God’s Truth
Bible History—True or False?
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Sunday, July 25, 1999
True History
Phibber seeks to prove that the bible gives us true history and not mythology. The story of Genesis has long been known to be a series of myths or legends, some of them Babylonian in origin. Thus a work dated 1909 maintains the history of Abraham is a compilation of myths or legends.
To refute this idea Phibber appeals to the authority of Professor W F Albright who says, in a substantial quote, that Chapter 14 of Genesis is, in part, very early in origin with allusions that seem to go back to about 1600 BC. How this refutes the earlier statement quite evades me. Our mentor must have a brain of such analytical dimensions that he leaves us behind.
To make it clearer, perhaps, he quotes one line from another work by Albright which says that the “substantial historicity of the tradition of the Patriarchs is clinched”. Now I admit that this sounds as though Albright is saying that the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Genesis are essentially true but one could say the same thing exactly taking their mythological nature into account. I have not looked up the work referenced so I do not know what is intended.
If Albright is saying that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were actual men whose lives are “substantially” accurately described in Genesis then I should not agree and would conclude that Albright is, like our mentor, a fundamentalist. If Albright is saying that a series of tribal events—movements, battles, social and legal changes—are personified as the patriarchal figures then I would find it easier to believe. Since Albright is careful to say “the tradition” is true, one is led to believe he means their personification and not their personalities.
The Christian, and the Jew, wants us to believe that these patriarchs were actually men but they themselves would never concede that Hercules, say, in Greek mythology was a real man. In fact Hercules might have been, and Abraham might not have been, but both sets of myths are telling us something about early societies. Abraham is a real man for the Christian because he lives in the Christian bible. Hercules is not a real man because Christianity superseded classical religion. Hercules is perhaps lucky that he was superseded already before Christianity came on the scene otherwise he might have been like Beelzebub—a devil!
Caution
Phibber remarks on Albright’s great caution in not saying that the tradition of the patriarchs is “substantially” true and not truly true. The discerning reader will have noticed that I too am cautious because I say that Hercules “might have been” a real man and not that he definitely was. I wonder if our guide would respect me for this modesty too.
Phibber is always pleased when he can state something like, “the scholars were wrong about that story in the bible—archaeology has proved it was true”. He takes it to be a vindication of God’s Truth which, no doubt it is, in a sense. But when some archaeological find indicates the opposite it is flinging mud at the bible. Our Christian tutor’s bias is quite disgusting and quite unscientific.
Proper biblical scholars, Christian or otherwise, are delighted when a new piece of evidence comes to light. If it clarifies some aspect of the Old Testament, it is helping us to understand the history of human development and is important quite apart from religion. By these interactions our knowledge is increased.
Our knowledge is not increased by supposed scientists declaring, “Oh that cannot be true! It against God’s holy book”. Yet that is what happened for many years and progress was suspended. More of this later, but I can tell you, in advance, that our guide has words to say about evolution! Meanwhile, we can agree with our mentor that the Old Testament has been invaluable in preserving memories of people and peoples long lost. The trouble is that Christians do not know whose memories they are.
In Daniel, we read a great deal about Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, according to Daniel, who was overthrown by Cyrus the Persian. Our teacher tells us that the ancient chroniclers held that Nabonidus was the king of the Babylonians when Cyrus conquered them. The bible seemed to be wrong but a clay tablet found in 1882 showed that Belshazzar was the regent for king Nabonidus who spent a lot of time away from home. Thus we find a valuable bit of history in the bible and for that we can all be amazed and thankful.
But the bible is still wrong. Belshazzar evidently was not the king. Now the distinction for you or me is unimportant but for Phibber it should be important because it is another of those errors that the Holy Ghost missed when it supervised the production of this infallible work.
Interestingly, a reference to Nabonidus, who is unknown in the Old Testament, has been found among the Qumran fragments. Nabonidus had left Belshazzar as regent because he spent seven years—some say ten—in Arabia in the city of Teiman. The reason for this long period away is unknown, but, since the classical chroniclers say he had his army with him, it seems he was trying to conquer Arabia or was repelling incursions by the Arabs. Possibly he was wounded because the Qumran fragment speaks of prayers for seven years to various heathen gods for the cure of an evil ulcer, or perhaps the ulcer is a metaphorical reference to the problem of the Bedouin invaders. Either way the cure comes from a Jewish exorcist who tells him of the Most High God and pardoned his sins—“…an exorcist pardoned my sins. He was a Jew…”.
There are two points of immense interest in this. One is that the story almost matches a story which is in Daniel but whose subject is not Nabonidus but Nebuchanezzar who died six years before Nabonidus became ruler. Nebuchadnezzar was cured after seven years, not by an exorcist but directly by the Most High God. The coincidences lead one to believe that the Holy Ghost was being careless again. Somehow Nabonidus in Daniel has been changed into Nebuchadnezzar, probably because the latter is a much more famous king. In a similar and more important way, Darius in the bible is always taken to mean Darius the great when, the almost unknown, Darius II is more likely.
