Are people aware that the Bible is considered one of...?

Question

the most historically acurate documents in the world? Never mind if you you believe that some of the stories are fabricated or myth. After all myth, is almost always based on fact. Archaeologists for years have used the Bible as a compass for digs and research. It seems that many people are ignorant of the historical value the Bible has, and seem to think the whole Bible is completely false. There are entire histories of kings and families that are rivaled only by the egyptians. You may not believe that the Red Sea was parted, but David was a real king, and Jesus did exist, even if you believe he was just a man.

I never said The most, just one of. And for those of you who really do believe that there is nothing accurate in it, get YOUR facts straight. You don't even known anything about the thing that you are bashing. My point is that many people on here seem to think that the entire Bible is just one giant lie that should be burned or whatever, and it has historical value beyond just religion. And and once more for emphasis....ONE of.

http://www.biblicalarcheology.net/Bible/BibHistAccurate1.htm

http://www.answers.com/topic/the-bible-and-history

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/The_Bible_and_history

Answer 1

I think you've got your terminology wrong, myths are not based on fact, however Legends frequently have sprung up around a small factual core. And I believe most thinking people recognize the Old Testament at least as based on an Oral History Tradition of the Jewish People. This does not necessarily make it totally historically accurate! All history is only as accurate as the person who sets it down. And let's face it, in the past, most people were not concerned with objectivity in their historical traditions. Never the less I would agree that the Bible has been a good source or guide for those who seek empirical historical evidence thru' Archeology.

Answer 2

Not THE most... I'm not sure where you got that information. The Bible claims the Hebrews were ALL slaves, archeology shows that many Hebrews were considered equals to the Egyptians, owning property and other slaves, etc... And no such proof of any Exodus on the scale of which the Bible reports. The Bible claims Sodom and Gamorrah would never be remembered again, yet we do remember them and search for them (yet haven't been found)... Many of the stories of the wars are in there twice and even those do not match. Tyre, you know that city we see on the news in Lebanon isn't supposed to exist anymore.
There may be some truth to the historical references in the Bible... but is far from being THE MOST historically accurate book, by any historians standards.

Answer 3

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you are ill-informed... or hallucinating... or both.

Consider a novel set in the Civil War period. You will find references to President Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, General Grant, etc. You may find references to some actual geographical locations... Washington, Vicksburg, Atlanta, Savannah... the Mississippi River. Perhaps you will find references to an actual event or two, like Sherman's march to the sea. But all the other people, places, things and events are made up.

All fiction requires a context which the reader can relate to. Consider, for example, the Hebrews being held in bondage in Egypt for over 400 years, then escaping, parting the Red Sea, Pharoh's army being destroyed, wandering for 40 years in the desert. Total nonsense. Never happened. The Egyptions... great record keepers... have absolutely NO RECORD of ever having kept Jewish slaves.

Extending your thesis, one could make the case that we should be using "Gone With The Wind" as THE textbook for teaching Civil War history.

By the way... modern biblical scholarship makes a very compelling case for the idea that Jesus was an entirely fictional character... and the whole New Testament is a fraud.

The Jesus Puzzle
http://home.ca.inter.net/oblio/home.htm

Answer 4

hahaha lol
By christians maybe
so even if the stories are shown to be 'fabricated or myth' you still would call it the most historically acurate document in the world?!?!
Myth is NOT almost always based on fact. It may have some facts in it, like.... snakes,rainbows,ribs,earth,water, sky etc
david not proven.
red sea parting definatly not proven
Jesus existence not proven (even the bible does a real bad job on that one)
If it was the Red sea then 1,000,000 Hebrews would have taken 2 weeks to walk through it. Why didnt god just magic them out of Egypt? Because they didnt think of that when writing the story. Anyway, it was more likely the Reed sea. If the Hebrews were even in Egypt,because that is not proven either.
Check your facts

Answer 5

"One of the most historically accurate documents in the world"?

That's not true. There are many many documents with better overall records than the Bible. You could have made your point better without the hyperbole. Here's a better way to have put it:

"Are you aware that the Bible accurately describes many historical events, persons, and locations? Archaeologists for years have used the Bible...".

The Bible is obviously not "completely false", and anyone who says that is simply ignorant. However, the main claims of the Bible (those concerning the existence of a god, the divinity of Jesus, and of course life after death) are all false.

Answer 6

The be conscious Bible ability little books. it truly is various of writings inspired via God over a era of many years. The united states of Israel did have a Bible also known because the Torah. The Bible as all of us recognize it at present might want to be the Torah alongside with the Christian Greek scriptures. From the time of Noah onward, the words spoken to adult men via God were written down and orally transmitted so it would want to be stated that the people interior the Bible did have a Bible. even as Jesus is termed "The be conscious' at John one million:one million, it truly is concerning his function as God's spokesman. also, it refers back to the actual undeniable reality that Jesus became the manifestation of the prophecies spoken in God's be conscious about a messiah, so Jesus might want to rightly be talked about as The be conscious.

Answer 7

The bible is only considered reliable history by people who have never studied well-researched history, or as so blinded by fundamentalist beliefs they will not accept anything counter to the bible - evidence means nothing to them.

