BIBLE
Out of context: Reply #109
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It has often been asserted in Christian apologetics that the discoveries of archeology ‘prove the reliability of the Bible as an historical document.' However at the same time this argument fails to address the problems inherent in the Biblical manuscripts themselves so this line of reasoning is faulty. The reliability of the Bible as history is not something that can be proven by an archeological discovery independant of an analysis of the manuscripts themselves. The first proof of the Bible as an historical document must come from the Bible proving itself as a consistent document. Let us suppose that we found in the Bible two mutually exclusive descriptions of an historical event. Let us further suggest that both events are set in a city named ‘Lor' and involve a person whose name is ‘Jack.' If we were to dig up an ancient stone with an engraving referring to the city of Lor, or an ancient document which mentions the name ‘Jack' (and for the purposes of our argument we will assume that the ‘Jack' being referred to in our Bible and the extra biblical source are one and the same person) it does not then follow that ‘the Bible is a reliable historical document.' All archeology has demonstrated is that two sources exist which refer to ‘Lor and Jack'. This discovery is of no use to us whatsoever in trying to sort out what so often proves to be the convoluted and contradictory history presented in the Bible. The Bible is a religious document, not a purely historical document, and many of the conflicts on its pages are political and polemical in nature, thus accounting for the inconsistencies. And an ancient dig is of no use in settling polemical disputes. It is of no use to us in trying to determine which of our two contradictory Bible stories is ‘true' and which is to be excluded. And if our archeological source brings to light a third variant version of events we are in a worse muddle than we were before.