Veracity of Gospels and other things

[sylla]

Imagine for a moment that we were perfect passive agnostics; ie, that we couldn't care less if any divinity has ever existed or not.

Now, let us try to reconstruct the political and social history of the Julio-Claudian Principate with the New Testament and related Apocrypha (canonicity is not by itself an index of historical reliability); for millions of people through centuries, such have been indeed their main or only source.

 

<SNIP>

All that doesn't mean NT lacks any historical value; historians simply can't afford to ignore any available source.

In fact, NT has been occasionally crucial for specific research; for example, the use of the process of Paul as evidence of the legal restriction for the use of torture on Roman citizens.

As with any other source, we simply need to be cautious.

 

Northern Neil may have this covered with his book reference but one aspect of the 'veracity' of biblical stories, which I have increasingly become aware of, is the fact that even if we ignore centuries of possible adaption to fit biblical stories to local contexts we are looking at centuries of transcription, translation and consequent errors/ best fits being made.

 

We do not have the 'original' text in most instances, only at best the earliest known written versions. You just have to look at the debate about the 'eye of the needle' reference on sites liek Wikipedia to see how a simple text can be intepreted in a number of different ways - e.g. did the Greek text really mean cable or was it a coded reference to a small gate which camels couldn't get past without being unloaded and going on their knees (now deemed much less likely as probably a medieval gate rather than truly ancient ) in the walls of Jerusalem.

 

I understand that every now and again attempts have been made to go back to the earliest written sources (Aramaic, Greek, Latin or even Hebrew) and not the versions which have gone through at least three or four intervening translations. Howevert these attempts often founder when compared by religious and other scholars to what is seen as the 'authorised'/ 'authentic' versions of texts especially, when 'possibly' misguided contemporary attempts are made to write the new versions in 'modern' English.

 

Overall there may be 'veracity' to be found in biblical stories but they need a lot of specialist knowledge to draw out and even then these are probably always going to be subject to academic debate about the correct starting point for the translation.

 

It is an area where I feel that religious and academic studies probably will never happily co-exist so debate will continue.

 

The real problem is that while going through umpteen iterations of translation the historic points often get overlooked in favour of the sacred - but equally the strength of the interpretation often swings on what language you are reading the text in.

 

Melvadius

If by "biblical" we are still talking just about the NT, there is almost universal consensus that the original language for most if not all books was Koine Greek.

 

Naturally we don't have the "original" texts (irrespectively of how we may define them); the copying process unavoidably affects the text to some degree; translation is never 100% exact. Only a true religious believer could think otherwise.

 

However, virtually all our ancient Greek and Latin sources are in the same case, and mostly for the same reasons. That doesn't preclude their use for historical research; in fact, History has always had to deal with the analysis and interpretation of narrative sources. Even Livy and Cassius Dio

Edited June 5, 2009 by sylla

[sylla]

BTW, Prof. Jona Lendering (www.livius.org) has some nice theologically neutral reviews on the historic relevance and context of many NT related figures, like Herod I and his dynasty, Pilate, Caiaphas, John the Baptist and naturally Jesus, from a classical scholar standpoint and cross-referenced with plenty of primary sources.