Independent Historical Corroboration for Biblical Events

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Peter:
[B]there may be aspects recorded within
the bible which bear relation to real events and persons.That doesn't make the entire bible literally true/correct.Since this discussion is about the orgin of diversity of
life I guess we should focus on the accuracy of Genesis.This largely comes down to verifying the Great Flood (which in
itself doesn't verify the whole of Genesis, but hey-ho!)B][/QUOTE]I think it is generally accepted that many parts of the bible refer to real persons and incidents. Quite a few Romans mentioned in the New Testament, for instance, are easily traceable through other sources.The Old Testament is much more of a mixture, comprising history, prophecy, and what can best be described as instructions for living. Of these, obviously only the history parts might contain references to real persons. A further problem is that some of the persons sound real - David and Solomon, for instance, while others, such as Cain and Abel, seem mythical. Genesis is a good example of such a mixture, starting with a myth but going on to believable history. The Straight Dope has a good thread which covers the development of the bible:http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible1.html
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible2.html
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible3.html
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible4.html
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible5.htmlAs far as verifying Genesis is concerned, I think that the creation story is entirely fictitious, the garden story is mainly fictitious, though early stories of easy living beside a great river might be based in reality, and the flood story could be based on one, or many real incidents of extensive flooding. All three stories are primarily explanatory myths. The creation story is the most useful, in that it explains all existence, while the garden story explains pain and suffering. I cannot see what the flood story explains, but it obviously made a great impact at the time. The stories are consistent with an oral tradition of a group living near a major waterway.Incidentally, the flood story, literally interpreted, seems to imply that all animal life on the planet should radiate from a single point, not just humans. I am always a little confused at creationist interpretations of genetic bottleneck theories - they sometimes see them as flood related and sometimes as garden related.Perhaps a useful test prediction of the flood would be the existence of a genetic bottleneck for all living animals at a similar time (but not for fishes). I will have a look for this on another thread.[This message has been edited by Me, 08-28-2002]

Which Romans ? (Not saying you wrong I just would like to know )I agree with the mythic/legendary interpretation.YEC's appear unwilling to consider this ... why I do not
know.

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Originally posted by Peter:
Which Romans ? (Not saying you wrong I just would like to know )

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Off the top of my head ....Herod the Great - died 4BC
Herod Agrippa - Jewish king, educated in Rome, friend of Caligula
Caesar Augustus - no introduction necessary?!
Quirinius - Governor of Syria
Pontius Pilate - Governor of JudaeaI am sure they can be checked in an Encyclopedia, History, or on the Web. There may be more - I am not a bible specialist.I am not sure why a mythic interpretation is not allowed, particularly given the lengths I have seen people go to to interpret the Song of Solomon as a religeous instruction![This message has been edited by Me, 08-28-2002]

I knew that people talking about christianity
mentioned these things (like Josephus and such)
but didn't realise they were mentioned without
the biblical references.

The bible is quite a mixture, as I mentioned earlier.The more recent parts, typically New Testament, are more likely to be checkable than older bits - the Roman world around 100 AD had quite a lot of written records, and many have survived. So cross-connection is possible. The links I gave earlier can sometimes tell us who wrote various books of the bible.Before about 200 BC there was less tradition of recording things, and less items survive. So it is much harder to get comprehensive cross-checking and accurate dating. You may be lucky and find a reference to 'a great king' in a writing from a place neighbouring Israel, and if the dating seems right you could speculate that you had a reference to Solomon. So you might, but equally, you might not. Each people would have their own languages and names or references for foreigners, and a lot of discussion in this field is about whether one name really refers to a particular person. Note that our use of Christian Names and Surnames is really quite recent - it is hard for me to track my family name beyond about 1700By the time you get very far back, you have very little evidence, and speculation becomes much more possible. So evidence of a flood in 3000 BC, or 6000 Bc, or 12000 BC could easily be guessed to be that mentioned in the bible.

The speculative nature of the veracity of the Old Testament
is more-or-less why I feel it cannot be used as a literal
history.We cannot tell whether it is fact or fiction, so can make no
assumptions based upon it's content without firm support
from some other source.

Actually I believe there was quite a bit of recorded knowledge from pre-christian times. However they were stored at the Library in Alexandria which was destroyed, supposedly buy an early christian.

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Originally posted by RedVento:
Actually I believe there was quite a bit of recorded knowledge from pre-christian times. However they were stored at the Library in Alexandria which was destroyed, supposedly buy an early christian.

