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Beginning discussion

"and Jesus most certainly did not die during Easter, since Easter is not exactly the date of the Passover, although the two do occur close together." Well obviously Jesus didn't die on Easter, as he died on Good Friday. Jesus rose from the dead on Easter.

Isn't a "maximalist" what most people call "fundamentalists?

Historians who are Biblical maximalists totally reject the fundamentalist worldview! The name is, in my view, a misnomer. However, I believe that the article currently states that Biblical maximalists do not hold the Bible to be infallible, or a book that can be taken as totally correct history. Maybe this part needs to be rewritten! RK

I have a general problem with/suggestion for this article, although I may be way off-base and defer to others. But it seems to me that the article itself recognizes that the distinction between minimalist and maximalist is overly simplistic. Indeed, when I studied Bible (a very long time ago) I never learned these terms, so I wonder who/how many people use them -- at the very least, the article must state who uses these terms. In any event, I wonder if these two terms oversimplify because they conflate two very different contexts in which people talk about the Bible. It seems to me that, because Bible-based (or legitimated) religions have played such an important role in social control and political action, it is inevitable that many, many people (I mean "laypeople") will have very strong attitudes towards the Bible, that it is all true, or all false. But these are political positions that have meaning and operate in a political context. But there is also a whole field of critical Biblical scholarship that would not find this opposition meaningful or useful; people who see the Bible as an historical document that is a product of historical events and reveals something about historical events, but that often does so through highly mediated and sometimes metaphorical, and anachronistic (i.e. "fictive") ways.

We could not have learned about these two different schools of thought when we learned about the Bible, because they didn't yet exist then. What we call Biblical minimalism has only been well-known for the last decade, and it still hasn't made its way into many college courses. As for the "all true or all idea", no Biblical maximalist holds such a view. That is only something that laypeople might believe. RK

If I am right, to try to account for how people talk about the Bible in one way (as this article seems to do, presenting the binary as two poles of a continuum) would be to combine two different discourses of two groups of people who seldom speak to one another. The result would at best be misleading. Slrubenstein

No serious researcher of biblical history I know would place himself at one of the presented positions (I wouldn't dare to present this article to my old hebrew teacher, btw, who spends his time doing linguistic analysis of the bible, comparing parts to egyptian papyrii etc.). The presented debate seems to be purely religiously and politically motivated. Or can you imagine a critical scholar bringing "proofs" that "the patriarchs never existed" (or the opposite)? This is no scientific attitude and should not be presented as a academical debate. In an article about the bible and history I would expect a review of the current state of academical research, not speculations about anti-semitic motivations of some "biblical minimalists". --Elian

It surprised me too! Yet a number of serious biblical history scholars do take these positions. It is becoming more mainstream every day, although how mainstream it is I cannot say. However, minimalists do not claim to have prove that Moses or the patriarchs never existed. Rather, they do not believe that they exist; they hold that no one should believe any historical claims that the Bible makes for anytime before the discussion of the separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel. They are agnostic on the issue, and refuse to believe in the existence of any of these Biblical characters without external proof. They hold that the Bible is totally unreliable in every way. (I don't understand why they are so sure of this, as they are happy to accept the veracity of Bible-like textual sources in all other instances!) RK

Well, what you write confirms my suspicions. I just think that the "model" here has to be clearly contextualized. this is not an article on "the Bible and history," it is an article (maybe) on how one group of people talk about the Bible and history, for particular reasons; this should be explicit. Slrubenstein

It is an article on the state of scholarship today, and the current controversies. This article does need to be expanded, and it needs to summarize archaeological findings of the last 200 years, and explain how they are interpreted both for- and against- the Bible's account of history.

I couldn't agree more. As it stands now, the literary and historical value of the Bible as a source for better understanding a particular period of the past is being circumvented by religious and political agendas, and this, from the point of view of biblical scholarship (linguistic, historical, or other) is a serious anachronism. I invite you to take a look at the Israelites page as well, where this is especially blatant. I woudl like to do something a bit more scholarly, but I am not willing to get into a flame war with anyone over it. Unfortunately, Elian, there are plenty of self-proclaimed biblical experts who use their so-called "expertise" to forward their agendas in the name of scholarship. Danny

I agree with you that the literary and historical value of the Bible as a source for better understanding a particular period of the past is being circumvented by some for religious and political agendas. I have alluded to this in the article, but as this article is fleshed out this idea can be further developed, hopefully by you in conjunction with whoever else is contributing. RK

What do people make of this summary? Summary of Biblical minimalism versus maximalism

Interesting. But to me it just underlines that our current article has serious POV problems. It's very pro-maximalist at present IMO. I have a lot of sympathy for this position, but we should recognise that it's not universal. Andrewa 02:10, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps, but what specifically do you mean by "maximalist"? Remember, there are three basic positions, and "Biblical maximalism" rejects the idea that all of the Bible is historically accurate! Today the people called "biblical maximalists" are the same people who 100, 50 and even 30 years ago might have been considered "minimalists". And today's "Biblical minimalists" hold that nearly everything in the Bible is a fraud or false story. RK

I don't see that it makes any difference what I mean by the term. The article uses the term, and identifies it as one of several current approaches. In my opinion, it then promotes this particular approach over the others. That, it seems to me, is POV. Andrewa 03:56, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

