[ref001] Evaluating Historical Claims [ref002] [ref003]_The_Skeptical_Review_: 1995: Numbe
[ref001]
Evaluating Historical Claims
[ref002]
[ref003]_The_Skeptical_Review_: 1995: Number
Three: Evaluating Historical Claims
Farrell Till
The biblical characters presented as emissaries of God were almost always
miracle-workers. They parted the water of seas and rivers; they walked
on water; they commanded the sun to stand still in the sky; they healed
the blind and the deaf; they raised the dead. Nothing, it seems, was
impossible for them to do.
The Bible is filled with tales of such fabulous deeds as these, and
fundamentalist Christians believe that every one of these stories of
miraculous achievements is literally true. If the Bible says that the
prophet Elisha retrieved an iron axe head that had fallen into the Jordan
River by making the axe head float (
[ref004]
2 Kings 6:7), then fundamentalist Christians insist that this
literally happened. If the Bible says that the body of a dead man whom a
band of Moabite marauders cast into Elisha's tomb revived and stood upon
its feet when it touched the bones of Elisha (
[ref005]
2 Kings 13:20-21), then fundamentalist Christians insist that this
literally happened. If the Bible says that a donkey conversed with its
owner in a human voice (
[ref006]
Num. 22:28-30), then fundamentalist Christians insist that this
literally happened. If the Bible says that an earthquake opened the
graves in a cemetery after which the dead people in the opened graves
revived and went into the city of Jerusalem (
[ref007]
Matt. 27:51-53), then fundamentalist Christians insist that this
literally happened. If the Bible says... but why continue? We could fill
this entire issue with examples of other events just as fabulous as these
that the Bible presents as actual historical occurrences--all of which
fundamentalist Christians believe literally happened exactly as
recorded.
In accepting the literal truth of stories like these, fundamentalist
Christians accord the Bible a privileged status that they deny the
literature of other nations contemporary to biblical times. Belief in the
supernatural was commonplace back then, and so the literature of the times
reflected that belief. The Jewish historian Josephus, for example, claimed
that during the feast of unleaven bread just before the Jewish-Roman wars,
a light so bright shined around the temple altar at the ninth hour of the
night that it gave the appearance of "bright day time" for the space of
half an hour (_Wars_of_the_Jews_ 6:5.3). He reported that a
heifer being led to the altar at the same festival gave birth to a lamb in
the midst of the temple and that the eastern gate of the temple, which was
so "vastly heavy" that 20 men had been needed to close it, was
seen to open "of its own accord about the sixth hour of the
night" (_Ibid._). He went on to report that a few days
after the feast, just before sunset "chariots and troops of soldiers
in their armor were seen running about among the clouds and surrounding
the city" (_Ibid._).
Not even radical fundamentalists believe that these events actually
happened, even though the works of Josephus contain some of the same
miraculous claims that are in the Old Testament. His _Antiquities_of
the_Jews_ told of Noah's ark through which life on earth was saved
from a great flood (1:3.2-5), of God's confusing of tongues at the tower
of Babel (1:4.3), of God's appearance to Moses in a burning bush (2:12.1),
of Moses' parting of the Red Sea (2:16.3), and of many other miraculous
acts that are also recorded in the Bible. Fundamentalists, of course,
believe that if Josephus recorded stories of miraculous deeds that have
their parallels in the Bible, then they should be believed insofar as they
agree with the biblical accounts, but if Josephus wrote about miraculous
deeds that don't have parallels in the Bible, like those mentioned
earlier, then they may be rejected.
