography. Even if we take there to be a single author -- say, Moses -- he was likely still collecting tales that came from oral history, in which case my previous statements about anthropology apply (Some of them, if you like, could have come directly from God too, but I don't see any reason to believe all of it did). I take us in this direction to try and set up a defense for theistic evolutionists.

For a long time I considered theistic evolution to be absurd, a desperate attempt to unify to utterly contradicting perspectives. I've not met enough Darwinian Christians to have formed a respect for them. There are still big problems -- like what do you do with the idea of death before the fall -- but I no longer consider it an incogent position, seeing as I find young-earth creationism much more difficult to maintain.

SigmaX

> I would challenge anyone to demonstrate the basis by which they can conclude that Genesis 1-11 is myth, whereas the rest of the book is not.

Of course the rest of the book is myth

There is no evidence of a world-wide deep flood that convinces a significant fraction of geologists

Heck, you are into Kings before you begin to break out of myth territory

The evidence for the Egypt part of Exodus is weak to non-existent

The evidence for how the Israelites got into Canaan doesn't match the stories in the Bible

The evidence for Saul and David is weak to non-existent

Things don't look really good until you get to the Babylonian captivity, and even then we can't show that Daniel was written anywhere near that time

/Bevin

Bevin, maybe it would be better if we returned to the "Good old Days" when people read the Bible and considered it to be 100% literal and they could barely read much of it.

However, when education became more widely available, oops! the scales fell from people's eyes and they began to realize that there was great similarity in all ancient books: they were myths of origin, told and retold (with additions all along the route) describing in their perspectives how and why the world is the way it is. If we want to limit our understanding to their world and isolate ourselves from the modern world with its academic and historical research, we would be more comfortable with third world individuals who can recite a list of their beliefs with little or no understanding.

Elaine,

I appreciate the great humility that you are displaying, assuming that the rest of us poor "unenlightened" people have "little or no understanding."

Bevin, I am speaking strictly from a textual point of view. Besides the fact that I have heard - though I cannot recite off the top of my head - plenty of evidence that lends itself to the idea of a world-wide flood (remember, the same evidence can be interpreted differently by two different people. The Grand Canyon would be a colossal example of this), nothing in the text of the Old Testament itself makes the distinction that you would like it to make. And contrary to what Elaine would like us to believe, the early readers of the Old Testament (i.e., Jesus and the apostles) believed them to be factual, rather than mythical. You cannot get around that.

At the same time, that which you propose about David, the Egyptians, etc., does not hold water. Though it is scant, there is some evidence to support the biblical record.

But there are two issues here: 1.) Did the Old Testament authors intend for their text to be mythical? I would, based on an examination of the text, answer "no." I don't see how anyone could make such a claim, unless they are first using archeological, geological, or whatever other "ogical" you want to throw in there, as a presupposition. And if that is the case, and there is little evidence that "supports" (as of right now) the idea of a flood, of David, etc., why can we not use the text itself as evidence for these things? We certainly take other texts - outside the Bible - at face value, even when there is a lack of archeological evidence. But why do we set up such high standards when it comes to the Bible?

Simply: because sinful man wants to be autonomous and free from any authority outside of himself. That is the real issue.

"If we want to limit our understanding to their world and isolate ourselves from the modern world with its academic and historical research, we would be more comfortable with third world individuals who can recite a list of their beliefs with little or no understanding." -- Elaine

In the past sister and I have discussed the possibility, although it seems somewhat rude and condescending, that this is the reason that the majority of Adventists live outside of the developed world.

When your world is small it's easier to believe whole-heartedly in the doctrines your community holds to be true. I for one can attest that the Adventism I experienced in Nigeria was much more strict than the otherwise conservative rural America, and especially the more liberal point of view found in a university town. And that's not to mention the witchcraft, fantastic personal stories, and sometimes ridiculous scientific beliefs that are also widely espoused in the third world.

I should add, out of respect for believers, that these clearly established attributes of cognitive dissonance do not immediately turn scripture into mythology. It's an interesting point, but not a fully fledged attack on faith.

"Bevin, maybe it would be better if we returned to the "Good old Days" when people read the Bible and considered it to be 100% literal and they could barely read much of it." -- Elaine

Hmm. Life is simpler when you're ignorant of the big picture, but I don't think I would call it "better." Relaxed, perhaps -- but I really like the amazing ideas and powers that broad intellect and education has brought us as a society and as individuals. Take this very conversation, for example.