At least one biblical minimalist advocates a common Palestinian conspiracy theories, i.e. that the entire Bible was deliberately faked by "the Jews" s part of an anti-Palestinian Arab attempt. (See The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History). -- I deleted this because it is wrong. Whitelam's book does not claim any such thing. What he claims is that the Bible story (which he sees as largely myth like most minimalists do) has been used in the service of a historiography that minimalises the non-Jewish aspects of the history of Palestine. This is not even close to claiming that the Bible was faked. It is not a new theory either and certainly does not deserve to be dismissed as a "Palestinian conspiracy theory". Many Israeli archaeologists, such as Ze'ev Herzog, agree with it to a fair extent. --zero 15:50, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I was going to add the paragraph I removed from History of ancient Israel and Judah, but it's already there. Lots still to do IMO. Obviously a controversial subject. Andrewa 01:57, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm. It seems to me that if religious viewpoints are to be discussed at all on this page, it shouldn't just be the 'fundamentalist' viewpoint that is discussed. Not quite sure how to handle this. Andrewa 17:28, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Disappointment

I was a little disappointed by this page. I hoped it would discuss the evidence. In actualty it doesn't say much more than "minimalists think its fiction, maximalists think its mostly true". I am no expert but I do know that most of Joshua was refuted by archeological evidence (for example, Jericho did not exist at the time), that the victory of the local alliance led by Ahab is mentioned in Assyrian texts, that some kind of semitic tribes did occupy parts of Egypt in the 16th century until their expulsion etc. Wouldn't the page be better if it described those things? Gadykozma 11:46, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I thought the page was generally good, taking into account how oversimplified encyclopedias must be. however, i dislike the association of anti-isreali and anti-semite views. to disagree with the political policies of the state of isreal is not the same as the racism of hating jews, as this would make many jews anti-semites. in fact, there are many good reasons for jews to be sympathetic with a people who are being rounded up and put in camps because of their ethnicity, having all their land, wealth, indeed assets of any kind confiscated by the state, given no voice in their homeland, killed without thought... not that isreal is the only country in the world to ignore the world court and the UN, but it is funny that these things were created at the end of WW2 in part to stop this exact sort of thing from happening again.

A digression about Israel and the Palestinians has no place here. This page is for discussion about how to improve the article. Further, no one here is making the claim that disagreement with a policy of Israel is somehow anti-Semitic. See the section on strawman anti-Semitism, Modern_anti-Semitism#Straw-man_anti-Semitism. You are refuting a claim that no one is making. RK 15:11, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Removed text

I removed the following text from the article (the reasons are below)

Biblical Maximalists point to the following in support of their view:

Despite widespread skepticism among the scientific community as to the existence of the Hittite civilization, the Biblical accounts were verified in 1906, when Hugo Winckler escavated Hattusa, the Hittite capital. (See Biblical World, pp. 290ff.)

The Biblical accounts of Israelite slaves building Egyptian cities using bricks of clay mixed with straw, then clay and stubble, then clay alone (Ex. 1:11; 5:10-21) were confirmed in 1883, when Naville examined the ruins of Pithom and found all three types of brick. (See Biblical World, pp. 458,459.)

Despite widespread skepticism among the academic community as to the Biblical claim that Iconium was in a different region that Lystra and Derbe (acts 14:6), Sir William Ramsey verified the Biblical accounts. (See Archaeology and Bible History, Free, p. 317.)

They also point to quotations such as the following from prominent archeologists:

"...it may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries." -- Dr. Nelson Glueck (Rivers in the Desert, p. 31)

"...archaeology has confirmed countless passages which have been rejected by critics as unhistorical or contradictory to known facts ... Yet archaeological discoveries have shown that these critical charges ... are wrong and that the Bible is trustworthy in the very statements which have been set aside as untrustworthy ... We do not know of any cases where the Bible has been proved wrong." -- Dr. Joseph P. Free (Archaeology and Bible History, pp. 1,2,134)

The main reason is as follows: even without this text, the article is highly pro-maximalist. It gives the minimalist POV an unfair presentation, choosing intentionally the most extreme and politically motivated faction. Then it goes on to debunk this view as politically motivated. It gives the maximalist POV much more space.

Now this selection of quotes really overdoes this. "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference"? The leading view among archeologists is that the vast majority of Joshua has no basis in reality. Jericho didn't even have a wall at the time.

In short, this article and the corresponding History of ancient Israel and Judah are already highly POV, and have only survived in this state because currently there is no Wikipedian to represent the scientific view. Please do not abuse this fact. Gadykozma 21:12, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• heya, Gadykozma, i can understand that -- it does lean toward the maximalists right now. but as i understand it, the Wiki way is not to DELETE data to improve balance, but to ADD data on the other side to improve balance. So I'm gonna put it back in ... feel free to add some on the other side ... or lemme know if there's some other reason you don't want it in there? -- Ungtss

• ps -- i think we need to get this article past "some say this and some say that," and onto substantive facts -- so i'll add a couple more facts and get rid of the overstated quotes on the maximalist side -- deal?

I am all for facts (as you can see in my rant above). The most interesting part, I think, is the book of Joshua. If you could devote some space to the current scientific views about its veracity, it would make me quite happy.