To say the least, there is an inconsistency in this approach to evaluating
historical claims. For one thing, Josephus was far removed from the time
of Noah and Moses and, therefore, had no opportunity to investigate
firsthand the miraculous feats that allegedly happened in those days. On
the other hand, Josephus, an actual participant in the Jewish-Roman wars,
was alive and in Jerusalem at the time that the altar in the temple
allegedly shined like the light of day at the ninth hour of night, when
the heifer gave birth to a lamb in the temple, and when the heavenly
chariots and soldiers were seen running about in the clouds. He had the
opportunity to interview witnesses and gather firsthand information about
the events. Whether he actually did so is not known, but at least these
were events that allegedly happened right in his midst, so if one is faced
with the choice of believing either the miraculous claims that Josephus
made for his own time or those that had presumably happened centuries
before, it would be more reasonable to believe the claims that he had at
least had the opportunity to investigate personally.
The truly rational person, of course, will accept none of the fabulous
deeds that Josephus wrote about, whether they have their parallels in the
Bible or not, because rational people realize that the Bible is no
different from the other literature of its time. The people of those
times, in all nations, believed that miracles happened routinely. The
Roman historian Suetonius, for example, recorded as a fact that while
Roman magistrates publicly argued about where to take the body of Julius
Caesar to be cremated, two "divine forms" came down with torches
and set fire to the bier on which Caesar's body was lying in state
(_The_Twelve_Caesars_, Penguin, 1979, p. 52). He reported that
Caesar's "soul" was seen as a comet for seven consecutive days
about an hour before sunset (_Ibid._, p. 53). He reported that
some had seen the spirit of Augustus Caesar ascending to heaven in the
crematory flames (_Ibid._, 111). Suetonius told of a woman
named Claudia, who to prove "her perfect chastity" prayed to
refloat a boat grounded in a mud-bank on the Tiber river, "and did
so" (_Ibid._, p. 114). A footnote in the Penguin version
of the book dates this event at 204 B. C., so it is unlikely that a woman
living in Rome at that time would have been praying to Yahweh, the Hebrew
god. Bible fundamentalists, therefore, would say that if the boat in this
story did actually float free from the mudbank after Claudia's prayer, the
pagan prayer had had nothing to do with it. On the other hand, they would
argue with their dying breath that Peter's prayer to the "true"
God was directly responsible for raising Dorcus from the dead ([ref008]Acts
11:40), a feat that would be far more difficult to accomplish than
floating a boat free of a mud-bank.
Bibliolaters like to talk about the "uniqueness" of the Bible, but
actually it is a rather ordinary collection of writings for the times that
produced it. The Old Testament often speaks of Yahweh's leading the
Israelites to victory over their enemies, but the literature of
surrounding nations tells of gods who led their people to victory too. The
Moabite Stone, discovered in 1868 east of the Dead Sea, recorded the
victories that the god Chemosh had led Mesha, a Moabite king mentioned in
[ref009]
2 Kings 3, to win over his enemies. The text reads much like a page from
the Old Testament:
I am Mesha, son of Chemosh..., king of Moab, the Dibonite. My father
was king over Moab thirty years and I became king after my father.
And I made this sanctuary for Chemosh at Qrchh, [a sanctuary] of
salvation; FOR HE SAVED ME FROM ALL THE KING AND LET ME SEE MY
DESIRE UPON MY ADVERSARIES. Omri, king of Israel, he oppressed Moab
many days, FOR CHEMOSH WAS ANGRY WITH HIS LAND. And his son succeeded
him and he too said, "I will oppress Moab." In my days he
spoke [thus], and I saw my desire upon him and upon his house, when
Israel perished utterly forever. And Omri had taken possession of
the land of Medeba and [Israel] dwelt in it his days and half the
days of his son, forty years; BUT CHEMOSH DWELT IN IT IN MY DAYS.
And I built Baal-Meon and made it in the reservoir, and I built
Qaryaten. And the men of Gad had long dwelt in the land of Ataroth,
and the king of Israel had built Ataroth for himself. But I fought
against the town and took it and I slew all the people of the town, A
SPECTACLE FOR CHEMOSH and Moab. And I brought back from there the
altar-hearth of David and I dragged it before Chemosh at Qeriyoth.
