Did the pharoahs who had records recorded by scribes have the whole truth recorded or did they skew the record to bolster their own achievements etc. That is debatable.
everyone is biased. people write history in their own favor.
Jewish scribes also wrote early scroll manuscripts of history such as the Torah and the Dead Sea Scrolls etc.
there's a lot wrong with this statement. to start with, the torah is contained within the dead sea scrolls -- the DSS are merely a collection of physical documents, including all of the torah and iirc, all of the nevi'im and a fair portion of the kethuvim, and a number of other documents as well.
second, the torah isn't exactly a manuscript of history. it is tradition, folk tales, etiologies. there
are history texts contained within the bible -- look to the book of kings.
Later Mohammed and Joseph Smith wrote their books which contain what they claimed to be historical data.
i haven't the qu'ran, but i still suspect your claim as to its contents. is there anything in the qu'ran that even claims to be historical data? smith... might be another topic.
Like some of the other records, the Biblical record, one of the relatively early types of written records contains certain recorded historical events such as pertaining to the Egyptian, Babylonian and Persian empires, etc. How much of this record is true?
as near as we can tell, soon after the reigns of david and solomon, much of the biblical story becomes far less debatable. some quibbles here and there, and some interesting asides about author bias -- but most of the wars documented in kings seem to have happened. the exile in babylon seems to have happened. the persian conquest of babylon, and cyrus allowing the jews to return home seems to have happened. the building of the second temple seems to have happened.
granted, it's not as cool as worldwide floods and mass exoduses from egypt filled with miracles -- but those parts seem to actually be history, told in a historical way.
Some Christians see the Biblical record as infallible. Others say it's basically true but not totally infallible. Some say there is some true historical information in it and some simply tales. Then we have professed Christians who say it's nearly all myth.
the problem seems to be that when people talk about "the bible" the actually mean only a few specific texts: genesis, the first half of exodus, maybe isaiah, the gospels, and the epistles of paul. very rarely does anything else even get talked about. i pulled a quote from
esther today, and was surprised for a second. i can't remember the last time anyone here even talked about, much less quoted esther.
but because there is so much focus on books like genesis in the EvC debate, an argument about how genesis is myth and not history can quickly get misconstrued into "the whole bible was simply made up." especially considering the fundamentalist tendency to assume that the bible is one continuous text, all of the same content and style.
The debate goes on and on and on as to how much of the Biblical record is true
if you'd like my frank opinion, i actually don't care how much is true. if you ask me, i'll point out the bits that probably are, and the bits that probably aren't, and the bits that are simply matters of faith. but really, it doesn't matter to me. i'm more interested in an honest appraisal of what the text says, what the authors mean to show, and what can be gathered (either academically or morally) from the text. question about the accuracy of the text just... distract from the real point, in my opinion.
1. Does a Biblical historical record exist?
yes, the books of kings and chronicles seem to be academic histories, for the most part.
2. Must a historical record be imperically substantiated to be 100% accurate to be regarded as a historical record?
no. all history is innaccurate to some degree.
If not, what percentage of a record must be imperically substantiated accurate to be regarded as a historical record?
frankly, it could be 0% true for all i care. "history" is a style, and a form, not a matter of accuracy. it's a form that lends itself to reporting real-world events in a mostly-true kind of way, but it need not be so. you could be reading a
history of the star trek universe, and maybe 95% of it is completely and entirely fictional. but it's still a history.
3. Certain books of the OT are nearly all alleged history such as the Chronicals, Kings, Numbers, etc. Must these books be imperically verified before Biblical creationist members are allowed to refer to the Bible as a historical record in discussion and debate?
one can, and does, refer to certain books of the bible as historical sources for the ancient near east, thought often with a disclaimer elaborating on the particular biases present in the text.
the fact of the matter is that the entire bible is not simply one book, and cannot be treated as such. some books are pretty close to being histories, some books are pretty far. some or histories of tradition. some are just poetry. the bible is not any
one thing. it is MANY things. saying that "the bible is a historical record" is a clear way to tell people in a debate that you are a fundamentalist and have not considered the contents of the bible very carefully.
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