As for the Wiki vs. non-Wiki way, here I had to strike a balance. Given the fact that I could not add info (I don't know enough) I had to choose between the lesser of to evils: delete or keep POV. Of course since you promise to solve both problems, I'm eagerly waiting to see your work. Gadykozma 22:05, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

POVerty of this page

This page needs a radical overhaul. IMO it doesn't provide useful information in an understandable context, and is (despite some editing efforts) clearly POV. Even the introductory sentence is arguably POV - it implies an attempt to validate Bible from the maximalist POV. IMO the entry should look at the Bible's place in understanding history, which naturally includes discussion of its historicity, as well as the role of the book itself in history (should be mostly covered elsewhere but maybe briefly summarised with links). The position that the historicity is non-existent for earlier or even later periods shouldn't be categorised as 'minimalism', as the term is controversial (see eg http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Minimalism.htm and this statement from a response (http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Contra_Davies.htm) to that article: "As for 'minimalists vs. maximalists,' I agree with Davies that these are not helpful terms."). So maybe we can find a better term that is in common use (I'm drawing a blank at the mo - it's late).

In fact, the current page is structured as an entry on Biblical Minimalism, written by a strong opponent. I think we should start this page over, throwing everything out. The anti-semitism point shouldn't be here even if it did meet wiki's evidentiary standards, which I don't think it does; maybe it should go somewhere on the anti-semitism pages; the obvious link is with the discussion of the Jews being accused of deicide, unless we think it so spurious an argument (as I'm inclined to) to put it in a 'charges of anti-semitism' context. Also, if the term 'biblical minimalism' and its characterization (by some Christians) is common enough, then maybe it could deserve its own entry *as* a POV term ("this is a term used by... to mean..."), which would allow for some POV discussion, but be clear about this, and link back to NPOV debate under this entry.

Ultimately, I'd hope to work towards an entry like the ones for documentary hypothesis and Historicity of Jesus, though given that this entry is a wider subject, that's a challenge. Any thoughts? Rd232 00:02, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I disagree, mostly because I think critics of this page were confusing biblical maximalism with biblical fundamentalism. These groups, in fact, are opposed to each other. Biblical maximalists reject the idea that the Bible is infallible or historically reliable on all points. However, they also reject the idea that it is a total fiction, with only the slightest relation to reality. As such, people are reacting to a bias that is not really here. RK 18:24, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

New version

I started refactoring this page at The Bible and history/New version. It will probably take at least a week. Anyone can comment on /New version and even edit the page. Note one small caveat: if I run into an edit conflict on that page, I will revert blindly. I hate resolving edit conflicts and it is my sandbox after all. Gady 12:29, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK, the new version is reasonably complete and I think (marginally) better than the existing page so please comment on it (better/worse than existing structure) before I copy it in. Gady 12:59, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There were no objections so its done. Gady 22:50, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Someone added Warning: This article is subject to bias and opinion. Even though the article could be expanded and improved, this comment needs justifying. The Talk page is the place to do it. Rd232 08:52, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Entire Article

It seems to me that in this article there is a lot of clamour, on the part of those critical of Biblical historicity, that any entry supporting Biblical historicity is somehow POV. It seems to me the entire article is POV - leaning heavily towards the Biblical "critics" - case in point the removal of information with regard to 19th century archaeological findings which supported Bible historicity. Under "New Testament" there is a lot of information indicating that J.C. supposedly did not ever exist; the line goes "other than Josephus there is no other secular proof of Jesus' existence" (to that effect) - I must ask, what about 2,000 years of human history? There is no telling of both sides of this issue in this article, only one - the "Emperor's New Clothes" "higher" critic point of view. It's a shame. TTWSYF

Material has been lost from previous versions because it was either not written appropriately, didn't prove anything, or was of doubtful credibility. As for your comment about "2000 years of human history" - for most of that time the majority of the world's population thought the Earth was flat. (And at least they had the evidence of their own eyes for that. How many people witnessed Jesus' alleged miracles?) Anyway, if you have good evidence to add and can do so in an NPOV way, please do. As they say, it's better to light a candle than to complain about the dark. Rd232 20:43, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Actually most people stopped believing in a flat earth about 2,000 years ago, by an interesting coincidence. I agree about lighting a candle; I only hope that in the future, large scale deletions will be moved to this page for discussion or at least some mention of the rationale for their deletion will be made. Thanks. Wesley 04:28, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

OK. I seem to remember the page was felt to be so poor that it was rewritten from scratch. About the flat earth though - it's true that knowledgeable people have know the earth was round probably as far back as Egypt's Old Kingdom. But I was talking about "most people", globally, - and I would guess the vast majority of people who died prior to say 1800 would have believed the world was flat, not having been educated. And remember even some educated people thought Columbus would fall off the edge of the world... Rd232 10:16, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The material that was lost is really quite unfortunate. I wanted to insert it in a "historiography" section — a section that describes the evolution of scientific views from the 19th century until today. Finally I didn't have the nerve to write about something I know so little about. If anyone feels sufficiently confident to write it, please do. Gady 14:41, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I can attempt to make modifications and add references to works available to me from archaeological teams in the 19th century; I'd light the candle but everyone keeps blowing it back out! If what I add just gets deleted by a person who has convinced themselves that the Bible is a fake and a forgery, then there's not much point. These people are the same as those Twain was referring to: "I've made up my mind! Stop confusing me with the facts." TTWSYF

