Take Five
Supreme Allied Commander
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2008
- Messages
- 925
- MBTI Type
- ISTJ
- Enneagram
- 1w9
Could you explain for the court what the "pursuit of objective history" is?
I think it's part of the meat of this sort of topic. Most people are only acquainted with their own particular way to approach an issue.... A common mistake is to assume that one is part of a traditional way of viewing something, when that really is not the case.
Crudely, objective history searches for the "just the facts please" of all things past. I say crudely because there is obviously debate over historical topics in academia--but they are searching, or at least should be if they have integrity, for history as it really happened.
That just wasn't there in the ancient world, especially in the ancient near east (ANE). People were not concerned about what to us look like apparent contradictions and discrepancies. Logic was not king. The Greek language and alphabet are suited to the purposes of logic, but this is not the case in Hebrew.
For instance, of all the writings from ancient Egypt, how many times have we come across unbiased, unexaggerated portrayals of kings? They always gloat on and on about their triumphs, though they are often not accurate.
So look at the Flood story in Genesis. There are two different descriptions of how many animals were put in Noah's boat, as well as how many days it rained, and how many days the waters lasted. This is because the books were comprised of different sources and edited over time. But for the people who used the Scriptures, those contradictions didn't matter.
For this fact alone, it is unwise to interpret the Bible literally, unless there is sufficient reason to do so. (Not everything in the Bible is objectively false)