Historical accuracy in the bible and origins of its myths

[Grimlock]

The Historical accuracy of the bible is something lot a creationist and extremist sorry evangelist loves to point out.
Well this threat serves to point out those historical facts that are present in the bible and at the same time point out the origins of some of the myths that are DEFFINATLY NOT historical accurate.
Minor discrepancies are allowed and example could be that the bible, describes a battle between the Babylonians and the Jews, where the heroic Jews held off the wicked Babylonians and the city wall.
Well a tablet from Babylon was found describing the very same battle with one difference in here the so-called "heroic" Jews not only did not hold of the wicked Babylonians but the wicked Babylonians where actually knocking on the mayors door.
Though different in outcome it doesn,´t change the fact that the battle itself, did happen and as such could be counted amongst the historical accuracies in the bible.

So with that said I,´ll begin: The story of the flood is a myth that properly has two sources the first being from an old tribe story of the tribes living along the banks of the, that time fresh water sea that would later become the dead sea.
When the sea water broke through the barriers that were holding it back, many a man drowned yet a few survived and escaped and through them the story of that catastrophically event lived on.
Another source might be that of a Sumerian king that survived with his family when a catastrophically flood destroyed his village.
He and his family was swept away in the boat they were using for trade and was washed out in the red sea where they sailed for at least 7 days before being able to make port.
Unfortunately back then the law was you either pay what you owe, or no matter your status you can be reduced to a slave and work the rest of your life to work of your dept.
Many of the king's creditors had survived and when the king for obvious reasons was unable to pay back his dept he was forced to flee or risk becoming a slave.
The story of the Sumerian king was stored in a Babylonian library where it was said two Jewish scholars latter found it and from that wrote the first draft of what would later evolve into the story of Noah's ark.

The Tower of Babel has been found and proved to have existed in real life though how it exactly came to ruin is not known today.

 

[Lunar Sonata]

Well, yea.

I have a small AHA moment after considering this thread coming with the realization that humanity, as a whole, may never truly understand itself. Probably won't. It can't know itself intimately b/c it can never truly flesh together its history, and the circumstances through which mankind was allowed to evolve from single cell to multi cell and sentient remains nearly a complete mystery, to a majority of humanity. We have no way of knowing. Details become even more scaled down and hazy as time goes on. Dust may one day be all that remain of mankind's memory. Should we really trust our memory to a religious document? That's the question we should really be asking ourselves atm.

... honestly. It's hard enough gauging the here and now credibly, but now we are expected to go back into the dawn of man in his darkest hours and make credible statements about the nature of historical fact and whether certain scripts are consistent with having actually happened? The margin for error seems impossibly large when it comes to history books dating back 2000 years. The nature of "factual" historical events in modern times is fairly easy to obscure in as little as 60 years, after the previous generation fades into oblivion, let alone 2000 years. Nevermind that the record books are always at the mercy of specific interpretation and you have a veritable hotbed of here say/interpretation instead of fact.

The bible had to begin at a point where it had no stories. I have no doubt that some of the stories which found their way into the new testament maintained an element of truth, but the protocol for verifying such ideas wasn't done out of scholastic motivation but spiritual necessity. Therefore, it never seizes to amaze me when creationists look at the bible as FACTUALLY accurate. As if the whole premise of God being the creator of a man made book wasn't ridiculous enough to fathom. The bible probably began with a few anecdotal stories from judaism that were trans-idealogized to fit the specific motivations of the church. The church probably made attempts to fill these parts of the bible out with historical scripts from various other religions/ civilizations/ ages to give the bible more credibility. Are the stories in the bible true?

Well sure. Are you calling God a liar? (SIGH)

I assume not. Simply, it isn't within mankind's reach at the moment to have the capacity to answer such questions. Perhaps there was no such thing as FAITH before the advent of religion and its introduction to mankind. But taking things on Faith is blind, and foolish. Looking at the bible as an authentic template of human history would be foolish.

