The Challenge of History

DAILY BYTE

When it comes to reading the Old Testament with greater insight and understanding, it is immensely helpful to have a clear picture in your mind of the broad sweep of Israel’s history. Having a sense of the chronological sequence of events can help to make the Old Testament less intimidating and can make the sense of a particular passage easier to grasp.

For example, if you’re reading about Gideon, it’s helpful to know that he lived in what is known as the time of the Judges, after Israel had settled in the Promised Land but before the institution of the monarchy and the arrival of Israel’s first king. If you’re reading about the prophet Elijah, it’s helpful to know that he lived in that period in Israel’s history known as the divided kingdom, where kings of the nations of Israel and Judah were coming and going, some being faithful to God, but many not. If you’re reading from the book of Jeremiah, it’s helpful to know that Jeremiah worked in Jerusalem right up to the time when Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. (The letters BCE stand for ‘Before the Common Era’ and are commonly preferred in biblical scholarship to replace the more traditional date designation of BC - ‘Before Christ’.)

However, before we jump into an overview of the history of Israel, it’s important to recognise that the history of Israel that is presented in the Bible is not absolute historical fact, but is a theological interpretation of historical events. Biblical historians have different approaches to the historical record found in the Old Testament. Some regard it as being mostly accurate in its account of the broad sweep of historical events, but less so in the finer details of what took place. Other scholars regard the biblical record of Israel’s history as being unreliable for reconstructing what actually happened. They describe it as a ‘revisionist’ history, in other words, the events of the past have been dramatically rewritten to suit a particular theological purpose. Such scholars rely more heavily on sources other than the biblical record for reconstructing Israel’s history, such as archaeological evidence or epigraphical evidence (that is, writings from other parts of the Ancient Near East, other than the Bible.)

We needn’t get too caught up in the finer nuances of these scholarly debates. But the essential point that I’m making is an important one – the ‘history’ in the Bible is not a uniform, objective, unbiased account of the events that happened long ago. In fact, there are many historical contradictions in the Bible that illustrate this point. (For example, compare Joshua 10:36-37 with Joshua 14:6-14, which provide contradictory accounts of what happened to the city of Hebron.) Some people find this a disturbing thought, as if it means that suddenly the Bible is no longer true. But that’s leaping to a false conclusion. We mustn’t force the Bible to be something that it isn’t. It isn’t a chronicle of history, it’s a story of faith. It uses history (yes, in a selective and even biased way) to tell the story of faith. We confuse the two at our peril.

Notwithstanding these words of caution, the Bible does paint a fairly detailed picture of the history of Israel, and knowing that history can be hugely helpful as we read the Old Testament. Over the next two days, we’ll look at the broad sweep of Israel’s history from the period of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac & Jacob) to the time of Restoration following the Babylonian exile.

PRAY AS YOU GO

For today’s prayer you are encouraged to read through Psalm 136. It’s a psalm that describes the creating and redeeming work of God in history. You’ll notice that each verse has a refrain ‘His steadfast love endures forever.’ It’s a beautiful reminder that layered through every act of God’s creating and redeeming, there is the reality of God’s steadfast love. This was true not just for Israel so long ago, but is also true for your life and mine today!