The End and the Beginning
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Exodus 20:2 NASB
Brought you out – Israel Finkelstein makes some challenging points in the book, The Quest for the Historical Israel. He notes that archeology is not in the business of exegesis. Exegesis is the process of uncovering the meaning of the text, not the historical and/or physical confirmation or disconfirmation of the text. But exegesis is too often inwardly focused, that is, it is concerned with the theological importance of the text. It overlooks the needs, ideology and goals of the authors and the audience. When it attempts to find universal application for the “words” of God, exegesis often forgets that every author is selective. Fundamental assumptions about divine initiator of the text shape the approach to the text. Because the theology teaches us that God cannot lie, we assume that any sacred text claiming God as its author must be true according to our definition of truth. The veracity of the message is incorporated into the examination simply because the exegete claims the text is divine revelation. But does the text itself require this presupposition? Is it not possible that the text was written to serve other purposes?
Consider this statement in Exodus. Is it a theological text or a declaration of national identity? If you say, “Well, it’s both,” then where does your emphasis lie? Can you view this text as essential to the formation of the nation of Israel without demanding that it also be historically accurate? A few of Finkelstein’s remarks raise serious questions about the assumptions behind our idea of a divinely inspired Scripture.
“Every man who leaves a perceptible mark on that life, though he may be a purely imaginary figure, is a real historical force; his existence is a historical truth,”[1]
Robin Hood is a perfect example in Western culture. Was there really a Robin Hood? Finkelstein’s comment makes us realize that even if there were no such person, his historical presence still shaped the ethos of the West, and even if such a person existed but was nothing like the legends, his historical presence is still a powerful factor in the development of our culture. Finkelstein notes:
Biblical history and archeology are two different disciplines. The Bible is not an historical record in the modern sense, but a sacred text that was written by authors who had strong theological and ideological convictions. Its “historical parts” are wrapped in themes such as the relationship between the God of Israel and the People of Israel, the legitimacy of the Davidic dynasty, and the centralization of the cult in the Jerusalem Temple. Other topics that would have been of great interest to the modern historian are not dealt with at all. Moreover, since much of the text was set in writing at a relatively late date in the history of Israel—in the seventh through the fifth centuries B.C.E.—it does not provide us with a direct, real-time testimony of many of the events of ancient Israel. Besides, even those ancient texts that recount events from a real-time perspective, such as the Assyrian records of the ninth through seventh centuries B.C.E., are not free of ideological inclinations. Therefore, one cannot judge the biblical text according to modern criteria for historical precision. In fact, every historical description is bound to be influenced by the realities of the time of its compilation. It is enough to remember how many contradictory interpretations we give to events that happen today in order to demonstrate how difficult it is to accept an ancient text as providing a full, reliable record of events.[2]
What I am trying to say is that faith and historical research should not be juxtaposed, harmonized, or compromised. When we sit to read the Hagadah at Passover, we do not deal with the question of whether or not archeology supports the story of the exodus. Rather, we praise the beauty of the story and its national and universal values. Liberation from slavery as a concept is at stake, not the location of Pithom. In fact, attempts to rationalize stories like this, as many scholars have tried to do in order to “save” the Bible’s historicity, are not only sheer folly, but in themselves an act of infidelity. According to the Bible, the God of Israel stood behind Moses and there is no need to presume that actual occurrence of a high or low tide in that or that lake in order to make His acts faith-worthy.[3]
“The biblical history was written in order to serve an ideological platform, and as such, it must have been written in a way that would sound reliable to the reader and/or listener.”[4]
“The truth and greatness in the biblical story lies in the realities, needs, motivations, difficulties, frustrations, hopes and prayers of the people of Judah and Jerusalem in late-monarchic and early post-exilic times. It lies in the fact that in a short, stormy period of time, and out of a small, relatively isolated nation with a poor material culture, erupted an extraordinary creativity that produced the founding document of western civilization.”[5]
We might compare this final statement with the eruption of Western science on those tiny Greek islands in the Ionian Sea in the fifth century B.C.E. Something amazing happened. Why it happened we may never know. But this much cannot be denied: it reshaped the entire Western world. So did the God-event of Israel.
Is that enough for you or does it also have to be “true”?
Topical Index: truth, archeology, history, exegesis, Exodus 20:2, brought you out
[1] Israel Finkelstein and Amihai Mazar, The Quest for the Historical Israel, p. 189.
[2] Ibid., p. 183.
[3] Ibid., p. 187.
