Yes, of course. It’s a history book.
The practice of history has evolved since it was written, but large parts of the Prophets are pretty decent history for their time. And I think most of the Torah was meant to be history, as well.
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Most of the books of the NT are not history, but measured in verses or pages, a significant portion of the NT (Gospels + Acts) is history.
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And we periodically uncover historic evidence that is consistent with the Bible.
Like there was no hard proof that Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect in Judaea who oversaw Christ’s crucifixion, actually existed or was just a Biblical myth.
But then in 1961 some Italian archaeologists uncovered a stone tablet that bore Pilate’s name and is assumed to be from the early part of the first century, when Pilate was prefect / when Christ was crucified.
And Esther is one of the books widely believed to NOT be history.
Genesis has a lot of history but the creation story is poetry, isn’t it? (I’m a Christian who believes in a divine creation but not one that took place in 6 24-hour days.)
I think the Torah (1st 5 books of Christian OT) is largely history. The Samuels, Kings, and Chronicles also contain history. (But there are some discrepancies between Kings and Chronicles, for example.) Esther and Job are widely believed to be stories. Psalms and Song of Solomon are poetry. I don’t know what to make of most of the prophets but I’m reading along with The Bible Recap podcast this year so maybe I’ll learn a few things.
I think its historical in the sense that it tries to give religious meaning and relevance to events that are thought to have actually happened.
But i do not think it’s history in the modern sense, where there is a lot of importance placed on a chronology that anybody can independently verify based on evidence. In other words it is not remotely scientific in the modern sense of the word.
So from an evidence standpoint i think it is closer to myth than a scientific history. This is because myths are know because they are stories that are told, not because of scientific evidence. So also with the biblical stories.
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Perhaps, but they are pretty specific about precisely when it occurred.
That is my belief too: that it is like a parable. But there are certainly plenty who have pinpointed the exact year and do believe that it was precisely 6 days that last the exact same length of time as modern days (a bizarre claim, IMO, given that the sun didn’t even exist for the first three days).
Again, depends who you ask.
Yes, there’s not much there that even purports to be history.
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That’s easy “All scripture is given by inspiration of God …”
2 Timothy 3:16 Didn’t you memorize that?
Word for word inspiration in my church…
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Blame MagillaG, he started it.
And, what Lucy said.
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Doesn’t, I believe it was the book of Genesis and also Numbers have whole chapters about “X begat Y begat Z”? But it also gives people who lived hundreds of years (topped off by Methuselah I think at 969). My old church took all of that very literally - gave very specific theories about how there was a thin sheet of water surrounding the world that prevented damaging UV rays from aging people, things like that, I can’t remember a lot of it. When the Flood happened that sheet fell down and covered the earth and that’s how we got oceans and also why people stopped living so long.
Just triggered some old memories there.
A for creativity
although I don’t think water is that capable of stopping UV anyway? Easy to get sunburnt in a pool anyway.
Never heard the bit about the water surrounding the earth, but I believe that when the sun was younger the UV rays weren’t as damaging.
Likely true, although on the literalist timescale of about 6000 years (at least, that’s what I was taught!) it wouldn’t matter. Unless a deity magically accelerated the Sun.
If you want to go with a literal reading of the Bible - the Earth predates the Sun…
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There is no need to scientifically explain stuff caused by God. God wanted these people to live long, so they did. End. Of. Story.
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yeah what’s the point of explaining biblical events sceintifically? god can make everything appear the way they are with the snap of a finger
Correct.
I always amazes me that religious people try to minimize God’s powers. Why would they do that?
I saw one recently where a pastor tried to explain water covering the mountains by saying there are vast pools of water underground that could have covered the land. Somehow, it didn’t occur to him to say “God created as much water as he wanted when he wanted it, then un-created it when he didn’t want it. We call this a ‘miracle’. End. of. Story.”
I’ve heard of this too, the “firmament” Firmament - Wikipedia. “…God said let there be a firmament…” Genesis 1:6 NKJV
The idea is that God is “sovereign” and controls everything, but the scientific method works, and that is based on repeatable tests showing consistent results. Then God must have a very strong preference toward things behaving in a predictable way consistent with “science.” The idea is that while certainly God can perform miracles (anything outside the bounds of science), we see that that is not his preference, as that is not the way things typically go in our day-to-day lives. If God can carry out his will within the bounds of science, he will.
That doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Does science exist outside of God? Or did God create the concept of science?
What does God can carry out his will within the “bounds of science” even mean? Did he set the bounds? If not, who did? If no one did, why do we need God?
It’s not supposed to make sense.
You, stop thinking and just believe.
End. Of. Story.
(I think we’re on the same side, for once!)
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I think the word you’re looking for is faith
