Editing Historicity of the Bible (section)

==Materials and methods==

===Manuscripts and canons===
The Bible exists in multiple manuscripts, none of them an [[autograph (manuscript)|autograph]], and multiple [[biblical canon]]s, which do not completely agree on which books have sufficient authority to be included or their order. The early discussions about the exclusion or integration of various [[apocrypha]] involve an early idea about the historicity of the core.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fDd4dQek-DsC&q=historizit%25C3%25A4t+der+bibel+apokryphen&pg=PA6|title=Theologie des Kanons: der christliche Kanon, seine Hermeneutik und die Historizität seiner Aussagen; die Lehren der Kirchenväter als Grundlegung der Lehre von der Heiligen Schrift|last=Grosse|first=Sven|year=2011|publisher=LIT Verlag Münster|isbn=978-3643800787|pages=91–92|language=de}}</ref> The [[Ionian Enlightenment]] influenced early patrons like [[Justin Martyr]] and [[Tertullian]]—both saw the biblical texts as being different from (and having more historicity than) the myths of other religions. [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] was aware of the difference between science and scripture and defended the historicity of the biblical texts, e.g., against claims of [[Faustus of Mileve]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Grosse |first=Sven |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fDd4dQek-DsC&q=historizit%25C3%25A4t+der+bibel+apokryphen&pg=PA6 |title=Theologie des Kanons: der christliche Kanon, seine Hermeneutik und die Historizität seiner Aussagen; die Lehren der Kirchenväter als Grundlegung der Lehre von der Heiligen Schrift |date=2011 |publisher=LIT Verlag Münster |isbn=978-3643800787 |page=94 |language=de |quote=One does not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: "I will send you the Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon." For He willed to make them Christians, not mathematicians. (Translation of the German Quote according to wikiquote)}}</ref>

Historians hold that the Bible should not be treated differently from other historical (or literary) sources from the ancient world. One may compare doubts about the historicity of, for example, [[Herodotus]]; the consequence of these discussions is not that historians shall have to stop using ancient sources for historical reconstruction, but need to be aware of the problems involved when doing so.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zqJxkKy-cMMC&q=herodotus+ancient+sources+barstad&pg=PA41|title=History and the Hebrew Bible: Studies in Ancient Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography|last=Barstad|first=Hans M.|authorlink=Hans M. Barstad|date=2008|publisher=Mohr Siebeck|isbn=978-3161498091|pages=40–42|language=en}}</ref>

Very few texts survive directly from antiquity: most have been copied—some, many times. To determine the accuracy of a copied manuscript, [[Textual criticism|textual critics]] examine the way the transcripts have passed through history to their [[wikt:extant|extant]] forms. The higher the consistency of the earliest texts, the greater their textual reliability, and the less chance that the content has been changed over the years. Multiple copies may also be grouped into [[Textual criticism#New Testament|text types]], with some types judged closer to the hypothetical original than others.

===Writing and reading history===
[[File:William Albright 1957.jpg|thumb|upright|W.F. Albright, the doyen of biblical archaeology, in 1957]]
The meaning of the term "history" is itself dependent on social and historical context.<ref>Compare [[Herodotus]] and [[Leopold von Ranke|Ranke]].</ref> Paula McNutt, for instance, notes that the Old Testament narratives, 
{{blockquote|Do not record "history" in the sense that history is understood in the twentieth century. ...The past, for biblical writers as well as for twentieth-century readers of the Bible, has meaning only when it is considered in light of the present, and perhaps an idealized future.<ref name="isbn0-281-05259-X">{{cite book | last= McNutt |first= Paula M. |title= Reconstructing the society of ancient Israel |publisher= SPCK |location= London |year= 1999 |isbn= 978-0281052592 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=hd28MdGNyTYC |page= 4}}</ref>|author=Paula M. McNutt|title=Reconstructing the society of ancient Israel|source=page 4}}

Even from the earliest times, students of religious texts had an awareness that parts of the scriptures could not be interpreted as a strictly consistent sequence of events. The [[Talmud]] cites a dictum ascribed to the third-century teacher [[Abba Arika]] that "there is no chronological order in the Torah".<ref>{{Cite web |title=JCR - The Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim |url=https://juchre.org/talmud/pesachim/pesachim1.htm#6b |access-date=2023-05-11 |website=juchre.org}}</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=May 2024}} Examples were often presented and discussed in later Jewish [[exegesis]] with, according to [[Abraham Joshua Heschel]] (1907–1972), an ongoing discourse between those who would follow the views of [[Rabbi Ishmael]] (born 90 CE) that "the Torah speaks in human language", compared to the more mystical approach of [[Rabbi Akiva]] ({{circa}} 50–135) that any such deviations should signpost some deeper order or purpose, to be divined.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Heschel |first=Abraham Joshua |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WAGK8GiNrQgC&pg=PA240 |title=Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations |date=2005-01-01 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-0-8264-0802-0 |language=en}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=May 2024}}

