Editing Historicity of the Bible (section)

===Torah (Pentateuch)===

====Genesis creation narrative====
[[File:Lucas Cranach the Elder - The Garden of Eden - Google Art Project.jpg|right|thumb|The Garden of Eden. By [[Lucas Cranach der Ältere]] (1472–1553)]]
{{see also|Genesis creation narrative|Book of Genesis}}
There is a Christian tradition of criticism of the creation narratives in Genesis dating back to at least [[St Augustine of Hippo]] (354–430), and Jewish tradition has also maintained a critical thread in its approach to biblical primeval history. The influential medieval philosopher [[Maimonides]] maintained a skeptical ambiguity toward creation ''[[ex nihilo]]'' and considered the stories about [[Adam]] more as "philosophical anthropology, rather than as historical stories whose protagonist is the 'first man'."<ref name="isbn90-247-3439-8">{{cite book |last=Klein-Braslavy |first=Sara |editor=Pines, S. |editor2=Yovel, Y. |title=Maimonides and Philosophy (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées) |chapter=The Creation of the world and Maimonides' interpretation of Gen. i–v |publisher=Springer |location=Berlin |year=1986 |pages=65–78 |isbn=978-9024734399 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SzymWqsNulMC }}</ref> Greek philosophers [[Aristotle]],<ref>''Physics'' I, 7</ref> [[Critolaus]]{{sfn|Dorandi|1999|p=50}} and [[Proclus]]{{sfn|Lang|2001|p=2}} held that the [[Eternity of the world|world was eternal]]. Such interpretations are inconsistent with what was after the Protestant Reformation to be "commonly perceived in evangelicalism as traditional views of Genesis".<ref>{{harvnb|Young|1988|pp=42–45}}: "But someone may ask: 'Is not Scripture opposed to those who hold that heaven is spherical, when it says, who stretches out heaven like a skin?' Let it be opposed indeed if their statement is false.... But if they are able to establish their doctrine with proofs that cannot be denied, we must show that this statement of Scripture about the skin is not opposed to the truth of their conclusions."</ref>

The publication of [[James Hutton]]'s ''[[Theory of the Earth]]'' in 1788 was an important development in the scientific revolution that would dethrone Genesis as the ultimate authority on primeval earth and [[prehistory]]. The first casualty was the Creation story itself, and by the early 19th century "no responsible scientist contended for the literal credibility of the Mosaic account of creation."<ref name="isbn0-674-34481-2">{{cite book |last=Gillispie |first=Charles Coulston |title=Genesis and geology: a study in the relations of scientific thought, natural theology, and social opinion in Great Britain, 1790–1850 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge |year=1996 |orig-year=1951 |isbn=978-0674344815 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PKERMZkA9A0C |page=224}}</ref> The battle between [[uniformitarianism]] and [[catastrophism]] kept the [[Genesis flood narrative|flood]] alive in the emerging discipline, until [[Adam Sedgwick]], the president of the Geological Society, publicly recanted his previous support in his 1831 presidential address:
<blockquote>We ought indeed to have paused before we first adopted the diluvian theory, and referred all our old superficial gravel to the action of the Mosaic Flood. For of man, and the works of his hands, we have not yet found a single trace among the remnants of the former world entombed in those deposits.<ref>Quoted in {{cite book |last=Gillispie |first=Charles Coulston |title=Genesis and geology: a study in the relations of scientific thought, natural theology, and social opinion in Great Britain, 1790–1850 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge |year=1996 |orig-year=1951 |isbn=978-0674344815 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PKERMZkA9A0C |pages=142–143}}</ref></blockquote>

All of which left the "first man" and his putative descendants in the awkward position of being stripped of all historical context, until [[Charles Darwin]] naturalized the Garden of Eden with the publication of ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'' in 1859. Public acceptance of this scientific revolution was, at the time, uneven, but has since grown significantly. The mainstream scholarly community soon arrived at a consensus, which holds today, that Genesis 1–11 is a highly schematic literary work representing [[theology]]/symbolic [[mythology]] rather than actual history or science.<ref name="isbn0-8308-2551-7">{{cite book |last=Wenham |first=Gordon J. |title=Exploring the Old Testament: A Guide to the Pentateuch|chapter=Genesis 1–11 |publisher=InterVarsity Press |location=Downers Grove, Ill |year=2003 |isbn=978-0830825516 }}</ref>{{Page needed|date=July 2021}}

