The bible and ancient history.

[dyresand]

Biblical historical evidence of anything dealing with the bible will never be found. Like noahs ark is never going to be found.

[abaris]

The "given time" is generally when it was either written or last redacted.
Since jesus freaks insist it was written by fucking god and never redacted this does not leave much room for discussion.

Nope, the stoning went out of fashion when it made the mainstream in Greek. So, as a historian, you can deduct that is rather original. They probably did the stoning for all the offenses mentioned in the bible.

See, there are two points to view the bible from. One is from the god inspired word origin. Then it's nothing more than a wad of dirty toilet paper. Or you can view it from a historical point, with being critical of your sources. Then it can actually be helpful.

[Lemonvariable72]

Nope. Since the 1970's archaeology has done more to trash the fucking bible than any other discipline. It sure as hell isn't the theologians who are facing reality.

But it's still interesting source material. You can reconstruct how myths tavelled from land to land as well as how the contemporaries built their societies and laws.

It gives an insight into a particular society at a given time and is therefore an interesting source for historical research.

Let's say your a alien studying earth. Do you think pravska or fox news is going to give you good insight to any of it?

[abaris]

Let's say your a alien studying earth. Do you think pravska or fox news is going to give you good insight to any of it?

Of course they can. They talk about real events, they only give them a twist. The scientific method is being critical and sceptical of your sources. You don't take anything at face value. Otherwise you're missing out on your job description.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

One of the first history courses I read at uni was called 'Sourcing Archeaology'. The upshot was that there is a huge mistake in NOT looking at old manuscripts and stories (the Bible, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Red Branch Cycle and so on) as possible source material, but that field results will always provisionally trump literary sources.

In other words, if your source tells you that a particular structure was built on a particular hill, and was of such and such a size, all well and good. But if you visit the hill and your excavations find no sign of a that specific structure, the source is at fault. This is the case with the First Temple (Temple of Solomon). Although only limited excavation has been done on Mt Zion, it doesn't look promising. The Bible is fairly specific as to how the Temple was built, what it looked like, how large it was, etc. Enough excavation has been done to render the existence of the Temple doubtful at best.

But no, I don't think it is quite time to toss the entire Bible as a potential source of where to look for ancient artifacts. Just the opposite - I think it is pretty vital to continue to look and look and look and thus deconfirm the Bible as an historically accurate text.

Boru

[abaris]

But no, I don't think it is quite time to toss the entire Bible as a potential source of where to look for ancient artifacts. Just the opposite - I think it is pretty vital to continue to look and look and look and thus deconfirm the Bible as an historically accurate text.

Boru

As I said, it's not even about artefacts, it's about studying a particular society. And for that reason I found the bible a rather interesting source. One shouldn't toss any ancient manuscript into the bin only because it transports an agenda. At least not if one is in any way interested in history.

[Minimalist]

Nope, the stoning went out of fashion when it made the mainstream in Greek.

It did?

[abaris]

It did?

I was talking about Greece and Rome, and you know it.

[Minimalist]

I'm not aware of any great tradition of stoning in Roman history. Vestal Virgins who messed up the virgin part were buried alive. IN the early days, before the Romans learned that public executions in the arena were great fun, they would toss various classes of criminals off the Tarpeian Rock on the Capitoline Hill. Again, before they learned about the fun factor, the Romans traditionally strangled the malefactor, a lovely tradition which remained part of the Roman Triumph for quite some time. Vercingetorix, for example, was ritually strangled as the denouement of Caesar's triumph in 46 BC.

[abaris]

Yeah, the Romans had some great fun. But as opposed to the goat fuckers in Palestine they also had a great civilization.