[4] Ibid., p. 185.
[5] Ibid., p. 188.
Skip,
I realize you write these TWs well in advance. This TW is tied into the writing, “Archeological Crisis” on May 14, 2017. Again, I ask that you take the time to watch the video documentary, Patterns of Evidence (www dot patternsofevidence dot com). The documentary even had a Jewish archeologist who stated that he participated in Passover every year, but did not believe the events of the Passover actually took place. The writings from Finkelstein seem to take on this same idea.
Sorry. I’m not buying it. The documentary shows how the archeologists have a preconceived paradigm, and won’t let the evidence change their convictions. But the evidence is there — from where the Children of Israel lived in Egypt to the event of Jericho. All evidence is there that it happened. But because the archeologists are basing their beliefs on incorrect dating established by one or two early archeologists, they can’t see the forest for the trees.
With all that said, if this is the path that you are beginning to take –that the actual events didn’t really have to take place in order to of benefit to man, I am concerned. Personally, this is not a path I am willing to follow. In other words, the answer to your question: Is that enough for you or does it also have to be “true”? — my answer is, “Yes, it also has to be true.”
If it isn’t true, then we have reduced YHVH’s word to nothing more than a Hebrew version of Aesop’s fables — a very Greek idea in itself.
Rick, I spent many years wandering in a place where I could not see anything in the Bible that could possibly work in my messed up life. I never doubted the Word but I DID doubt that it could be efficacious in my life. I see this line of questioning as perhaps suffering from the opposite problem: believing it to be efficacious but not necessarily ‘true’.
Unfortunately, I found that there is a slippery slope and a super-fine line when you start down the path of requiring God to walk any path a human builds. When I started from my own life and tried to layer the Bible over it, nothing ended up working because I started from myself as the starting referent point. The other angle may well end up putting a person in the same place I found myself: having to start completely over, too.
I see Yeshua as the golden standard for this issue. He would have known the ‘true’ history. Jonah being a GREAT litmus test. What was His reaction to that ‘fable’? He used those 3 literal days to highlight the fact of His own 3 literal days. His confidence in the veracity of the Word is enough for me.
That slippery slope? That fine line between believing the human before the divine? There is but a short step between believing a hammer and finding yourself being a hammer too. Good luck. I beat myself bloody trying to ‘make’ the Bible jump through the hoop a human (myself) built. I see the human hoops others build for it to jump through, too. In the end, though, I have NEVER, like yesterday’s poem points out so well, seen where anyone succeeded. I tasted that failure for myself. I respect the Book now because I fought the Law and the Law won.
Hi Laurita,
I don’t see that I need to make the Bible do anything, what I have noticed is that without any effort on my part, archaeologists are slowly proving the biblical account. Sometimes, they don’t fully understand what it is they have found, but more often than not, biblical scholars do, and then we have a eureka moment.
I stand with that, too, Kevin. I am not worried about the Anvil; I am worried for the hammers.
hmmm, i’m worried about the hammers who THINK they are anvils!
LOL I think all hammers do.
I believe that WAS Israel Finkekstein stating he observed the Passover every year yet knew it didn’t happen?!? And that his career was separate from his faith. How Sad, really.
Patterns of Evidence was awesome. The God of The Bible is True and so are the events that are detailed in the Torah.
Kelly,
I just checked and it is one and the same person. Good catch!
I totally agree with you Rick.
No need to be concerned. I’m raising issues that force us to confront what we mean by “true” and whether or not our definition of “history” must be event recounting. It’s pretty clear that many people hold on to beliefs about God and Scripture that are not even close to what most of us think as “true,” but all this means we have to spend a lot more critical time investigating (and I will look at what you’ve suggested) rather than simply opting for how we “feel” about it. Anyway, I am sure you and I will have time to talk in person about all this. But don’t worry. I’m not throwing out the Scriptures at all.
Not only has to be, but is true/truth. As Bob Gorlik points out in his talk on Mt Maggido (Lessons from Israel 10), the Hebrew way of putting the story together has a reason; he at not time questions the authenticity of the scripture or events.
How uncomfortable do we get when our preconceived ideas concerning a relationship with the Almighty is shaken. Can our faith in God withstand the truth? Or do we prefer the fairytale version so that we feel more comfortable with ourselves?
To me doesn’t have to be true. I personally have never really thought that a man lives for 900 years or that a donkey talks or that a snake walks around. There is a point behind the story and that’s true. I have my own history with the God of Israel, the prayers that are answered, or the nods, nudges and winks that He makes in my life to know that He hears me. That’s all the history I need. Don’t know if that answers your question or not.