SigmaX

[Excuse the double-post. Shawn posted while I was writing the last one.]

"We certainly take other texts - outside the Bible - at face value, even when there is a lack of archeological evidence. But why do we set up such high standards when it comes to the Bible?" -- Shawn

This is another important hypothesis that must be considered. When I first got interested in apologetics as a teenager (Before I began to doubt) I can remember coming up with this self-same argument.

But the fact is the Bible is not treated by separate standards as a historical document. The heart of the historical critical method is to take a document, be it the book of Daniel, the Donation of Constantine, or Herodotus (Which will form my anecdotes for this comment), and attempt to contextualize its authorship. What biases did the authors suffer from? What political affairs were current to their time? What did their culture demand from them? These are questions we ask of any text.

We do not believe everything Herodotus says by a long shot. He operated out of ignorance in many cases, hearing things by word of mouth, etc. We do not believe the Iliad was a literal story, but that it was clearly a mythological retelling of vaguely historical events, passed down and exaggerated orally for hundreds of years before Homer.

The Bible is historical evidence. Much of it is likely to be true, just like much of the history recorded in ancient Greek and Mesopotamian documents is likely to be true. But we don't believe in the Amazons, or the ancient Athenian snake-king Cecrops, or the early Sumerian kings who regularly ruled for hundreds, thousands, and (In pre-flood mythology) tens of thousands of years.

Much of the time we have to say "this is what seems to have happened" while admitting uncertainty. We cannot say "Cecrops was the first King of Athens" with the same sort of confidence that a literalist would like to say "God was actively involved in the Israelite exodus." We have to say, from a strictly evidence-based historical standpoint, that a black-and-white conclusion has escaped us.

And so, we are not treating the scriptures spitefully when we say there is no conclusive evidence that Daniel was written before the 2nd century B.C.E. The book's own claim of its time span is one piece of evidence, yes (If it didn't claim to be written in the 6th century B.C.E. we wouldn't even be discussing this), but that's only one factor.

The Donation of Constantine is an excellent example of a document forged in the 8th century C.E., claiming to have been issued by an authoritative figure a few centuries before (Constantine) to suit an agenda (The Pope's claim to the Western Roman Empire and Palestine).

Daniel, like many ancient texts and modern stories (Such as the anti-Christian utilization of the flood myth by the Maori in my original post), is hardly dispassionate politically, and falls under suspect as a trustworthy source of facts.

We are skeptical of the Bible because it makes fantastic claims. In the same way, I am skeptical of the CEO's of cigarette companies when they discuss science on tobacco. I'm skeptical of the converted Sudanese Sheik (Now Adventist evangelist) I knew in Nigeria, who claimed to have once had the power to pass through walls to get to Christian families during the violent, Islamic portion of his Saul/Paul-like life story of radical evangelism.

Bringing this back around to Daniel, the book claims to foretell historical events. If this is true, it is indeed a miracle that defies the cautious approach of the HCM, since it would show that the Bible is more than a subjective series of folktales, myths, and religious creeds specific to one culture (Which is what we must assume if we are to treat all culture's conflicting mythologies with the same objective intellectual standard).

But we are stuck in a paradox: The clearest (i.e. least debatable) prophecies in Daniel tell the story up to the Greek conquest of the Mediterranean. After that things get foggy, and it gets much, much harder to build a case for fulfilled prophecy once we're discussing things like the ten horns and such (A topic which, IMO, Doug Bachelor et al do a royal job of making ludicrous claims over too little data). Archaeological evidence can only establish the authorship of Daniel as having occurred before 165 B.C.E.

We have two possible conclusions: (A.) Daniel was written when it says it was, and it miraculously predicted the Persian and Greek rises to power. (B.) Daniel was written after Alexander and made to appear to have predicted the events, either as a poetic approach or deliberate intent to deceive.

(A.) is an anomaly, something we've never seen before, something (Much as we might like to see a miracle) we cannot prove with any degree of certainty.

(B.) is in line with what we have observed of human behavior across cultures, and thus most take it to be the more likely case.

SigmaX

Edit: "Simply: because sinful man wants to be autonomous and free from any authority outside of himself. That is the real issue." -- Shawn

This I would debate vigorously. Which authority shall I submit too? Which one is True? Why can I trust the Bible? There are many, many voices -- I cannot choose to believe this particular one and dedicate my life to it just because my subculture believes it. The question of authority must be answered first, ergo the necessity for all this human reasoning. See my post on Atheist Ethics. There are two follow-ups on my personal blog.