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The Muslims had a whack at it as well. Much great literature and history were lost. It was a great crime. If it hadn't been destroyed its contents would have made those who are claiming so much for Christianity's history look like they had nothing at all.

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Originally posted by nos482:

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Originally posted by RedVento:
Actually I believe there was quite a bit of recorded knowledge from pre-christian times. However they were stored at the Library in Alexandria which was destroyed, supposedly buy an early christian.

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The Muslims had a whack at it as well. Much great literature and history were lost. It was a great crime. If it hadn't been destroyed its contents would have made those who are claiming so much for Christianity's history look like they had nothing at all.

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Another example would be the spanish destruction of the Mayan codices...one survived but the rest were lost.....kind of like the episode of the Simpson's where Homer gets smart and while doing his taxes he mathematically proves there is no god...Ned Flanders looks at it mumbles and goes "well what do you know..he is right" and then promptly burns it with a lighter and says "can't let that get out"

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Originally posted by nos482:

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Originally posted by RedVento:
Actually I believe there was quite a bit of recorded knowledge from pre-christian times. However they were stored at the Library in Alexandria which was destroyed, supposedly buy an early christian.

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The Muslims had a whack at it as well. Much great literature and history were lost. It was a great crime. If it hadn't been destroyed its contents would have made those who are claiming so much for Christianity's history look like they had nothing at all.

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My system must be playing up - I thought I had answered this one last night, and now I find I haven't!If you read the post you will find that I did not say 'before Christian times', I said 'before 200BC'. Actually, I was specifically thinking of the Alexandrian Library. AFAIK, the first mention of this was in 150BC, so I picked 200BC as a reasonable date - you can pick 300BC if you like, but I do not think you can go much further back than that.I did not mean that no writing was done before this period - a visit to the Brit Mus will easily disprove that - but that this period marked the start of a tendency to record lots of data. This dipped during the Dark Ages, but continued ever since, and has made the historians work of corroboration much easier (which was what the OP was about!).The stories of the destruction of the Library have become legendary, and are often used as accusations against one or more groups. I know of at least three incidents which caused more or less damage - the fire started by Caesar in 47BC, the Christian riot in around 380, and the siege and sacking by Omar, the Caliph of Bagdad, in about 642. Don't hold me tightly to the dates, they're just from memory.I suspect the main threat to the library was the same as the threat we are facing now - lack of official interest and support, followed by gradual deterioration of the structures, and sale/disposal of the books. There was quite a strong market for books (any books!) for collectors at various periods, eg the 11-1200s, and theft would have been rife. As would have been forgery.

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Originally posted by Me:
I did not mean that no writing was done before this period - a visit to the Brit Mus will easily disprove that - but that this period marked the start of a tendency to record lots of data.

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I have to disagree. The Egyptians 2000bc and earlier recorded huge amounts of information. So did the Babylonians, and the Sumerians. In the case of Egypt, there is even a find or two eqivalent of somebody's shopping list, so writing was very common.Just a thought.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by John:

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Originally posted by Me:
I did not mean that no writing was done before this period - a visit to the Brit Mus will easily disprove that - but that this period marked the start of a tendency to record lots of data.

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I have to disagree. The Egyptians 2000bc and earlier recorded huge amounts of information. So did the Babylonians, and the Sumerians. In the case of Egypt, there is even a find or two eqivalent of somebody's shopping list, so writing was very common.

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Just a thought.

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Thanks for the thought! I feel we may be wandering a bit far from the OP, but the point of obtaining corroboration from writings is obviously still germane. As you see from my quote I did not claim that writing was unknown in, say, 3000BC, just that there was a lot more in 200BC. I think you would have difficulty showing that writing was 'common' in 1000BC - common in certain circumstances, perhaps, such as with a scribe recording a tribute, but still a specialist activity.I may be digging myself into a bit of a hole here, as I was thinking partly of recorded surviving writings, and there are obviously more of these from clasical times than from very early periods. However, writing, particularly early writing, is primarily a function of economic activity (and so grows and shrinks depending on trade and taxation organisation). I was trying (struggling?) to express the concept that writing expanded with the Greeks from a few limited subjects (asset tracking, panegyrics of rulers, and religious texts) into a much richer stream of comment, which gave more hooks for a historian to cross refer to.I would be interested in a cite for the shopping list - I suspect it might be in Demotic or Coptic rather than Hieratic, which would make it Ptolomaic, and hence roughly in my proposed period of 300BC onwards. If you look on the web at the Mitchigan or Duke collections you will find that most of their stuff is 200BC onwards.In the end it all depends on what one means by 'lots of data'. As the Egyptian culture waxed and waned, through several long dynastic periods with intermediate periods of imperial breakdown, their written records would have grown and declined accordingly. I still suspect that a lot more was written after 200BC, but I have looked for a site which might estimate amounts of documentation from different cultures and time periods and failed to get a good one - perhaps you could do better?The question is an interesting one I would like to pursue. I hope it does not bore the others![This message has been edited by Me, 09-11-2002]