When it comes to the bible, I believe most of the questions the bible brings up are exploitative and demeaning. The bible is founded on the principle of faith and many accept the bible as not only a spiritual document, but a historical one as well. There is nothing definitive about dogmatic terminology or time lines suggested within the bibles contents. 6000 years marks the beginning of the world? Get real! This very short sighted explanation of the world demeans the credibility of EVERYTHING else. Nothing in the bible can/should be taken at face value. In other words, it's pretty useless to use the liturgical word as a means for better understanding human history b/c the academic value is marred by inconsistent logic in Genesis, among others. If anything, it serves symbolically as a window sill into a darker age.

The impermanence of life leaves many questions that can never be answered by a single book.

 

[desertedcities]

Accurate history in the Christian Bible is somewhat of an oxymoron. There are many details in the Bible that do correspond with real events in what is considered 'Biblical history.' But these things are all, basically, man made things: Cities of man, Jesus (of which I think there was more than one 'Jesus'); events in man-made history that were either recorded as factually as possible in the Old and New Testament, or fancifully recorded with a lot of 'God' and miracles and the like, making them no longer history, but historical fantasy.

The Flood is a great example of a fanciful historical event. The 'Flood story' is a common theme in the Mediterranean and Arab/Persian world, and it was taken far out of context when it was written as the story of Noah. Basically anyone who had survived a rather disastrous flood in the would think that it was some act of a higher power, so they would pass it down in that context. Either way, the world flood idea is stupid anyways.

The tower of Babel just succumbed to the same things the pyramids have. It was pillaged for pre-cut building material. It might have easily toppled over in some sort of earthquake and was then pillaged as said. That's what has happened throughout history to buildings like that.

 

[Pulsar]

The earliest biblical person for which there is some archaeological evidence (Tel Dan stele, Mesha Stele) is king David, who would've lived around 1000-970 BC.

 

[JBeukema]

The Flood is a great example of a fanciful historical event. The 'Flood story' is a common theme in the Mediterranean and Arab/Persian world, and it was taken far out of context when it was written as the story of Noah..

You mean Gilgamesh?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

One of the fun things to note to Biblical literalist idiots is that most of the science that debunks their more stupid claims was done by fellow Christians who didn't especially want to show that the Bible was wrong. Fortunately for us, there are some Christians out there with the integrity to follow the evidence to the most logical conclusions.

 

[desertedcities]

You mean Gilgamesh?

Did Gilgamesh mention a flood? I can't remember off the top of my head.

 

[Lunar Sonata]

Did Gilgamesh mention a flood? I can't remember off the top of my head.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utnapishtim -

 

[JBeukema]

I think someone once mentioned an even older version of the story, but Gilgamesh is the oldest I recall

 

[desertedcities]

Well then, the point is made, we here know that the Bible is based in preexisting stories, and minute historical detail.

 

[DarwinsOtherTheory]

Thing is, christians think that other flood stories support their flood story, you cannot win.

 

[irmerk]

To quote the late great PCS:

You have no idea what you're talking about. You need to realize what you are saying is dangerous. I suggest you take down your posts blaspheming God and repent, for that is the only way to save yourself.

Maybe not exact, but you fuckers better get the point and shut up about this idea that Christians need to validate the invalidated Bible!

Or even better:

... you cannot win.

 

[Grimlock]

Again when i say historical accurate i mean by archaeological evidence.

As Pulsar mentioned the earliest biblical person to have been proved existed was King David so we can prove through archaeological evidence that a man named David who indeed was a king around the time of 1000-970 BC.

I recently saw this on National Geographic channel it was a documentary about Sodom and Gomorrah, how the two cities might actually have existed in real life and how at least one of them where destroyed by either a Volcanic eruption or by the ignition of an underground gas deposit.

Now most of you have properly watched enough documentaries about Volcanic eruptions to know that when they erupt, its VERY serious business.
And to a people back then who properly didn,´t understand nature as well as we do today, such a volcanic eruption could EASILY have been interpreted as a divine punishment or something like that.

But can we at least presume that ALOT of the origins for the myths in the bible have a Babylonian origin it certainly seems that way.

Well then, the point is made, we here know that the Bible is based in preexisting stories, and minute historical detail.

Exactly and its those minute historical details i want to highlight what are they and what and what do we (through archeology and other sources) know about it.

 

[MarkAntony]

Its still just the SpiderMan fallacy.