That's not really a fair complaint. Nobody has yet deleted a single word you added to this article. If you add a nice section about the development of scientific views and/or about 19th century Bible research you would be more than welcome. You might start by digging out the dates on these quotes that you want back — without the dates these quotes are very hard to use. Gady 16:10, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This article is getting more and more POV, whats with this sentence for example:

"It's a pitty that Eusebius was to much of a hypocrite to apply the same methodology to his own religion"

bwahahaha. Kuratowski's Ghost 12:11, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

User:Argyrosargyrou added some interesting material, but it needs work to make it encyclopedic and for the article to be shaped better. I don't have time at the moment. Rd232 15:25, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Lunar Years

"This does not work for all of the dates in Genesis, however. Genesis 5:3 states that Adam lived 130 years before becoming the father of Seth, when corrected for the Metonic cycle (i.e. multiplying by 19/235) makes him 10.5 years old when he became a father. Genesis 5:6 states that Seth lived 105 years before becoming the father of Enosh, making him 8.5 years old when he became a father. Genesis 5:9 states that Enosh had lived 90 years when he became the father of Kenan, making him 7.3 years old when he became a father. Genesis 5:12 states also that Kenan lived 70 years before becoming the father of Mahalalel, making him 5.7 years old when he became a father. Genesis 5:15 states that Mahalalel lived 65 years before becoming the father of of Jared, making him 5.3 years old when he became a father. Genesis 5:21 states that Enoch lived 65 years before becoming the father of Methuselah, making him 5.3 years old as well.

This makes the lunar calendar hypothesis less likely."

The years you are using are from the Hebrew text of the bible which has been shown to differ substantially from Josephus and the Septuagint text and the Samaritan text which all agree with each other in most places in this part of Genesis.

It is clear that after the time of Josephus the Hebrew text of the bible was altered and 100 "years" were removed from all of the years of birth.

The LXX and Josephus give Adam and age of 230 when he begat Seth and Seth and Age of 205 when he begat Enos and Enos was 190 when he begat Cainan. Cainan begat Mahalalel when he was 170 and Mahalalel was 165 when he begat Jared. That makes the youngest age at conception about 13 years.

If you plot the ages at begetting on a graph you will notice that the line slopes slightly downwards rather than being horizontal. It is likely that the original ages were closer to that of Adam at 230 and were deliberately reduced more and more as you go through the generations so as to get them to fit in better with the ages of the patriarchs at begetting in later parts of Genesis.

Therefore the Lunar hypothesis is still the most likely scenario.

Lunar hypothesis justifed by Book of Noah

If you read the Chapter 106 of the Book of Noah you will find that Noah was born while his Grandfather Methuselah was still alive therefore this would support the (165 lunar months) 13 year per generation hypothesis. Methuselah lived to 969 or 78 years so the maximum average separation between generations is 39 years and the minimum is 13 years. The average between the two is 26 years.

"Fragment of the Book of Noah

Chapter 106 And after some days my son Methuselah took a wife for his son Lamech, and she became pregnant by him and bore a son. And his body was white as snow and red as the blooming of a rose, and the hair of his head and his long locks were white as wool, and his eyes beautiful. And when he opened his eyes, he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole house was very bright. And thereupon he arose in the hands of the midwife, opened his mouth, and conversed with the Lord of righteousness. And his father Lamech was afraid of him and fled, and came to his father Methuselah. And he said unto him: ' I have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike man, and resembling the sons of the God of heaven; and his nature is different and he is not like us, and his eyes are as the rays of the sun, and his countenance is glorious. And it seems to me that he is not sprung from me but from the angels, and I fear that in his days a wonder may be wrought on the earth. And now, my father, I am here to petition thee and implore thee that thou mayest go to Enoch, our father, and learn from him the truth, for his dwelling-place is amongst the angels.'"

Another thing to note is the Enoch was still alive when Noah was born and his age is given as 365 lunar months old which is about 30 years when he was taken up be God. This would mean that the separation between generations would be only 10 years if Enoch was dead but since Enoch is still alive when the Flood occurred as is stated in the Book of Enoh we have to assume that taken by God does not means that he died at this age. And of course the flood occurs when Noah is 600 or 48 years so Enoch would have to be at least 78 years old. If we assume 13 years per generation to Noah then he would be 87 which is not impossible since lots of people in ancient Greece lived to be over 90.

If the books of Enoch and Noah are accurate it is likely that the figures in the bible were tampered with and Noah was only 400 when the flood occurred and 300 when he begat Shem. In this case an extra 200 lunar months has to be equally divided between the ages of the patriarchs at betting before Noah. If this was distributed evenly for the 7 generations from Enos to Lamech that would give everyone an average age of 203 or 16 years at begetting.

Potential Criticism

The Book of Noah and Josephus may have been drawing their approximation of the patriarch's ages from the Septuagint, and it could have been mistranslated to begin with. Therefore what is used as two corroborating sources could be only one original source and still based on a mistranslation from Hebrew to Greek.

The extant Hebrew text of the bible including the Dead Sea Scrolls is a later text than the Septuagint and the Samaritan Laws. Josephus figures came from an earlier version of the Hebrew to the one available today.

That's not exactly correct. Josephus used the Septuagint in his greek writings. He had great confidence in it as a translation, but that could have been apologetics for Judaism to the Greek world.

