Is the Bible Historical? It Depends.

In the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Sean Freyne drops this little tidbit:

The problem we are have is trying to distinguish between what is theological reflection and its development, on the one hand, and historical realities on the other. Instead of splitting them apart and saying that's theology and that's history, I think the Bible as a whole gives us theologically interpreted history. There is an ongoing kind of reflection on historical events and rethinking them and reframing them and reinterpreting them, constantly reworking Biblical tradition itself in the process. That's why it's so hard to pull out the historical Jesus or the historical Israel and say there they are. [emphasis mine]

I think Freyne brings up an important point. When we read the scriptures, we need to realize that we are not reading history as we might think of history. We are reading textual traditions that reflect a long process of oral and written stages. These traditions, even in oral form, were tremendously formative for the people who experienced them, transmitted them, and ultimately wrote them down. We would be quite naive to assume they did not undergo redaction, or as Freyne puts it, reframing and reinterpretation. These texts are also "theological" in that they exist to promote a framework for understanding the past, present, and future. To say that the Biblical texts are literal history one runs the danger of actually minimizing their nature and purpose, let alone placing oneself in the dubious position of having to explain certain historical inconsistencies within the text. The scriptural texts were not meant to be historical as we understand the genre of history today; they were formative traditions that emerged out of historical contexts, which were transmitted orally until committed to written form. [Then later redacted into a final form, but that's a post for another time...]

Comments

[Meshugina]

Nice Post. I think Freyne is trying to put a nice little bow on a difficulty within archaeology of the Near East which has just as many non-believers in it, as there are believers. Believers are theological people, by definition; whether they are schooled in the higher debates of it or not. To imply that the theology of the transmitter of the history framed the actuality of it, erodes the platform of its inerrancy.

As for the framing and reinterpretation, it is largely a western mindset which believes the redaction of history is a probability within written or oral accounts. The post modern perspective would encourage the telephone game situation with retelling of history.

It seems reasonable to believe that people mutate the truth to suit their purpose, but the Jews are notoriously stodgy about righteousness through historical validation. It is an insult to the Patriarchs to change the historical account and therefore not an option. As for the accounts of change in the Messianic period texts, First Century documents exist which validate modern texts we used today.

Freynes semantic dissections of reality and fluidity are consistently superfluous, as in his battle of conceptual resurrection vs. human resuscitation. As one of my professors used to say, he likes to deny the meat for the sake of the gravy...