During the modern era, the focus of biblical history has also diversified. The project of [[Biblical archaeology school|biblical archaeology]] associated with [[W.F. Albright]] (1891–1971), which sought to validate the historicity of the events narrated in the Bible through the ancient texts and material remains of the [[Near East]],<ref name="isbn0-8446-0003-2">{{cite book | last= Albright |first= William Foxwell |title= Archaeology of Palestine |publisher= Peter Smith Pub Inc |year= 1985 |page= 128 |quote= Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of innumerable details of the Bible as a source of history. |isbn= 978-0844600031}}</ref> has a more specific focus compared to the more expansive view of history described by archaeologist [[William G. Dever|William Dever]] (b. 1933). In discussing the role of his discipline in interpreting the biblical record, Dever has pointed to multiple histories within the Bible, including the [[history of theology]] (the relationship between God and believers), [[political history]] (usually the account of [[Great man theory|"Great Men"]]), [[narrative history]] (the [[chronology]] of events), [[intellectual history]] (treating ideas and their development, context and evolution), [[social history|socio-cultural history]] (institutions, including their social underpinnings in family, clan, tribe and social class and the state), [[cultural history]] (overall [[cultural evolution]], [[demography]], socio-economic and political structure and ethnicity), [[history of technology|technological history]] (the techniques by which humans adapt to, exploit and make use of the resources of their environment), [[natural history]] (how humans discover and adapt to the [[ecological]] facts of their natural environment), and material history (artifacts as correlates of changes in human behaviour).<ref>Dever, William G. (2008), "[[Did God Have a Wife?]]: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel" (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company)</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Ingram|first=Thomas C.|date=2019|title=Ecological Facts About The Bible|url=https://funfactoday.com/interesting-facts/facts-about-the-bible/|access-date=2020-03-19|website=funfactoday.com|language=en}}</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=May 2024}}

Sharply differing perspectives on the relationship between narrative history and theological meaning present a special challenge for assessing the historicity of the Bible. Supporters of [[biblical literalism]] "deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood."<ref name="isbn1-58134-056-7">{{cite book |last= Henry | first= Carl Ferdinand Howard | volume= 4 |chapter= The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy | title= God, Revelation and Authority |publisher= Crossway Books |location= Wheaton, Ill |year= 1999 |orig-year= 1979 |pages= 211–219 |isbn= 978-1581340563 |chapter-url= http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds/chicago.htm |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20061115025545/http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds/chicago.htm |archive-date=2006-11-15 }}</ref> "History", or specifically biblical history, in this context appears to mean a definitive and finalized framework of events and actions—comfortingly familiar shared facts—like an omniscient medieval [[chronicle]], shorn of alternative accounts,<ref>Note the varying creation accounts of Genesis 1 versus Genesis 2.</ref> psychological interpretations,<ref>"And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." – Genesis 6:6.</ref> or literary pretensions. But prominent scholars have expressed diametrically opposing views: 
<blockquote>
[T]he stories about the promise given to the patriarchs in Genesis are not historical, nor do they intend to be historical; they are rather historically determined expressions about Israel and Israel's relationship to its God, given in forms legitimate to their time, and their truth lies not in their facticity, nor in the historicity, but their ability to express the reality that Israel experienced.<ref name="Thompson">{{cite book |last=Thompson |first=Thomas |title=The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |location=Berlin/Boston |year=2016 |orig-year=1974 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Y0iHDwAAQBAJ |isbn=978-3-11-084144-2 |page=330}}</ref>
</blockquote>
Modern professional historians, familiar with the phenomenon of on-going [[historical revisionism]], allow new findings and ideas into their interpretations of "what happened", and scholars versed in the study of [[Text (literary theory)|text]]s (however sacred) see all [[narrative|narrator]]s as potentially unreliable<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Jaeger
 | first1 = Stephan
 | chapter = Unreliable Narration in Historical Studies
 | editor1-last = Nünning
 | editor1-first = Vera
 | title = Unreliable Narration and Trustworthiness: Intermedial and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2RpfCAAAQBAJ
 | series = Naratologia
 | location = Berlin
 | publisher = Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
 | date = 2015
 | isbn = 9783110408416
 | access-date = 8 July 2020
 | quote = [...] witnesses' narratives or the sources in general could be unreliable. This locates unreliable narration on the axis of primary narration which the historian needs to verify and make reliable through source criticism and interpretation in order to balance the subjective, objective, and reflexive orientations of meaning.
}}
</ref> and all accounts—especially edited accounts—as potentially historically incomplete, biased by times and circumstances.