 

[Eyeofpolyphemus]

Thing is, christians think that other flood stories support their flood story, you cannot win.

There are flood stories across the planet, from Japan to Latin America. Such would point to a single shared event in every cultural history, would it not?

 

[theatheistguy]

Stories vs scientific geological evidence.....hmmmm I wonder.

Everywhere will experience and write about a global flood, thing is, if it wiped out the world apart from Noah's family, who wrote these other stories?

 

[Eyeofpolyphemus]

Stories vs scientific geological evidence.....hmmmm I wonder.

Everywhere will experience and write about a global flood, thing is, if it wiped out the world apart from Noah's family, who wrote these other stories?

Many different people from around the world:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html

 

[Ozymandyus]

Flood myths are based on normal floods that were a danger to every culture that depended on agriculture throughout history. As with everything we fear, we imagine much bigger scarier versions of such things in our storytelling and make giant versions of these small devastating events. It's just the way humans think - we magnify the things we fear and tell each other scary stories with a grain of truth to them.

You can find similar myths of giant earth destroying earthquakes in cultures that arose in geologically active areas... Does that mean there was once a single earthquake that almost destroyed the whole earth?

You can find Drought myths in every culture of rain stopping for X days and drying out the earth. Does this mean that the entire world experienced a drought that almost destroyed it?

No. Each culture experiences these things in their own time, and it does not point to a single event. It points to the same variety of events we see today, where there is a drought in Africa the same year as flooding rains in the U.S. We then Magnify these events through myth, big fish effects, etc. until it seems like it was a world ending event.

 

[Eyeofpolyphemus]

Flood myths are based on normal floods that were a danger to every culture that depended on agriculture throughout history. As with everything we fear, we imagine much bigger scarier versions of such things in our storytelling and make giant versions of these small devastating events. It's just the way humans think - we magnify the things we fear and tell each other scary stories with a grain of truth to them.

You can find similar myths of giant earth destroying earthquakes in cultures that arose in geologically active areas... Does that mean there was once a single earthquake that almost destroyed the whole earth?

You can find Drought myths in every culture of rain stopping for X days and drying out the earth. Does this mean that the entire world experienced a drought that almost destroyed it?

No. Each culture experiences these things in their own time, and it does not point to a single event. It points to the same variety of events we see today, where there is a drought in Africa the same year as flooding rains in the U.S. We then Magnify these events through myth, big fish effects, etc. until it seems like it was a world ending event.

There do not appear to be any earthquake or drought myths that come to mindquite as readily as flood myths, nor do any appear to have the common element of humanity being purged because of them.

 

[Ozymandyus]

There do not appear to be any earthquake or drought myths that come to mindquite as readily as flood myths, nor do any appear to have the common element of humanity being purged because of them.

This is obviously because Your culture highly values flood myths. Christian cultures have been fascinated by flood stories because of the biblical heritage causing us to compile and pay more attention to flood myths. Flood stories have been preferentially preserved and translated and gathered together in our culture because of the link to the bible, and there are more websites out there in English about floods because of the predominance of Christian culture. The victors get to rewrite the history to some extent.

Here are a few drought myths: Self Sacrifice of Tang the Conquerer
Corpse Deity Nu Chou
Great Yellow God and Nu Ba vs the Rain God.
Legend of Hou-I

Droughts are also almost universally interpreted as signs of God's wrath. But for some reason we haven't paid much attention to these myths - maybe because it doesn't take up a major part of the bible? Drought, fire, and earthquake myths also exist in almost every culture where they are a problem, and if you dig you can find them. Just because some Christian hasn't compiled a list for you doesn't mean they aren't out there.

Floods are by far the most damaging natural occurrence to the river and coastal communities that predominated early agriculture. They are therefore the most widespread stories. There are also many myths of destruction of the world by Fire, Earthquakes, and droughts - not quite as widespread because many of these only occur in dryer inland areas where early man did not settle.

http://www.indore.nic.in/Earthquake/EARTHQUAKE_LEGENDS.htm
Many earthquake legends seem to imply that earthquakes are caused by giant animals! Does this mean there Really were giant animals under the earth at one time? Multiple sources mean it must have happened!