" I am very familiar with the so-called Documentary Hypothesis Theory. Such people, instead of examining a given text objectively, start with certain presuppositions that force them to interpret literature contrary to what the original author(s) intended."

Assuming one can know exactly what the original authors intended, however, "certain presuppositions" are always abundant when reading literature many centuries or millennia before we live.

Does everyone read Homer as a literal and factual truthful history that should be taken at face value? Does one read Herodotus, even Philo or Eusebius without questions?

Why should the Bible be approached so differently unless a reader has a biased presupposition that it is the actual word of God and is unalterabley inerrant and infallible? What other contemporary writing is treated similarly? Is questioning anything in the Bible somehow sacrilegious and above all questioning? Without textual, historical and literary analysis we would know much less about it than we do by allowing ourselves to study the evidence of scholars who have spent lifetimes in such efforts. To allow our own judgment to be above such analysis is to declare independence from honest and scholarly efforts. We are free to reject any and all such professional judgments but at what cost in choosing to be the final arbiter of the Bible? The SDA pioneers were honest and sincere Bible students. But today, few would claim they were scholarly superior to the ones of today. We should be grateful for the availability of such study today.

There has been so much more study of the Bible and its times in the last century that we should
be open to learning all we can from such academicians. Archeologists have both confirmed and disproved some of the stories in the Bible. Do we bless them when we agree and curse them when they don't? Or, do we pick what we wish and eliminate findings we cannot approve?

"Does everyone read Homer as a literal and factual truthful history that should be taken at face value? Does one read Herodotus, even Philo or Eusebius without questions?"

PLease give references to which of these were forefathers of a religion. The closest you might come would be Philo. He tried the whole create your own religion out of the parts of others thing.

"PLease give references to which of these were forefathers of a religion." -- Michael

They were not, but I don't see how it's relevant. We are skeptical of them anyway.

Some ancient texts that were the forebears or effectors of religions:

Apocrypha/Pseudopigrypha
Dhammapada
Qur'an
Augustine
The Sutras
The Vedas
Bhagavad Gita
Talmud

Again, this is irrelevant, because the accusation is that scholars are biased against texts that propose supernatural claims. We brought up Herodotus et al to show that they are just as skeptical of documents that have nothing to do with the supernatural, and have nothing to do challenging their supposed precious atheism.

We have more reason to be skeptical of Herodotus than we do of medieval tax records. As my g/f put it, "the most you're going to find [in the latter] is somebody fibbing on how many goats they own." Herodotus is dealing with more grand issues, things that people get more passionate over, and stories which are harder to confirm both for him and for us.

Scripture is to Herodotus as Herodotus is to tax records: Of course we're skeptical when Muhammad leaps across the Middle East on his winged horse from Mecca to Jerusalem. That's a spectacular claim, and while it would be difficult for it to actually happen, it is demonstrably not difficult for people to make stuff up. You don't have to look far today to find fantastic stories that are blatantly false.

SigmaX

Actually, Homer is interesting to compare to Biblical literalism, because his books often were read literally as sacred text. Later Greeks realized that the Iliad could hardly be literally true, and textual criticism more or less began with them, notably at the library at Alexandria.

The fact that equal scales are not used by many today is more than a little obvious when they accept the judgment of later, more secular Greeks, and of modern critics, as they judge Homer to be lyrical re-working of narrative, based upon the evidence--and they will not accept similar judgments regarding their sacred works. The goose and the gander are not to conform to the same standards?

"...With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Mt. 7:2. Are a person's most sacred texts to be sheltered from the scrutiny given to Homer's writings? Why? Is the person afraid that his sacred texts do not measure up to his claims regarding them?

Glen Davidson

Glen:

Off topic, I clicked on the link to your site, and must say that I'm very intrigued. I intend to go to grad school in Computational Intelligence, which makes extensive use of artificial neural networks. The common ANN models account for synapse signals and neuron activation, but not for more complicated hypothesis such as your electromagnetic field interactions.

Cheers,
SigmaX

Eric and Glenn
Thanks for your posts.
The problem with Elaines post has to do with her mixing people who were writers but with different intents.
Homer and Paul for example were not writing manuscripts for the same purposes.
She might as well have included William Shakespeare in the list and then used his plays as a basis to say Paul cant have writing anything true either.

We shouldnt always think skepticism is a good thing. There is a name for people who are too far off on the one side. They call them conspiracy theorists.