Any stories in the bible that are factual do not make the rest true. King David - yes, Adam and Eve - no. Conclusion: compellingly unreliable as a historical reference.

Answer 8

The doctrine of the double motion of the earth about its axis and about the sun is false, and entirely contrary to Holy Scripture.” So stated the Congregation of the Index of the Roman Catholic Church in a decree in 1616.1 Does the Bible really disagree with scientific facts? Or has it been misrepresented?
IN THE winter of 1609/10, Galileo Galilei turned his newly developed telescope toward the heavens and discovered four moons circling the planet Jupiter. What he saw shattered the prevailing notion that all heavenly bodies must orbit the earth. Earlier, in 1543, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus had theorized that the planets revolve around the sun. Galileo verified that this was scientific truth.
To Catholic theologians, however, this was heresy. The church had long held that the earth was the center of the universe.2 This view was based on a literal interpretation of scriptures that pictured the earth as being fixed “on its foundations, unshakable for ever and ever.” (Psalm 104:5, The Jerusalem Bible) Summoned to Rome, Galileo appeared before the Inquisition. Subjected to rigorous examination, he was forced to recant his findings, and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
In 1992, some 350 years after Galileo’s death, the Catholic Church finally acknowledged that he was right after all.3 But if Galileo was right, then was the Bible wrong?
Finding the True Sense of Biblical Passages
Galileo believed the Bible to be true. When his scientific discoveries contradicted the prevailing interpretation of certain Bible verses, he reasoned that theologians were missing the true sense of the passages. After all, “two truths can never contradict one another,” he wrote.4 He suggested that the precise terms of science do not contradict the everyday words of the Bible. But theologians would not let themselves be persuaded. They insisted that all Biblical statements about the earth are to be taken literally. As a result, not only did they reject Galileo’s discoveries but they also missed the true sense of such Scriptural expressions.
Really, common sense should tell us that when the Bible refers to “the four corners of the earth,” it does not mean that the Bible writers understood the earth to be literally square. (Revelation 7:1) The Bible is written in the language of ordinary people, often using vivid figures of speech. So when it speaks of the earth as having “four corners,” a durable “foundation,” “pedestals,” and a “cornerstone,” the Bible is not offering a scientific description of the earth; obviously it is speaking metaphorically, as we often do in daily speech.—Isaiah 51:13; Job 38:6.
In his book Galileo Galilei, biographer L. Geymonat noted: “Narrow-minded theologians who wanted to limit science on the basis of biblical reasoning would do nothing but cast discredit upon the Bible itself.”5 That they did. Actually, it was the theologians’ interpretation of the Bible—not the Bible itself—that put unreasonable constraints on science.
Similarly, religious fundamentalists today distort the Bible when they insist that the earth was created in six 24-hour days. (Genesis 1:3-31) Such a view agrees neither with science nor with the Bible. In the Bible, as in everyday speech, the word “day” is a flexible term, expressing units of time of varying lengths. At Genesis 2:4, all six creative days are referred to as one all-embracing “day.” The Hebrew word translated “day” in the Bible can simply mean “a long time.”6 So, there is no Biblical reason to insist that the days of creation were 24 hours each. By teaching otherwise, fundamentalists misrepresent the Bible.—See also 2 Peter 3:8.
Throughout history, theologians have often distorted the Bible. Consider some other ways in which the religions of Christendom have misrepresented what the Bible says.
Misrepresented by Religion
The actions of those who say they follow the Bible often besmear the reputation of the book they claim to revere. So-called Christians have shed one another’s blood in the name of God. Yet, the Bible admonishes followers of Christ to “love one another.”—John 13:34, 35; Matthew 26:52.
Some clergymen fleece their flocks, wheedling hard-earned money from them—a far cry from the Scriptural instruction: “You received free, give free.”—Matthew 10:8; 1 Peter 5:2, 3.
Clearly, the Bible cannot be judged according to the words and actions of those who simply quote it or claim to live by it. An open-minded person may therefore want to discover for himself what the Bible is all about and why it is such a remarkable book.

For example, even the most literal-minded astronomers today will speak of the “rising” and “setting” of the sun, stars, and constellations—although, in fact, these only appear to move because of the earth’s rotation.
Two of Galileo’s telescopes
Galileo facing his inquisitors

Answer 9

The parts that describe 'God' are not "historically accurate."

All religious writings of a certain time in history contain some factual information about the area and events contemporary to its authors. This is by no means proof that the bible has merit as a valid document in the ways it purports to, as communication between 'God' and mankind.

Like mythology texts, the bible takes an event which already happened in reality and then builds a fanciful story around it. There may have been a tsunami in the middle east that caused portions of waters to drain away, but the fantasy that Moses caused the parting of the Red Sea would be the after-the-fact mythology attached to a piece of historical fact. All mythologies have done this spin doctoring sort of thing.

Answer 10

So it has the history of a bunch of dead people in it. Who cares? Just because David was a real king doesn't mean that the book was divinely inspired, an actually copy of the christian god's words, etc. The history crap that makes up much of the text isn't what is fought about. And of course I'll have to second Paul S.