The ages at begetting are as follows.

It is obvious from the above that the Hebrew text has been altered and 100 "years" have been removed from several of the ages, and Josephus was using an earlier Hebrew text.

Only to someone who is convinced that the Septuagint is an authentic translation, because the altering could have occured in reverse.

All literary analyses show that the Septuagint text is older than the Hebrew.

The Septuagint agrees with the Samaritan Laws in more places than both do with the Hebrew text and the Samaritan Laws were more or less fixed in 100 BC when the Samaritan temple was destroyed whereas as the Hebrew text continued to be changed until the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. Also according to Josephus when the bible was translated into Greek, Ptolemy or his advisors ruled that the text should be remain fixed.

Besides, in chapter 6 verse 4 it says that God will limit people's ages to 120 years. It is the same word used in chapter 6 verse 1 to describe Noah's age.

Its actually Genesis 6:3 and there is no mention in 6:1.

What was that verse supposed to originally mean? Wasn't it there to explain to the readers how these people lived a LOT longer than people now were living? That means that according to the correction for the Metonic cycle (multiplying by 19/235) the writer meant that people would only live to be 9.7 years old. This verse loses its context when you use the same standards to it that you use to the other parts of Genesis.

In the list of ages of the patriarchs the average age from Adam to Noah is about 900. After Noah the ages start at 600 for Shem, then 535 for Arphaxad then 465, 460, 404, 339, 339, 330, 204, 350 and 175 from Abraham. If you plot these on a graph you will get a straight line that slopes downwards instead of being horizontal.

Its obvious from this that the figures have been tampered with in order to bring the ages down from Lunar months to true calendar years which do not start being used until the kingdom of David who is given a realistic age of 70 when he died.

The reference to a limit of 120 years in Genesis 6:3 was obviously added later to explain the tampering. (Probably before the Book of Kings was written.) Even Amram the father of Moses lived to be 137 years and that's 16 generations after Noah and the years are still to big.

The reference in 6:3 is most likely from the Yahwist writer, while chapter 5 and 6:1 is from the Redactor writer. So 6:3 most likely predates chapter 5. So you say, then they are referring to two different "ages" then? Well, it may be different writers but the Redactor uses the same term "years" in several other places as well, in which the age of the person based on the correction for years to lunar months would be very young, so the theory does not hold out as well as you seem to imagine. So it seems as if the term year is literal when you want it to be, but based on correction for the metonic cycle when you do not. The major problem is that these the first 11 chapters definitely are completely mythical and the rest of the first 5 books plus Joshua are very legendary at best, mythical most likely. The long ages were given to make the storyline have a feel of antiquity towards it.

I have already explained that the expression "years" is used for lunar months only as far as Noah. This is justified by the numbers used by Josephus and by the Septuagint and the reading of the Book of Noah. All the ages obtained by converting to years by multiplying by 19/235 give acceptable ages at death and at begetting. 13 years is not too young for begetting since this is when puberty occurs and when Jewish boys are regarded as men.

After Noah and up to Abraham the "years" have been deliberately altered so that they gradually get lower the further on you go. Also the Hebrew text in this section does not agree with eithetr the Greek, Samaritan or Josephus texts. All the ages at begetting in the Hebrew after Shem up to Nachor have had 100 subtracted. All the texts apart from the Greek have the age of Arphaxad at begetting (135) missing.

If the Greek text is used and the ages of begetting are plotted from Shem to Sarug then they give a horizontal straight line. This indicates that however these ages were altered they were altered by the same amount or by the same ratio for each individual whereas the lifespans of these people if plotted on a graph give a line that slopes downwards.

Since the only information we need to reconstruct a chronology are the ages at begetting it does not matter that the full lifespan was altered. The ages of begetting show that everyone was roughly 130 when they fathered their sons up untill Nachor.

Then going by the Greek text from Nachor to Moses (and using the figures given by Alexander Polyhistor in Eusebius preparation of the Gospel book 9 to fill in the gaps for the family of Moses) everyone was on average about 70 years old when they begat their sons.

After that the book of Kings gives ages of begetting and these are around 33 years when each king begot his son.

If you putt all of this together a pattern emerges.

Average age of begetting

Shem to Sarug 130

Abraham to Moses 70

Book of Kings 33

The ratio of these ages StoS:AtoM:BoK is 4:2:1 therefore in order to get a straight line at begetting and therefore a linear chronology you have to apply an inverse transform ie. 1/4:1/2:1 to all the ages.

Lunar Years and other unsubstantiated interptretations

Isn't this supposed to be a summary of accepted knowledge, not a forum for personal theories? Can someone give me a link to a published source that contains any of the theories found in the early part of this article (lunar years, connection with Thera eruption, Japeth founding greeks, etc..) - CypherX

Josephus, Antiquates of the Jews links Japeth to Iapetus and places Noahs Flood at the time Battle of the Gods and Giants (at the time of the Ogygian Deluge) which according to Tatian occured in around 1600 BC. Substantial statistical evidence has been given for the years from Adam to Noah being Lunar Months and this is a common academic belief. Do a Google search.--Argyrosargyrou 16:17, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Josephus doesn't count as a source in this context, and vaguely mentioning statistical evidence isn't sufficient; you need to give a citation. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:28, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nonsence. Josephus is a valid source.