I am a very simple yet complex person just like everyone else, but, through my learning walk with YHVH I AM learning to get out of my thinking and let Him enter my heart and thinking. I am so grateful that He is in control, I just have to do the foot work. Thank you Skip, for helping me in this process.
What an interesting topic. I found my God. He is in the pages of the Tanakh! I no longer need to believe that the stories, I believe they are called pericopes, are true. I’ve been assaulted by Christianity since I was a child, belaboring me to believe that every word was perfect andthat the whole Bible was inerrant etc.. It just got to be too much.
What YHVH did was to cull out a people for himself. What he gave to the people at Sinai was something that they could understand. They had heard of creation stories, they had heard of stories of the flood they had heard and known of various and sundry Gods before. In fact they themselves probably worshiped other gods. Stories in Genesis and Exodus don’t have to be true for them to be valid. They are teaching tools that the people of that time could understand. Every nation and kingdom had their own creation stories. Every nation had their flood stories along with other myths. These were not new to the people at Sinai. The journey, like the one in Exodus is long and frightening. If you have not been frightened perhaps you really haven’t started. Love d
Pretty much my thoughts exactly. With your approach there isn’t much room for a crisis nor the need for mental gymastics either.
True. The exhaustion comes from trying to defend it all. It was not intended as a history book, and history has a way of changing too…
;ove d
Here’s what concerns me (just me, by the way). WHY would someone become so agitated about an academic who doesn’t agree with the standard conservative view? Is the matter one of evidence or of emotional attachment? Can we even discuss this without feeling scared?
Skip (or anyone), what is the conservative view? I was raised Catholic so we did our own thing. Then I was Buddhist later Taoist. Then picked up the Bible, met a Christian girl (my wife today) and just learned what the Bible had to say and formed my faith around that. No self righteousness speaking just letting you know I really don’t know a ton of view points totally not in the know of Christian doctrine I only know Catholic view points on stuff. I’ve heard Protestants have this view, “you can’t pick or choose”, or, “it’s all of nothing”. To me they are unilateral negotiations that I never adhered to and leave me tilting my head for the limitations from the get go that they have set u p. Is that the conservative view point? To answer your questions:
I think people get tired of tearing down blocks in their faith and causing manufactured crisis’s haha. And yes, people have emotional attachments to their faith and don’t want to discuss things that would shake their faith. I saw this with the Trinity talk in I think 2014. People tend to get very upset when you ask questions. Personally, I like it.
The book of Jonah brings me comfort, so does Job and also Exodus 34:6-7. Now if you told me that God does create things just to destroy them and wants to watch them burn in the lake of fire, and God doesn’t have something bigger going on that only He could understand (like He is constantly surprised and scratching His metaphoric head when I make a choice) and that He’s really not that patient, forgets things like a grandpa, and chuckles when I mess up…yea I think that i would get a bit emotional. But this? Meh, you’re searching for truth and I want to tag along in the journey.
I can ABSOLUTELY discuss it without being scared. but i tend to now spend a lot of time on what i know i have no regard for. I don’t have a lot of time to waste.
Now should be noT. My typing sux lately.
The problem with a slippery slope is that it only takes you down. You can’t slip up (pun intended).
My comment would be this. Would most New Testament believers actually not even understand the Passover at all when they take communion is this sad but true?
Not to mention whether it is true or not but if information is not handed down even the stories are altered
But we are not on a slipper slope. We are investigating ARGUMENTS, trying to discover why people believe what they believe and if our ability to find evidence resolves any of the issues.
You say that with such a straight face: “if our ability to find the evidence resolves any of the issues”. Is this a test? You have already thoroughly convinced us of the power of the paradigm in which people ONLY find the ‘answers’ for what they are already looking for. What we SHOULD be looking for, then, (and some astute people have already called for this, I think) is the examination of the issues themselves. Define the issues: define the ‘problem’ first. The problem IS the answer for it will always be found in the questions themselves.
I think you are trying to focus on what people are bringing TO the Bible who are reading it through the lens of things like archaeology, say, but some in this community are calling for examining the beliefs of those who are presenting the ‘evidence’ instead. Are you really not going to let us question WHY the ‘evidence’ is considered evidence? I mean, if you are going to get testy about us questioning the questioners, aren’t you just going to be getting lathered about us showing that we have actually been paying attention to you all along?