And I settled there the men of Sharon and the men of Mchrt. AND
CHEMOSH SAID TO ME, "GO, TAKE NEBO AGAINST ISRAEL." And I
went by night and fought against it from the break of dawn till noon; and I
took it and slew all: seven thousand men, boys, women, and [girls]
and female slaves, FOR I HAD CONSECRATED IT TO ASHTAR-CHEMOSH. And I
took from there the vessels of Yahweh AND DRAGGED THEM BEFORE
CHEMOSH. And the king of Israel had built Jahaz and he dwelt in it
while fighting against me. BUT CHEMOSH DROVE HIM OUT BEFORE ME. And
I took from Moab two hundred men, all of them leaders, and led them
up against Jahaz and took it to annex it to Dibon. I built Qrchh,
the walls of the parks and the walls of the mound; and I built its
gates and I built its towers; and I built the king's house; and I
made both the reservoirs for water inside the town. And there was no
cistern inside the town of Qrchh, so I said to all the people,
"Make yourselves each one a cistern in his house." And I had
ditches
dug for Qrchh by prisoners of Israel. I built Aroer and I made the
road by the Arnon. I built Beth-bamoth, for it was destroyed; I
built Bezer, for it was in ruins, with fifty men of Dibon, for all
Dibon is under my authority. And I reigned [over] hundreds of towns
which I had annexed to the country. And I built... Medeba and
Beth-Diblathen and Beth-Baal-Meon, and I led up there the breeders of
the sheep of the land. And as for Hauronen, there dwelt in it....
CHEMOSH SAID TO ME, "GO DOWN, FIGHT AGAINST HAURONEN."
And I went
down... [and there dwelt] in it Chemosh in my days... (D. Winton
Thomas, _Documents_From_Old_Testament_Times_, Harper &
Row, pp. 196-197, emphasis added).
There are gaps in the text, represented by the ellipses, and the absence
of vowels in the Semitic dialect in which it was written makes the
pronunciation of some place names undeterminable, but the text itself is
sufficient to show that the Moabite religion was very much like the Hebrews'.
The Hebrews thought that their god Yahweh was actively involved in
their daily affairs, but the sections of the Moabite text emphasized in
bold print show that the Moabites believed the same about their god
Chemosh.
The Hebrews believed that their god saved them and their kings from their
enemies: "Thus Yahweh saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all
others, and guided them on every side" (
[ref010]
2 Chron. 32:22; see also
[ref011]
Ex. 14:30;
[ref012]
1 Sam. 10:17-18;
[ref013]
Ps. 44:7). But as the first point of emphasis in the Moabite text
shows, King Mesha believed that Chemosh "saved [him] from all the kings
and let [him] see [his] desire upon [his] adversary." In times of
adversity, the Hebrews thought that they were being punished by Yahweh:
"And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of
Yahweh, and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years" (
[ref014]
Judges 6:1; see also
[ref015]
Judges 2:11-12;
[ref016]
4:1;
[ref017]
10:7-8). King Mesha of the Moabites likewise believed that his god
punished the people when he was miffed at them: "Omri, king of
Israel, he
oppressed Moab many days, for Chemosh was angry with his land."
According
to the Old Testament, Yahweh at times even talked directly to the
Israelite kings to give them battle instructions: "Therefore David
inquired of Yahweh, saying, 'Shall I go and attack these Philistines?' And
Yahweh said to David, 'Go and attack the Philistines, and save
Keilah'" (
[ref018]
1 Sam. 23:2). In the text of the Moabite Stone, however, we see that the
god Chemosh at times talked directly to kings too: "And Chemosh said to
me, 'Go, take Nebo against Israel.'"
According to King Mesha's account engraved on the Moabite Stone, he
"went by night and fought against it [Nebo] from the break of dawn
till noon." Mesha claimed that he took Nebo and "slew all: seven
thousand men, boys, women, and [girls] and female slaves," so, yes,
indeed, this reads very much like a page out of the Old Testament, right
down to the details of the massacre of the captives. It just shows how
very much alike the nations of that geographical region were at that time.