The following link is to a site by a biblical apologist who tries to dismiss the lunar month theory and the one biblical year equals one growing season (of 3 of 4 months) theory and makes a fool of himself doing so. http://www.scripturessay.com/q81.html

I have already dealt with all of his armgumens in the page above. The biggest mistake that he is making is using the Hebrew text where the years have been altered instead of using the Septuagint or Josephus years which I have cited above. The theories mentioned and the statistical calculations are a standard part of university courses on the subject and have been around for centuries so I do not need to cite individual biblical authors (most of whom are apologists who argue that the bible should be taken as the literal truth) since the calculations are normally given to students to do themselves as exercises. Any book on historical dating and statistical methods will cover all the material in question to your satisfaction. You can do the calculations yourself like everyone else who has studied history.

As for Japheth

From Easton's Revised Bible Dictionary;

"Japheth

Wide spreading: "God shall enlarge Japheth" (Heb. Yaphat Elohim le-Yephet, #Ge 9:27 Some, however, derive the name from _yaphah_, "to be beautiful;" hence white), one of the sons of Noah, mentioned last in order #Ge 5:32 6:10 7:13 perhaps first by birth #Ge 10:21 comp. #Ge 9:24 He and his wife were two of the eight saved in the ark #1Pe 3:20 He was the progenitor of many tribes inhabiting the east of Europe and the north of Asia #Ge 10:2-5 An act of filial piety #Ge 9:20-27 was the occasion of Noah’s prophecy of the extension of his posterity. After the Flood the earth was re-peopled by the descendants of Noah, "the sons of Japheth" #Ge 10:2 "the sons of Ham" #Ge 10:6 and "the sons of Shem" #Ge 10:22. It is important to notice that modern ethnological science, reasoning from a careful analysis of facts, has arrived at the conclusion that there is a three-fold division of the human family, corresponding in a remarkable way with the great ethnological chapter of the book of Genesis 10. The three great races thus distinguished are called the Semitic, Aryan, and Turanian (Allophylian). "Setting aside the cases where the ethnic names employed are of doubtful application, it cannot reasonably be questioned that the author #Ge 10:1ff. has in his account of the sons of Japheth classed together the Cymry or Celts (Gomer), the Medes (Madai), and the Ionians or Greeks (Javan), thereby anticipating what has become known in modern times as the ‘Indo-European Theory,’ or the essential unity of the Aryan (Asiatic) race with the principal races of Europe, indicated by the Celts and the Ionians. Nor can it be doubted that he has thrown together under the one head of ‘children of Shem’ the Assyrians (Asshur), the Syrians (Aram), the Hebrews (Eber), and the Joktanian Arabs (Joktan), four of the principal races which modern ethnology recognizes under the heading of ‘Semitic.’ Again, under the heading of ‘sons of Ham,’ the author has arranged ‘Cush’, i.e., the Ethiopians; ‘Mizraim,’ the people of Egypt; ‘Sheba and Dedan,’ or certain of the Southern Arabs; and ‘Nimrod,’ or the ancient people of Babylon, four races between which the latest linguistic researches have established a close affinity" (Rawlinson’s Hist. Illustrations). "--Argyrosargyrou 22:22, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're claiming that Josephus' claims about the dating of antiquity are reliable? And pointing to someone whom you claim gets it wrong is not the same as providing a citation for "substantial statistical evidence". Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:38, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Read the entire thread from Lunar Years downwards which explains everything you need to know. The Luner years theory is a standard theory on the matter as is the seasonal calendar theory which even the Biblical apologists accept. Its up to you to do the statistical calculations yourself.--Argyrosargyrou 00:57, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Lunar Hypothesis" and "Ratio of Ages"

In my opinion, trying to make the very long ages of Biblical patriarchs seem less fantastic by saying the years symbolize "months" or "ratios" seems little more than an attempt to take away the mythological character of the narratives and twist the stories into corresponding with known history. The Bible should not be treated as a history book, and for the most part it isn't on this site, but the claim that the ancient Hebrews who wrote the books saw these ages as "symbolic" and not literal is a gross misunderstanding of how people thought in the ancient world. Ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, believed that magic was real and everywhere; the idea of nature having laws and limits that are not broken was alien to the authors of the Torah narratives, (10th-5th centuries BC, see the articles on Dating the Bible and the Documentary Hypothesis). The tradition of long ages for patriarchs among the Hebrews probably stems from the same tradition as the Babylonians assigning reigns of thousands of years to their legendary earliest kings, but I have yet to hear of anyone arguing that the ages of these kings be interpreted as "symbolic."

This is not to say the Bible has no valid history in it; some of the events mentioned in the books of Kings have been confirmed to have taken place, such as the battles between Kings Omri and Ahab of Israel and King Mesha of Moab (see the Mesha Stele article), and the invasion of Palestine by Pharaoh Shoshenq I (called "Shishak" in the Bible, see the entry for Shoshenq I). But we must be careful between recognizing the Bible as containing some valid history (which it does), and asserting that it contains an accurate historical account of the emergence of the cultures of the Middle East (which it does not).