We could more correctly say a bit of skepticism is healthy.

"The problem with Elaines post has to do with her mixing people who were writers but with different intents."

True. But with such old literature it is difficult to easily discover the writer's intent.
How is that best accomplished?

Perhaps that is the problem: we assume that the Bible is factual history, and judge it by our standards of history writers today. The Bible is a book containing many genres and only by comparing it with the contemporary writing (that we have) can we begin to understand and get inside the mind of writers of a certain era.

However, to accept all ancient writing as being either literal or mythical is to remove all discriminating literary and textual analysis. That many sincere Christians DO take every word of the Bible as literal should be of some concern, shouldn't it? How was that situation allowed to continue? Who is responsible for those, even today, who believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible?

Shawn wrote: the early readers of the Old Testament (i.e., Jesus and the apostles) believed them to be factual, rather than mythical. You cannot get around that

There were NO books available at the time of Jesus that could reasonably claim to be historically or scientifically accurate as we know understand the concept.

When one is part of a society, one is expected to accept a certain world view, and to use it as a basis of ones interactions with ones neighbors.

However, if you had asked someone about the accuracy of the books, they could probably have told you that the books were oversimplified and unreliable.

The Illiad was mentioned above. Homer wrote (captured?) the Illiad in about 900BC. It is describing events from 500 years earlier! Do you think people thought it was precisely accurate?

Jesus does not attempt to educate His neighbors on the behavioural results of brain tumors, bipolar disorders, and Huntington's chorea. However these diseases must have all occurred in His day, and the suffers there-of were misdiagnosed as demon-possessed. Jesus' acceptance of this misdiagnosis must be viewed as being irrelevant to the plan of salvation.

Similarly the extensive editing of the NT books of the Bible comes as no surprise. The people who were copying and rewriting them did not think that was improper!

In the Dark Ages the books that were available in the monastries, and that came out of the Middle East, were both (a) old, and (b) containing amazing ideas and knowledge that was far advanced compared to that of their European readers - so the Europeans formed this impression of ancient=knowledge-filled. Later, as they discovered more about the world, they were horrified that they had to correct these old books - but consider what was in those old books - ideas such as all matter is made of rocks, water, air, and light, ideas such as the natural order was rock at the bottom, water, then air, lastly light = which explained why rocks sank - they were seeking their natural place! No wonder they had to be corrected.

In short, the whole concept of an accurate book is a Dark Ages and later invention. Where is the evidence that anyone in the Bible thought any book was accurate.

/Bevin

Bevin, excellent analysis.

Even today, people might mention "Cinderalla" or "Pandora's Box" or Aesop's fable of the tortoise and the hare and nearly everyone will understand the meaning. Does anyone believe that they are literally true? Does it make a difference if it is in the common folklore and the moral was the meaning?

When Jesus referred to Jonah, it was common Hebrew knowledge from their scripture. They may have believed it, just as they also wrote and must have believed about the monsters Rahab and Leviathan and such. Because they were referred to is not prima facie evidence that they were factual at all.

There are many books (i.e., Alter, John Gabel) on
the literature of the Bible. They are very helpful in understanding how and why the Bible writers wrote as they did and how we should read it today.

Thanks for noticing, Eric. And thanks for the articles which give the respect to scholarship that it deserves.

Computational intelligence, eh? Sounds fascinating, and yes, quite complex. I do think, though, that the overall complexity of brains has to be a whole lot more complex, in part because brains are probabilistic and not effectively isolated from a whole host of physical phenomena. Evolutionarily, that both poses problems and allows for the sorts of complex responses which are difficult for designers to effect.

Glen Davidson

Aw phooey. I typed up a couple paragraphs and then the computer crashed before I posted. Ah well, here's a second draft:

"We shouldnt always think skepticism is a good thing. There is a name for people who are too far off on the one side. They call them conspiracy theorists.

We could more correctly say a bit of skepticism is healthy." -- Michael

Many people equate "creationist" with "conspiracy theorist." In fact, the academic subculture is rank with such dismissals, because the label fits nicely when many creationists defend their faith and/or theories by accusing the scientific community of intense bias, suppressing truth, or as Shawn put it, the "[the real issue is] sinful man wants to be autonomous and free from any authority outside of himself." Saying the international community of thinking people is out to kill the truth, is brainwashed, etc, is saying that it's redolent of conspiracy.