The other, possibly even more significant point, is that the Qumran fragment tells us that a man, the Jewish exorcist, pardoned the sins of the king. Yet, if we are to believe the New Testament, for Jews it was blasphemous for a man to forgive sins. The Christians consider the forgiveness of sins one of the most important roles assumed by Jesus, virtually proving that he was God. Yet here was a Jewish exile forgiving the sins of a foreign king supposedly centuries before and having the record of it lovingly preserved in the treasured library of the Qumran sectarians.
At the very least, this says that some Jews went around forgiving sins just as Jesus did, so Jesus was not so unusual. It might even mean that Jesus was of the same religious sect as the owners of the Qumran library—the Essenes, who possibly originated in Babylonia before they “returned”, and were noted for cures. But our guide would consider all this as flinging mud at the infallible bible not as legitimate inquiry into an old set of texts.
Correct memory
Dr Phibber next gives us several examples of biblical history known to be true so we will not be churlish enough to dispute it. But when he quotes Rabbi Dr Nelson Glueck that “no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference” we might feel entiltled to look askance. In the same quotation and highlighted by Phibber, we get “the bible’s almost incredibly correct historical memory” where the “almost” denies the implication of the previous quotation that the Jewish bible is demonstrably perfect. Nevertheless, we agree the Jewish scriptures are remarkable documents of remarkable reliability, considering their antiquity in their present form and the even greater antiquity of their originals. The trouble is that their own story has been believed even though it is propaganda. It not the right one!
With our guide we move on to “some unsolved” problems. First, is that Belshazzar is succeeded in Daniel by Darius the Mede when, in fact, he was succeeded, or rather Nabonidus was succeeded, by Cyrus the Persian. If you believe that Daniel was writing from experience you have a problem, but if you believe that Daniel was an example of pseudepigraphy there is none. The author of Daniel, writing several hundred years after his hero was supposed to have lived, depended upon the scriptures for his historical references. The scriptures implied through their prophecies (Isa 13:17; 21:2; Jer 50:9,41; 51:11,28) that it was the Medes from the northern part of the Iranian plateau not the Persians from the south who conquered Babylon.
Daniel’s Darius the Mede has the characteristics of Cyrus the Persian who first subjugated the Medes then destroyed the Babylonians. He assumed sovereignty over Babylonia at the age of 62 and was a kind king, initially at least. for practical reasons—he did not have the trained administrators to govern such a large empire, and so depended on the goodwill of his subjects. Three subsequent kings of Persia were called Darius. Daniel’s hero is close to being historic. Daniel made a small mistake by accepting that the scriptures were true and that the Medes had therefore conquered Babylonia before the Persians. Phibber wants the scriptures to be infallible so he has a problem, but not the rest of us. Our teacher hopes for “one more shovelful of earth” to prove that Daniel was correct.
Our tutor now tells us that Jewish historians did some strange things in, for example, the way they recorded the reigns of their kings. He says “they sometimes had reigns which overlapped by several years, while one king was living in semi-retirement and his successor was ruling for him”. This is true enough and true not only of Jewish kings but also of kings in Egypt and Mesopotamia also. It has led to many cases of misdating, some of which might be serious. But I don’t see how it is the fault of the Jewish chroniclers that kings habitually overlapped their reigns.
Numbers were a particular problem, having meanings other than their nominal value, and our guide gives us several examples which he says will be sorted out with the emergence of further information. Yet why should it be necessary? If God is writing a holy book guiding his human agents through his supernatural agent, the Holy Ghost, an aspect of himself, why do these problems remain?
Phibber now gives us a few talking heads, people who have come to believe that the bible is true, though it is not clear whether they think it is true in the sense in which Phibber thinks it is true. He says they were all critics of the bible who came to accept it as true history, quite a different thing from believing it to be infallible. I can believe that Macauley writes true history while accepting that he puts much of himself into it thereby reducing its historical value.
Our master sums up by telling us that in 1873 AD scholars thought the bible was untrue whereas now many believe in it. Of course, for centuries before 1873 the bible was considered to be so absolutely true that critics would be burnt at the stake as heretics, so it is little surprise that in more enlightened times there might be a reaction. Much of the progress of knowledge happens in this way though the time scales involved are not usually so long, mainly because God and his cohorts of defenders have historically been difficult to argue with. Conflicting theories often take on the character of black and white opposites but often come together until a compromise occurs.
Sometimes the derived theory will be a synthesis of the older ones, a new idea that encompasses both. Sometimes a new idea renders the old disputes irrelevant. When our “scientific” and “analytical” teacher denigrates the efforts of scholars to get at the truth he is denigrating science and analysis. He has to do this because, for him, like the medieval inquisitors, no challenge to biblical truth is acceptable. As our explainer of God’s Truth puts it, “Jesus taught that ‘the scripture cannot be broken’”—so “bible history is completely accurate”! This man claims to be scientific.
