Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Gabe Eisenstein <gabe AT cascadeaccess.com>]

Karl wrote:
...In contrast, Biblical history, while it concentrated on the spiritual
life of the people and kings, had as its main purpose an accurate
recording of the events, including the bad. Just like modern, secular
historians.
[end Karl]

The Biblical text displays many clear marks of nationalism, ethnic pride 
and in some cases attempts to justify morally questionable acts of 
politicians. Some of the writers seem to have been  employees of the 
king, like their counterparts across the ancient world. The bad acts are 
mentioned because doing so serves someone's interest, not because of a 
desire for completeness or honesty.  Many of the stories have strong 
literary structures, not found in simple historical accounts. And the 
narrative sections are interspersed with poetry, parables, metaphors, 
legends and myths.
Thus the text bears little resemblance to modern historiography, which 
at least tries to be aware of its own biases, does not mingle 
contradictory reports without noting them explicitly, and assumes that 
the past more or less resembles the present. You will find very few 
accounts of sea-dragons, giants and talking animals; and no claims about 
predestination.

(Note that I haven't spoken in terms of "beliefs", but of the manifest 
characteristics of the text itself, and thus of Biblical Hebrew.)


Gabe Eisenstein