====The Patriarchs====
{{main|Patriarchs (Bible)}}
In the following decades [[Hermann Gunkel]] drew attention to the mythic aspects of the Pentateuch, and [[Albrecht Alt]], [[Martin Noth]] and the [[tradition history]] school argued that although its core traditions had genuinely ancient roots, the narratives were fictional framing devices and were not intended as history in the modern sense. Though doubts have been cast on the historiographic reconstructions of this school (particularly the notion of oral traditions as a primary ancient source), much of its critique of biblical historicity found wide acceptance. Gunkel's position is that

{{blockquote|1=if, however, we consider figures like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be actual persons with no original mythic foundations, that does not at all mean that they are historical figures. ...For even if, as may well be assumed, there was once a man call "Abraham," everyone who knows the history of legends is sure that the legend is in no position at the distance of so many centuries to preserve a picture of the personal piety of Abraham. The "religion of Abraham" is, in reality, the religion of the legend narrators which they attribute to Abraham.{{sfn|Gunkel|1997|p=lxviii}}
|sign=Gunkel, 1997|source=page xviii|title=}} This has in various forms become a commonplace of contemporary criticism.<ref>{{harvnb|Moore|Kelle|2011|p=62}}:{{blockquote|BIBLICAL HISTORY AND ISRAEL'S PAST The Changing Views of Scholars in Their Own Words{{pb}}The dramatic shifts in the study of the patriarchs and matriarchs that occurred during and after the 1970s can be illustrated by quotations from two works on the history of Israel separated by several decades. In a history originally written in the 1950s, John Bright asserted, "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were clan chiefs who actually lived in the second millennium B.C.... The Bible's narrative accurately reflects the times to which it refers. But to what it tells of the lives of the patriarchs we can add nothing."<sup>1</sup> Assessing the situation in scholarship four decades later, William Dever in 2001 concluded, "After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible 'historical figures.'"<sup>2</sup> 
{{pb}}1. John Bright, ''A History of Israel'', 4th ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), p. 93.{{pb}}
2. William G. Dever, ''What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel'' (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 98. 
... historical figures but as literary creations of this later period. Though the evidentiary underpinnings of this thesis were new, the thesis itself was quite similar to the views held by Alt and Noth. Thompson, Van Seters, and others had shown that the earlier scholarly consensus of a second-millennium date for the traditions depended upon coincidences and harmonization of evidence that could not be sustained. Thompson provided one of the most representative statements of this change in the study of Israel's past: "[N]ot only has 'archaeology' not proven a single event of the patriarchal traditions to be historical, it has not shown any of the traditions to be likely. On the basis of what we know of Palestinian history of the Second Millennium B.C., and of what we understand about the formation of the literary traditions of Genesis, it must be concluded that any such historicity as is commonly spoken of in both scholarly and popular works about the patriarchs of Genesis is hardly possible and totally improbable".}}</ref>

In the United States the [[biblical archaeology]] movement, under the influence of Albright, counterattacked, arguing that the broad outline within the framing narratives was also true, so that while scholars could not realistically expect to prove or disprove individual episodes from the life of Abraham and the other patriarchs, these were real individuals who could be placed in a context proven from the archaeological record. But as more discoveries were made, and anticipated finds failed to materialise, it became apparent that archaeology did not in fact support the claims made by Albright and his followers.

Following Albright's death, his interpretation of the patriarchal age came under increasing criticism: such dissatisfaction marked its culmination with the publication of ''[[The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives]]'' by [[Thomas L. Thompson]]<ref>{{Cite book|last=Thompson|first=Thomas L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qdM8AAAAYAAJ&q=The+Historicity+of+the+Patriarchal+Narratives:+The+Quest+for+the+Historical+Abraham|title=The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham|date=1974|publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=9783110040968 }}</ref> and ''[[Abraham in History and Tradition]]'' by [[John Van Seters]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Seters|first=John Van|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MySUQgAACAAJ&q=Abraham+in+history+and+tradition|title=Abraham in History and Tradition|date=1975|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-01792-2}}</ref> Thompson, a literary scholar, argued on the lack of compelling evidence that the patriarchs lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, and noted how certain biblical texts reflected first millennium conditions and concerns, while Van Seters examined the patriarchal stories and argued that their names, social milieu, and messages strongly suggested that they were [[Iron Age]] creations.{{sfn|Moore|Kelle|2011|pp=18–19}} Van Seter and Thompson's works were a [[paradigm shift]] in biblical scholarship and archaeology, which gradually led scholars to no longer consider the patriarchal narratives as historical.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Moorey|first=Peter Roger Stuart|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e1x9Rs_zdG8C&q=A+Century+of+Biblical+Archaeology|title=A Century of Biblical Archaeology|date=1991|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|isbn=978-0-664-25392-9|pages=153–154}}</ref> Some conservative scholars attempted to defend the patriarchal narratives in the following years,<ref>{{Cite web|last=Kitchen|first=Kenneth|date=1995|title=The Patriarchal Age: Myth or History?|url=https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/21/2/3|access-date=2021-07-12|website=[[Biblical Archaeology Review]]|language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Kitchen|2003|p=313}} but this position has not found acceptance among scholars.{{sfn|Dever|2001|p=98|ps=: "There are a few sporadic attempts by conservative scholars to "save" the patriarchal narratives as history, such as [[Kenneth Kitchen]] [...] By and large, however, the minimalist view of Thompson's pioneering work, ''The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives'', prevails."}}{{sfn|Grabbe|2007|ps=: "The fact is that we are all minimalists—at least, when it comes to the patriarchal period and the settlement. When I began my PhD studies more than three decades ago in the USA, the 'substantial historicity' of the patriarchs was widely accepted as was the unified conquest of the land. These days it is quite difficult to find anyone who takes this view.<br /><br />"In fact, until recently I could find no 'maximalist' history of Israel since Wellhausen. ... In fact, though, 'maximalist' has been widely defined as someone who accepts the biblical text unless it can be proven wrong. If so, very few are willing to operate like this, not even John Bright (1980) whose history is not a maximalist one according to the definition just given."}}