I understand that the Bible is a controversial subject, but sometimes "neutrality" on a subject just doesn't fit the evidence. Neutrality is vital when discussing two competing theories that both have similar amounts of supporting evidence, but it causes more harm than good when one theory is well-supported and the other just isn't. Debate on whether the patriarchs were real people doesn't belong in this article, IMHO, as nations simply do not arise from the growth of individual households the way the Bible has them arising. Valid debate would, however, demand neutrality on questions such as the existence and scope of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon; the origin and evolution of Israelite monotheism; the relationship between politics and religion in ancient Israel and Judah; the differences between the religious views of the aristocracy, the priesthood, and the people; the Biblical characterization of such deities as Baal and Asherah as having been adopted by Israel from the Canaanites when the Israelites invaded Canaan, versus the increasingly supported theory that the Israelites were originally an indigenous Canaanite sub-group themselves, and had simply inherited those gods, along with Yahweh, from their ancestors; etc. Things that can actually be debated using evidence.

New Testament/Greek Bible

Changes were made to improve the article:

1. historical sources and analysis from other pages (extensively discussed over a long period of time by a wide variety of editors) were added about Jesus
2. the article was separated in 2 parts, the first about the historicity about Jesus, the second includes the part that was there before, mostly about the traditions coming from paganism. In fact, the article was previously quite inaccurate stating that the religion came from paganism when it was some of the traditions that may have been merged. Nothing was deleted. --Noitall 14:48, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

There is already a historicity of Jesus article. Please note the organisation of information can itself be used to assert one POV over another. ~~~~ 15:16, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea about your argument except that you apparently do not wish clarifying, factual and accurate analysis to be on this page. I disagree. --Noitall 15:31, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

What I dispute is that your edit is "clarifying, factual and accurate analysis". I dispute all 4 words individually. It is your opinion that your edit is such. Please note, opinion is not fact. ~~~~ 10:05, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

In your edit summary, you claimed that your change was a "consensus approval from other pages". Would you mind awfully demonstrating that it had consensus, as I really can't find evidence of anyone else supporting it at the moment. ~~~~ 10:03, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• It is consensus because I actually did not write it. It has been edited and reedited many times by others of all different opinions, see Jesus. All I did was appropriately incorporate it in the relevant section here and separate the two important parts: the historicity of beliefs and the historicity of traditions. Bottom line, I did something uncontroversial where consensus was reached from editors of all different stripes but you, of course, want to inject your own opinion. --Noitall 15:58, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

So basically you are saying that you made a collage of sentences and parts of sentences from other articles, where someone else wrote the sentence or part of sentence originally. I don't see how, by any stretch of the imagination, that counts as consensus for you to put the sentences together in the manner in which you did, nor to change the article in the manner in which you did.

The following is an example of such a collage created from edits elsewhere that at those locations had consensus.

Noitall is an editor.

He is famous for

poor source of taurine and

is perfectly safe but

is readily identifiable by appearance alone.

With bulbous or otherwise unusual nose

he has been noted to

frequently appear in makeup, and costume as well as typically large footwear

Despite each of these individual elements being consensus, the collecting together of them is not, and exhibits a significant POV. Likewise here you have no evidence of consensus for your assembly of these elements and subsequent refactoring of the article to POV.

Please supply evidence that there was consensus to make the changes that you did. ~~~~ 19:16, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• I gave one very good reference. Your statement is a bunch of untruths (I made no such statements) and irrelevant mumbo jumbo. You showed in other areas that you are willing to troll, lie and vandalize. Thus until you show that you are not doing those things, there is no purpose discussing this further. --Noitall 23:08, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

You made the statement in the edit history. Your exact words are "THIS EDIT WAS A CONSENSUS APPROVAL FROM OTHER PAGES", which, due to your quite distinct lack of evidence, is clearly not the case. ~~~~ 00:57, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

• -Ril-, you have vandalized this page and made no sense except that you are "out to get me." You have attempted to stir up trouble with other editors. You are continuing to "certify" a dispute that you were never involved in and lied and misled to do so. Your actions are harmful to Wiki. As you are very recently aware, this message is to serve as a communication to resolve the dispute. Please let me know 2 things:

1. are you going to reactionary revert this page simply because you dislike me without any rationale?

   I don't find your argument convincing even slightly, and there is zero evidence so far of your claim that you had consensus to make the changes.

2. are you going to continue your personal attacks by any means necessary?

   What personal attacks? Calling somone a vandal is a personal attack, I agree, but it is you that made that claim, not me. ~~~~ 07:14, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

If your answer is to let the issue go and move on, then there is no problem and the issues will be considered resolved. Please let me know if the matters are resolved. Thank you. --Noitall 01:15, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

An issue is not "resolved" when one user gets their way and the other gives up fighting. That really is not an appropriate way to behave. ~~~~ 07:14, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Although I have made many other requests in an attempt to resolve this dispute (this is a 4th or 5th I think), please email me to resolve the issue:

1. your reactionary reverts are done for revenge
2. your attacks against me in the past where you attempted to certify an RfC and tried to revert a deleted RfC without any justification, followed by your continuing reactionary reverts on this article without any justification.
3. after being provided a source concerning the making of a non-controvercial edit, much of which was not written by me, you refuse to consider the source
4. continuing to make POV charges without once stating what is POV
5. continuing to make POV charges without once providing a rationale as to why it is POV
6. continuing to make POV charges despite the fact that many other editors contributed to drafting this passage
7. each and every edit has been a reactionary revert without a single attempt to state the supposedly POV issue or suggest a way of changing my edit such that it would be supposedly less POV

--Noitall 02:15, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

There is no need for E-mail. The only purpose of that, rather than talk pages, is to commit abuse that you don't want the arbitration committee to find out about.

