The Bible's Buried Secrets
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 6:55 am
This is a "Nova" show that aired last night in my area. It's available for watching online, too. It brought together three main strands: the origins of the ancient Israelites, the evolution of their belief in the one God, and the creation of the Bible. The show took the common-sense approach that as we come forward in time, the historical basis for the biblical chronology increases. For the earliest events, before the reign of King David, no historical corroboration exists. For David and Solomon heading a powerful united kingdom, the evidence was presented as mixed. Some believe that buildings discovered within the oldest part of Jerusalem are the fortress of David's city.
One speaker observed that there is no word for "history" in the Bible, and that history as we understand it wasn't what the Jewish writers of the Bible were up to. They were attempting to provide a sustaining story for a distinct people that had gradually emerged from a collapsed Canaanite kingdom. The historical nugget of truth in the Exodus story is that a smallish group of Canaanite slaves escaped from Egypt, picked up the god YHWH from another group on their way back home, and then inspired the rest of this Canaanite underclass with their tale of freedom under YHWH's protection. There was never a conquering of Canaan from an outside army of Israelites. The Israelites were there all the time.
Monotheism doesn't become established in Israel until after the return from the Babylonian exile in the 6th century. The Bible does talk about Israelite lapses into polytheism ever since the time of the legendary Abraham, but archaeology shows that polytheistic worship was constant by Israelites until it finally was purged by the exiled Jews in Babylon.
Reading the Bible as history to the letter is an aberration of fairly recent times. No doubt the Jews considered their Bible scribes to be inspired by Yahweh, but they understood inspiration differently from modern literalists. It didn't bother them that creation could be said to have happened in two ways, or that the flood story is actually a combination of two accounts.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/bi ... crets.html
One speaker observed that there is no word for "history" in the Bible, and that history as we understand it wasn't what the Jewish writers of the Bible were up to. They were attempting to provide a sustaining story for a distinct people that had gradually emerged from a collapsed Canaanite kingdom. The historical nugget of truth in the Exodus story is that a smallish group of Canaanite slaves escaped from Egypt, picked up the god YHWH from another group on their way back home, and then inspired the rest of this Canaanite underclass with their tale of freedom under YHWH's protection. There was never a conquering of Canaan from an outside army of Israelites. The Israelites were there all the time.
Monotheism doesn't become established in Israel until after the return from the Babylonian exile in the 6th century. The Bible does talk about Israelite lapses into polytheism ever since the time of the legendary Abraham, but archaeology shows that polytheistic worship was constant by Israelites until it finally was purged by the exiled Jews in Babylon.
Reading the Bible as history to the letter is an aberration of fairly recent times. No doubt the Jews considered their Bible scribes to be inspired by Yahweh, but they understood inspiration differently from modern literalists. It didn't bother them that creation could be said to have happened in two ways, or that the flood story is actually a combination of two accounts.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/bi ... crets.html