This is not the same thing as skepticism. It is rhetoric. Kent Hovind and Doug Bachelor come to mind.

Skepticism is what comes from the Geoscience Research Institute, and organization that, much as I doubt young-earth creationism is anywhere close to true, does tend to produce good science. It's a good thing to have someone willing to challenge the status quo, to explore alternative philosophies and approaches to the evidence we have at our disposal. Afterall, there might be a better explanation we haven't yet stumbled upon.

Conspiracy theories, as the genre is understood, is paranoia, mistrust, willingness to believe in an idea that is unsubstantiated by evidence. This is the opposite of skepticism.

I had quite a bit more to say on the matter of criticizing science, but it became so verbose that I split it off to my personal blog here.

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"However, if you had asked someone about the accuracy of the books, they could probably have told you that the books were oversimplified and unreliable." -- Bevin

Maybe to a degree, but I imagine they didn't doubt them too much. Not like we do today. Take as my proof Elaine's earlier mention of third world cultures, for whom the matters are much more "oversimplified" and black and white.

"Jesus does not attempt to educate His neighbors on the behavioural results of brain tumors, bipolar disorders, and Huntington's chorea. However these diseases must have all occurred in His day, and the suffers there-of were misdiagnosed as demon-possessed. Jesus' acceptance of this misdiagnosis must be viewed as being irrelevant to the plan of salvation." -- Bevin

I can remember once thinking that, since Christ does not nitpick at the OT, then it must be infallible or at least mostly believable if Christ is divine. As a teenager I hoped to establish Christ' divinity via the 70 week prophecy, and thereby the entire Bible.

Now I'm not so sure that, even given Christ' divinity, that the OT can be taken to be true. Why he wouldn't tell us about it, I don't know, but Bevin has a good point that he wasn't here to clear up our science. The center of His ministry was the gospel, which is also the center of the Bible (Or, if you want to argue that, at least the center of the New Testament). The rest is, again, "irrelevant to the plan of salvation."

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"the sorts of complex responses which are difficult for designers to effect." -- Glen

Indeed -- which is why simulating them is so lucrative! The applications of neural nets and other CI tools to data mining, pattern recognition, document classification, etc are astounding, even if we have a long way to go before we get general AI.

SigmaX

"There were NO books available at the time of Jesus that could reasonably claim to be historically or scientifically accurate as we know understand the concept."

To say with such absolute certainty what existed and what did not exist over 2000 years ago is kinda nutty.
In fact there were many Books covering many different areas. Cartography, Accounting, Law and a host of others all of which are sciences today.

Other bad examples continue.

"Jesus does not attempt to educate His neighbors on the behavioural results of brain tumors, bipolar disorders, and Huntington's chorea. However these diseases must have all occurred in His day, and the suffers there-of were misdiagnosed as demon-possessed."

Why would someone make such unsubstantiated claims?
Such assumptions do not make for rational discussions.

Elaine asked a good question.
".. with such old literature it is difficult to easily discover the writer's intent.
How is that best accomplished?

If one reads some of the oldest commentary on the Illiad and Odyssey for example, one can see it refered to as theater or entertainment.
One can also look at it as to its religious content and persuasion. In the odyssey for example, Homer casts a story of man striving against the petty Gods. Since it is a story dealing in pantheism and man prevailing over the Gods and their minions, one can hardly say it is a book with the goal of promoting a particular God or religion. In fact, when the core of the story is man prevailing over the Gods, that would be antithetical to the promotion of a God or Gods. Also it was written as a poem and as the historical texts point out, the original poem was composed in an oral tradition by an aoidos, perhaps a rhapsode, and was intended more to be sung than read. This ties in with the accounts or early commentary where it was preformed publicly.

Many such methods are available to determine or at least have an idea of the authors intent.

"There were NO books available at the time of Jesus that could reasonably claim to be historically or scientifically accurate as we know understand the concept." -- Bevin

"To say with such absolute certainty what existed and what did not exist over 2000 years ago is kinda nutty." -- Michael

Hmm... "kinda nutty" is a fairly abrupt statement as well, seeing as we do know quite a bit about what went on intellectually in the Ancient Mediterranean (Though, granted, only a fraction of their literature has survived). Bevin did make a fairly black and white assertion, however, which I happen to disagree with

Counterexamples, i.e. well-known authors on Math and Science before and immediately after Christ:

Aristotle (c. 384-322 B.C.E.)
Euclid (c. 300 B.C.E.)
Archimedes (c. 287-212 B.C.E.)
Apollonus (c. 262-200 B.C.E.)
Nicomachus (c. 100 C.E.)
Ptolemy (c. 100-178 C.E.)