Nevertheless, some biblical scholars argue that the names of Patriarchs correspond to [[Amorite language|Amorite]] personal names typical of the [[Middle Bronze Age]] (2000 BCE – 1550 BCE) rather than to other names from later periods, which suggests that the Patriarchal narratives were based on traditions originating in the second millennium BCE.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Personal Names of the Pentateuch in the Northwest Semitic Context: A Comparative Study |journal=Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament |last=Rahkonen |first=Pauli |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=111–135 |year=2019 |doi=10.1080/09018328.2019.1600259 |issn=0901-8328}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Patriarchal Names in Context |journal=Tyndale Bulletin |last=Millard |first=Alan |volume=75 |issue=December |pages=155–174 |year=2024 |doi=10.53751/001c.117657 |issn=2752-7042 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Other scholars argue that the narratives fit better the historical reality of the late Judahite monarchy. The narratives refer to [[camel]]-based traders carrying [[natural gum|gum]], [[Balsam of Mecca|balm]], and [[myrrh]], which they hold it is unlikely prior to the first millennium, as such activity only became common in the 8th–7th centuries BCE when Assyrian [[hegemony]] enabled this Arabian trade to flourish into a major industry.<ref>''The Bible Unearthed'', p. 37.</ref> In 2013, excavations in the [[Timna Valley]] discovered what may be the earliest bones of domesticated camels found in Israel or even outside the Arabian peninsula, dating to around 930 BCE. This is seen as evidence that the stories of [[Abraham]], [[Joseph (son of Jacob)|Joseph]], [[Jacob]] and [[Esau]] were written after this time.<ref name=camels>{{cite news|last=Hasson|first=Nir|title=Hump stump solved: Camels arrived in region much later than biblical reference|url=http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/.premium-1.569091|access-date=30 January 2014|newspaper=Haaretz|date=Jan 17, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Sapir-Hen|first=Lidar|author2=Erez Ben-Yosef |title=The Introduction of Domestic Camels to the Southern Levant: Evidence from the Aravah Valley|journal=Tel Aviv|year=2013|volume=40|issue=2|pages=277–285|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257921867|doi=10.1179/033443513x13753505864089|s2cid=44282748}}</ref> In 2021, Martin Heide and Joris Peters argued that camels were already domesticated in the early second millennium BCE and that their presence in the Patriarchal narratives was not anachronistic.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Camels in the Biblical World |last1=Heide |first1=Martin |publisher=Penn State Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-64602-170-3 |page=302 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XMXKEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA302 |last2=Peters |first2=Joris}}</ref>

Today, although there continues to be some debate on the historical background of the narratives, many scholars (possibly most) reject the existence of the Patriarchal age.{{sfn|Faust|2022|pp=69, 71-72}} William Dever stated in 1993 that

{{blockquote|[Albright's] central theses have all been overturned, partly by further advances in biblical criticism, but mostly by the continuing archaeological research of younger Americans and Israelis to whom he himself gave encouragement and momentum. ...The irony is that, in the long run, it will have been the newer "secular" archaeology that contributed the most to Biblical studies, not "Biblical archaeology".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Dever |first=William |doi=10.2307/3210358 |title=What Remains of the House that Albright Built?|journal=The Biblical Archaeologist |volume=56|issue=1|date=March 1993 |pages=25–35 |jstor=3210358|s2cid=166003641 }}</ref>|author=William Dever|title=The Biblical Archaeologist, "What Remains of the House that Albright Built?"|source=March 1993, pp. 25–35}}