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We know a good deal more now about who (for example) King
Arthur was and was not than people who lived in the Middle Ages did. Why
should it be different with the Bible? Historical research has come a long
way - but it has to be applied without preconceived dogmas, like any other
scientific exercise. After all, the Exodus account was itself written several
hundred years after the date at which the events are recounted as taking
place. The political and national motives for embellishment are
self-evident. Historians now are a priori more likely than
people writing under the monarchy or in Babylonian exile to be able to look at
the evidence dispassionately. But when we desperately WANT the "evidence" to
corroborate something close to our hearts, we cloud our scientific
objectivity. This is a critical, scientific List.
Samuel Payne
The fundamental problem I have with things like this is: If we are to reduce the Biblical accounts to speculation and embellishment, how is it that our similar speculation and refurbishment 3000 years after the facts (whatever they were) is more worthy of consideration? |
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