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Originally posted by Me:
As you see from my quote I did not claim that writing was unknown in, say, 3000BC, just that there was a lot more in 200BC. I think you would have difficulty showing that writing was 'common' in 1000BC - common in certain circumstances, perhaps, such as with a scribe recording a tribute, but still a specialist activity.

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No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.tourgypt.net/magazine/mag02012001/magf2.htmNo webpage found at provided URL: http://www.tourgypt.net/historicalessays/discwriting.htmIn the end it all depends on what one means by 'lots of data'.[/b][/quote]The two articles I posted should give you some idea of what I mean by 'lots of data'.

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I still suspect that a lot more was written after 200BC

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If you are speaking of Egypt specifically, I'd say your wrong as it is well into decline. But with Rome at its height, the region probably had more writing than ever before.

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The question is an interesting one I would like to pursue. I hope it does not bore the others!

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I'm used to boring those around me. ------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John:
[B]No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.tourgypt.net/magazine/mag02012001/magf2.htmNo webpage found at provided URL: http://www.tourgypt.net/historicalessays/discwriting.htmIn the end it all depends on what one means by 'lots of data'The two articles I posted should give you some idea of what I mean by 'lots of data'. [/quote][/b]Thanks for the URLs. It took me some time to find the pages though - there is a letter missing!Though I can see that these sites indicate that writing was common in the Egyptian culture, I can see no references to back this assertion up. And the sites do not deal with the point at issue - the times at which different volumes of writings occurred. The sort of thing I am thinking about is covered in this web-site:Development of Western Civilization | Development of Western Civilization| Providence Collegewhere you can see that the majority of papyri are from the period 200BC onwards. To save you some clicking, here are two references to the Duke collection catalogue, the first covering collections in Hieratic (which is a cursive form of Hieroglyph, used from the 1st dynasty), and the second is the Demotic collection (about 500BC onwards - OK, I was thinking 200-300BC). You will see that the Demotic collection is much larger. I haven't checked all the dates, but I suspect that much is of a late period, say, 200AD?Hieratic
Demotic

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I still suspect that a lot more was written after 200BC

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If you are speaking of Egypt specifically, I'd say your wrong as it is well into decline. But with Rome at its height, the region probably had more writing than ever before.

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The question is an interesting one I would like to pursue. I hope it does not bore the others!

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I'm used to boring those around me.
[/B][/QUOTE]The political power of Egypt was in decline, true, but ports like Alexandria still passed a great deal of trade. While English speakers naturally look to northern Europe and the rise of Britain, France, Holland and Spain, it is worth remembering that the Byzantine Empire (arguably a continuation in the east of the Roman empire) was very powerful until about 1450. The rise of Rome did not mean that other cultures had to stop.I was trying to think of volumes of writing which might be used to cross-refer biblical 'events'. If you remember, the stress of my original post was that it would be easier to get documentary evidence from about 200BC onwards, and harder as we went earlier.Now I come to think of it, however, not getting evidence when we expect it is also evidence of a kind, or at least tends us to think that something didn't happen. Perhaps it would be a good idea to see if what written evidence there is shows no unusual reports when we would expect there to be some. For instance, I would expect civilisations to prepare lots of arks for a long time after the flood, in case it happened again!

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Originally posted by Me:
Though I can see that these sites indicate that writing was common in the Egyptian culture, I can see no references to back this assertion up.

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Oh sure... you want evidence! Geez! I'll have to do some more research.

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The political power of Egypt was in decline, true, but ports like Alexandria still passed a great deal of trade.

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I was thinking of the Egyptian language. In other words, if you were refering to Egyptian specifically then writing had to be in decline, but if you meant writing of any language then I also would assume an increase.

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I was trying to think of volumes of writing which might be used to cross-refer biblical 'events'. If you remember, the stress of my original post was that it would be easier to get documentary evidence from about 200BC onwards, and harder as we went earlier.

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Ok. Preservation being an issue. What I am not convinced of though is that later cultures recorded more information than did the ancient Egyptians who seemed to have been quite obsessive about record keeping. In other words, does Rome or Greece supply the level of 'common' writing that you propose? Do the later Islamic cultures display this?------------------
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