They all thought in terms of "our god can lick your god," and
when they won, they all dealt quite harshly with the losers. The shame of
Bible fundamentalists is their absurd belief that slaughters like the one
King Mesha described were immoral acts of superstitious heathens, but
massacres executed by the Israelites were morally right because they were
commanded by Yahweh. The Israelites were separated from the Moabites by
only the Dead Sea and in some places by just the Jordan River, so
reasonable people, living in enlightened times, should have enough common
sense to realize that if the Moabite god Chemosh wasn't real, then neither
was the Hebrew god Yahweh, who was so much like Chemosh in temperament and
character.
If we assume that the battle for Nebo happened as Mesha described it, one
might wonder why the Israelites living in Nebo didn't question why an
omniscient, omnipotent deity like Yahweh would have allowed an upstart
pagan like Mesha to defeat his specially chosen people, but the Hebrew
prophets would have had a perfectly sensible explanation. They had done
something to displease Yahweh, and so he had used Mesha to punish them for
their evil. You have to give the sorcerers and prophets of that era credit
where credit is due, because they knew how to cover all of their bases. If
something fortuitous happened, usually victory over their enemies, it was
a sign that they were pleasing Yahweh; if something calamitous happened,
it meant that Yahweh was punishing the people for wrongdoing. Either way
Yahweh came out smelling like a rose, and it is all so ridiculous that I
find it absolutely incredible that intelligent people today can take such
stuff as this seriously.
All of this brings us back to a point that I have made in past articles:
the only sensible way to evaluate claims that one has no firsthand
knowledge of is to apply a rule of evidence that Carl Lofmark explained in
_What_Is_the_Bible?_
When you lack evidence, the only way to decide whether or not to
believe something is to ask: Is it likely? If you tell me a bird
flew past my window, I will probably believe you, even though I did
not see it myself and I have no evidence. That is because such a
thing is likely. I have seen it happen before. It is more likely
that a bird flew past my window, than that you are deceiving me.
But if you tell me a pig flew past my window, I will not believe you,
because my past experience tells me that such things do not happen,
and so I presume that what you reported is false. Thus, where there
is no evidence we have to rely on our own past experience of the sort
of things that really happen (pp. 41-42).
If we do not apply this rule of evidence to historical claims, we will be
driven to an extreme that [ref019]Thomas
Paine described in _[ref020]Age of Reason_:
As to the ancient historians, from Herodotus to Tacitus, we credit
them as far as they relate things probable and credible, and no
farther; for if we do, we must believe the two miracles which Tacitus
relates were performed by Vespasian, that of curing a lame man and
a blind man, in just the same manner as the same things are told of
Jesus Christ by his historians"* (Part Two, 200th Anniversary
Edition, p. 62).**
This method is the only rational way to evaluate historical claims. If we
apply it impartially, we will have to reject the fantastic claims in the
Bible for the same reason that we reject the many fantastic claims that
are in other ancient documents contemporary to biblical times.
*Actually, Suetonius rather than Tacitus attributed these miracles
to Vespasian (_The_Twelve_Caesars_, p. 284). For additional
information on the topic of evaluating historical claims, see Thomas
Wheeler's letter on pages 13-14 of this issue.)
** This paperback edition of Paine's book can be purchased for only
$5 from Stephen VanEck whose address is published at the end of his
article on page 9 of this issue.
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[ref004] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=2Kings+6:7
[ref005] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=2Kings+13:20-21
[ref006] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=Numbers+22:28-30
[ref007] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=Matthew+27:51-53
[ref008] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=Acts+11:40
[ref009] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=2Kings+3
[ref010] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=2Chronicles+32:22
[ref011] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=Exodus+14:30
[ref012] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=1Samuel+10:17-18
[ref013] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=Psalms+44:7
[ref014] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=Judges+6:1
[ref015] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=Judges+2:11-12
[ref016] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=Judges+4:1
[ref017] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=Judges+10:7-8
[ref018] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?version=KJV&passage=1Samuel+23:2
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