1. My reverts are done because you are inserting POV into an article. Misplaced Pages is NPOV. You are adding nothing new, just POVing an already highly POV article.
2. Certifying an RfC against someone who is a problem user, has insulted many wikipedians and made personal attacks (e.g. calling Mustafaa a terrorist), and actively encouraged edit wars, is entirely justified
3. Your edit is entirely controversial, it POVs the article extensively. Claiming it is "non-controversial" is 100% deliberately misleading.
4. POV is non-neutral bias and interpretation see WP:NPOV
5. The very fact that you are so adament that the edit is to be made demonstrates that it is POV. An issue over "james'" ->"james's" or something equally unPOV would not result in an editor insisting that the edit be made. You are. It is obviously POV.
6. No editors other than you drafted the passage. I see no evidence whatsoever that they have, there is no discussion here of the passage involving people other than you or me, no discussion at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Bible, and no evidence of anyone other than yourself in the edit history of this article.
7. I agree that its a reactionary revert. So why are you doing it?

~~~~ 08:03, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

-Ril- and Noitall, would it be possible for either of you to briefly summarize what the issue is in this article. All I can really tell from the above exchange is that the two of you are accusing each other of slanting the article or trying to insert POV into it, while each maintaining your own neutrality. My question is, what facts are being disputed? Or, which specific edits or sentences do you find objectionable to have in the article, or which can you not bear to have removed? I think answering these questions might help focus your discussion on the best way to improve the article. Wesley 04:46, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Wesley, please be my guest. Two other editors have tried to intercede to no avail. The problem is that -Ril- does not have an edit dispute, he has targeted me. He has done so on about 40 pages so far as he trolls my edits. I keep threatening to do an RfC, but it seems like such a waste of time and effort when I would prefer to be editing. Bottom line, ignoring for the moment his personal vendetta against me, he says "POV" about 100 times without ever once stating what is POV. Jayjg suggested a change to the edit and made it and it was fine. -Ril- even reverted that thinking that I made the edit. Wesley, if you want to stroll into -Ril-world, you are welcome to try. Note his stuborness and crazy disputes on his talk page, as we speak. In fact, I will follow whatever recommendation you make. --Noitall 05:38, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Moved new addition here

I've just moved the following paragraph (copy0edited and wikified) here:

For many Orthodox Jews who seek to reconcile discrepancies between science and the Bible, the notion that science and the Bible should be reconciled through traditional scientific means is questioned. They point to the fact that the root word for "world" in Hebrew, "olam", means "hidden". They point to various discrepancies between what is expected and what actually is (the hidden) – for example, the fact that macroscopic matter is, in fact, 99% empty space – to demonstrate that things are not always as they appear. Just as they believe that God created man and trees and the light on its way from the stars in their adult state, so too can they believe that the world was created in its "adult" state without any feelings of "copping out".

I've not been able to clean up the last sentence, which is too obscurely written for me to fully understand, but the whole thing needs to be sourced. Can anyone vouch for these claims, and provide citations? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:19, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

This is a minority view that does not need to be represented unless well-sourced. JFW | T@lk 20:30, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

to: ALL

I was a writing tutor in college. I did a lot of cleanup to make things smoother and easier to read. For example, one paragraph at the top pretty much duplicated one at the bottom.

Secondly, does anyone know what qualifications "Donovan Courville" had/has. I would fill in the bio but I don't know anything about him other than he is cited in regards to Bible chronology.

Thirdly, if anyone wishes to add the well known liberal/moderate/secular view scholars please feel free to do so. My knowledge in this area is weak and I did not want to create blank or sparse biographies.

I do think it is important to list the well known conservative/liberal/moderate/secular scholars as this is extremely helpful for those who wish to do further studies.

ken 18:46, 5 August 2005 (UTC)kdbuffalo

Addendum

I filled in Courville's bio

ken 20:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)kdbuffalo

Greek and Hebrew Bibles??

I object to the way this article characterizes the Old Testament as the "Hebrew" Bible and the New Testament as the "Greek" Bible. First, calling it Hebrew is somewhat ambiguous, as "Hebrew" could mean Hebrew language or it could mean Jewish. If it means Hebrew language, then this is not the same thing as the Christian Old Testament, as the Old Testament used by most Jews in the first century was the Greek language Septuagint; consequently the Septuagint was also used my the early Church and is still favored by the Orthodox Church today. If the intended meaning is "Jewish", then perhaps saying "Tanakh" instead would be less ambiguous.

The New Testament is not the "Greek Bible" for two reasons; first, it was not the Bible most widely used by the Greek people until at least the fourth century. Sure it was in Greek (at least mostly), but so were any number of other religious texts from various religions. It's not a helpful designation. And as mentioned above, the Old Testament/Tanakh was also widely circulated in Greek, so it easily qualified as a Greek Bible at the time, as much as a Spanish or German translation of the Bible today counts as a "Spanish Bible."

Therefore, I propose that the New Testament just be called the New Testament, and the Old Testament be called either that or "Tanakh" if the Jewish designation for it is desired for balance. Wesley 04:55, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I defer to your expertise here. Please have a go at it. --Noitall 05:32, August 6, 2005 (UTC)