The historian Plutarch (c. 46-120 C.E.) approached his accounts with an honest skepticism that, while hardly rigorous, is indicative of someone looking for the genuine truth. "There is so much uncertainty in the accounts which historians have left us of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta," he writes in Lives, "that scarcely anything is asserted by one of them which is not called into question or contradicted by the rest."

Of course, Lycurgus was a legendary figure who lived just shy of a thousand years before Plutarch. But he begins more recent accounts with similar caution, like that of Emilius Paulus (c. 229-160 B.C.E.): "Almost all historians agree that... and those authors who affirm..."

Acknowledgment of inaccuracy? Or a quest for accuracy?

"In short, the whole concept of an accurate book is a Dark Ages and later invention. Where is the evidence that anyone in the Bible thought any book was accurate." -- Bevin

I'm not convinced that it was, and I'd like to think I've demonstrated that it was not, a "Dark Ages and later invention," though I do know that the view of science held by the Greeks is very different from the perspective we hold today. Granted, Judah and Athens are hardly comparable, but they did both belong to the general Hellenistic culture that permeated all corners of civilization in Christ' time.

There is likely some truth in what you're saying, I can't pretend to be knowledgeable enough of historical cultures to say -- but I can't help but feel you're over-eager to project our liberal postmodern culture onto the past. Maybe, like they say, fundamentalism is a 21st century phenomena -- but the past still seems awfully literalist, with small-town communities and relatively unchallenged religious centers re-affirming the local belief set.

SigmaX

Edit: And what of Kings and Chronicles? Today we find them highly suspect, rank with political agendas -- but they sure seem to be records of fact. Do you think the Jews saw it this way? What reason did they have to mistrust the ancient records in the Tanakh?

I really like Frank's suggestion that the Bible just might be an inspired document that is actually true!! That is the 2Tim 3:16 "All scripture given by inspiration from God" thing come back to haunt the group again.

Peter says "Holy Men of old moved by the Holy Spirit Spoke from God". Not exactly an atheist or agnostic accounting for the "sources" in the Bible -- but a good New Testament view of it anyway.

Now here is the REAL question - how many non-Christian public Universities and Colleges can we send our students to - instead of investing in Adventist ones -- and still get the same BLOG opening as we find here?

In the atheist and agnostic mindset "there is no 2Tim 3:16" option so they "need to account for the text" in the only way that is left -- which is "a long line of story telling".

Nobody is surprised by that right?

Bob

"All scripture" when that was written, was found in the Septuagint, which was the one used by all the NT writers. Included in the Septuagint were the apocryphal books that are not in our modern translations (except the Jerusalem Bible).

Were Tobit, Judith, Macabees, Ecclesiasaticus, and Baruch also inspired?

The basis of Christianity is Jesus, who is the Messiah of the Old Testament. Christians, those who believe Jesus Christ is Messiah presented Jesus to the Jews of Asia and Rome, they used the Septuagint as their proof text. Showing how Jesus fulfilled Jewish prophecy about the Messiah. In fact, at the writing of the Gospels and epistles, many of the quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures come from the Septuagint because they were widely accepted in the Roman and Greek

Influence of the Septuagint
The large majority of Old Testament references in the New Testament are taken from the Greek Septuagint—which includes the deuterocanonical books, as well as apocrypha—both of which are called collectively anagignoskomena (things that are read). Several appear to have been written originally in Hebrew, but the original text has long been lost. Archaeological finds in the last century, however, have provided a text of almost two-thirds of the book of Sirach, and fragments of other books have been found as well. The Septuagint was widely accepted and used by Greek-speaking Jews in the first century, even in the region of Roman Judea, and therefore naturally became the text most widely used by early Christians, who were predominantly Greek speaking

BobRyan:

If the Bible is true, then how literally should we read it? It's not as simple as "it's either true or it's not." You can attempt to treat it as 100% literal truth, but interpretation and historical inaccuracy becomes a problem.

Why not treat it as the truth of God written through the fallible hands of man? This view does not shun the truth, does not whimsically dismiss the parts of the Bible that it doesn't like, but simply acknowledges that if evidence comes up to contradict an unimportant detail (Such as exactly when the Exodus happened), then our faith and belief is not destroyed.

SigmaX