Is the Bible Historically Reliable? Part II

Or should we just talk about something else?

As discussed in my first post of this title, the question of historicity didn’t get much attention at Exiles in Babylon this past month, so we’re going to have that discussion here. We’ve already had some great comments and questions. Keep ‘em coming. And if you’ve just joined us, I encourage you to head back to Part I and get some context!

King Jehu of the northern kingdom of Israel bowing before Neo-Assyrian king Shalmaneser III on the Black Obelisk, 841 BCE

We’ve already dealt with our vocabulary: History, Historicity, and Historiography. Now let’s engage the next question. What did history-writing look like in the ancient world?

Obviously, the events in our Old Testaments happened long, long ago and far far away, but even in an ancient world there were historians. And there were histories. But the expectations of what “history-writing” should look like were significantly different than ours. And that because you and I are children of the Enlightenment. Meaning that reason, individualism, skepticism, and what we call “objectivity” are the values we purport in any intellectual enterprise. As a result, we expect “history-writing” to be chronologically linear, event-oriented, “objective” (meaning no particular value system attributed to the events recorded), and any record that rehearses the acts of the gods, well that—by definition—would be myth, not history. So our histories are also atheistic.

But is that what ancient history-writing looked like?

No. Ancient history writing was not chronologically linear or event-oriented. It was instead character-oriented. As a result, our narrators circle around the story of an esteemed ancestor or leader until that person steps off the stage in death. At which point these histories circle back and turn their attention to the next character. Much like what you see in what scholars call the Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob “cycles,” which do not disengage their central character until that character dies. It is then that the next character moves to center stage.

Or perhaps 2 Kings, what scholars know as part of the “The Deuteronomistic History,” that tells the story first of king Ahaz in the south (2 Kgs 16), then Hosheah in the north (2 Kgs 17), then king Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18-20), Manasseh (2 Kgs 21), and Josiah (2 Kgs 22-23) each in the south. Here we find boundaried narratives of each king, even though we can demonstrate conclusively that Hezekiah ruled as a co-regent with his father Ahaz, and with his son Manasseh (meaning that all three reigns overlapped).

King Hezekiah’s signature seal imprinted on a clay bulla, discovered in the City of David excavations December 2015

The same is true of the book of Judges. Each judges’ narrative is told in its entirety before we move to the next, even though we know that some of them were reigning concurrently, in separate regions, because the nation was facing multiple threats at one time.

Ok, so character-centered and not necessarily chronologically linear.

But likely the greatest difference between ancient and modern history writing is that ancient history-writing was un-apologetically theocentric. Meaning that the gods always played a role in these accounts of the past. AND that theology (the not-objective view of the narrator) was essential to the telling of the tale. The supernatural and miraculous? All the time.

So the Law Code of Hammurabi, the Annals of Sargon II, Sennacherib, and Ashurbanipal; the Babylonian Chronicles that record the essential political and military events of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 745 BCE to the 3rd c. BCE; the Meshe Stele that rehearses the liberation of Moab from the hands of Omri and Ahab, and even the Black Obelisk that shows us Israelite King Jehu with his butt in the air grovelling at the feet of Shalmaneser III—all of these speak of the gods’ intimate involvement in human history. A reality that, in a modern mindset, would render each of these essential historical sources illegitimate. But of course if we rule these ancient sources out … well then we have no ancient history at all.

All told, our Bible, in the books in which it claims to be history-writing (another very important point) completely echoes the expectations of history-writing in its day.

And, actually, let me pull that back just a bit. As Martin Noth (a giant in my field), first observed, the Bible is actually more circumspect regarding its utilization of sources than its ANE analogues. Even John Van Seters, a distinguished professor of Religious Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill (who we’ll come to know as a “minimalist”), finds the historiographic method of the Bible’s “Deuteronomistic History” so meticulous, so sophisticated that he attempted to date it to the days of Herodotus (the Greek “father of history”). Why? Because surely the Israelites could not have come up with “good” history writing before the Greeks!

And let’s all linger over the fact that our biblical historians, unlike surrounding historians, actually dare to contradict and criticize the leaders and heroes of their day. Think of the narrative of David and Bathsheba, Hezekiah’s foolishness at the end of his life, and Jeremiah’s resistance to his own calling. Not only do the Annals of Sennacherib completely fail at this sort of journalistic integrity, heck, so do the Washington Post and the NY Times!

So recognizing that the national histories contained in our Bibles are in fact ancient history writing, we find that they are quite respectable. The first of these national histories is the pre-exilic Deuteronomistic History which encompasses Joshua- 2 Kings; the second is the post-exilic Chronicler’s History which encompasses I & II Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah. Two different authors, two different eras, two different agendas. A lot of shared source material, but a lot of distinct source material as well. Both do their research, name their sources, offer editorial comments, criticize their leaders, incorporate the miraculous, and are clearly directed by theological intent. And both are, by any historiographic evaluation, careful, circumspect expressions of ancient history-writing.

As for the books that you are likely most interested in, Genesis & Exodus, well, these books are not recognized as pure history-writing, and there are many would like to write them off as etiological fictions (stories created to explain current realities by creating fictional pasts). But as William Foxwell Albright first said, and most biblical historians continue to echo, “the broader framework of the narratives recorded in these books has proven to reflect historical memory.” Yes, there are a fair number of caveats in that quotation. And, yes, it is unrealistic to expect to prove or disprove individual episodes in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But the majority of historical biblical scholarship (e.g. Lawrence Stager, Amihai Mazar, Allan Millard, Richard Hess, Jeffrey Tigay and so many more) finds historical memory even in the books of Genesis and Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Which brings us to the biggest question—how do we in the 21^st century go about critically assessing these ancient histories for their historicity? How do we determine what is real historical memory … and what is something else? Stay tuned!

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