I am posting this in the GD section as I have a feeling it <i>might</i> spark something.
My question:
Are there any non-religious historical texts that can verify the ‘going-ons’ in any religious texts?
IE: King Herod has been noted in other historical records other than the Bible (Messada [sp]), so has Jesus been mentioned in anything else BUT the Bible? The Romans were around at the time of Jesus, so did they not have any records that speak of Him?
Now I’m not looking to start a "can’t justify your religion” scrap. I’m just curious to know if other people outside of a religion mention the main focus of that religion in another context.
There is one paragraph in Josephus’ Histories that mention Jesus. However, many feel that this paragraph is out of place in it’s context and was an addition by a later editor.
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Many of the kings in the later books of the Jewish Bible (OT) have been corroborated by outside sources. Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes.
Damn, I can’t remember where it was (so what good am I?) but I recall there was a mention in the Roman records of a Jesus who was executed for some sort of insurection at about the right time. It didn’t note anything unusual about it.
I’ll see if I can find it.
I believe they are still looking for evidence of the Hebrews being slaves in Egypt.
Sure, there are a lot of events in the bible that we have outside corroboration for. All kinds of structures mentioned in the Bible are still standing (the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem, where the ark was supposedly kept, for example).
Even some of the stories that people once thought were myth have been corroborated. I seem to recall that the city of Jericho was found not too long ago, complete with destroyed walls. The chronology of Egyptian kings in the bible pretty much matches what we’ve found archaologicaly. But that’s not surprising - the bible was written by people much closer to those events, or by people who experienced them themselves. The book of Mormon accurately describes much of what actually happened to Joseph Smith, but that doesn’t make him the Son of God. If David Koresh wrote a religious book, and referenced events like WWII and Hiroshima as being ‘punishment from God’, historians 4000 years from now might find that much of what he said was completely accurate. It’s just that the ‘spin’ he put on those events was nuts, and it’s the ‘spin’ that’s hard to justify from physical evidence.
The same can be said of other stories we have of things that were thought to be myths. The city of Angkhor Wat was considered to be a myth until it was discovered a few decades ago.
There is a book I recently read on this subject- Jesus outside the New Testament : an introduction to the ancient evidence / Robert E. Van Voorst.
Publisher Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B. Eerdmans, c2000.
It is written from the perspective of one who believes in the actual existence of Jesus, but IMHO does a good job of examining the sources as objectively as possible. In addition to Josephus, there are additional Jewish, Roman and other sources which mention Jesus- some which Van Voorst concludes contain a core of accurate info, many which are not reliable at all. BTW, Van Voorst believes that part of the account of Jesus found in our editions of Josephus was in the original, but later transcribers added to it.
There is a contempory note about the execution of James, JCs brother, and it notes something like “James the brother of the one called Jesus Christ”.
A very large portion of the OT & Nt have been verified by histories, contempory writings, digs, etc. Of course- not the miracles & such like, per se. But David was a real historical King, etc. There was even a “Great Flood”, but there is no record of one that drowned the entire globe- just 'their world".
If we are going to turn this into another “did JC exist as a historical person” I will simply point out that every single unbiased expert accepts He did. And the most important thing is there is no evidence to the contrary. Hunh? I hear you saying. Well, the Romans did have the records for things like JCs execution (since lost). During the time of the persecutions, it would have been easy to check these, and say “Your ‘Jesus’ never existed, we have no record of his life or execution”- but they did not- the Romans accepted the historical existance of JC, and never questioned it- depsite the fact they were doing everything else they could to stomp out & discredit the Faith.
Of course, all this proves is that there was such a man, a "backwoods’ preacher, who had some following and was executed. It says nothing about the miracles, or the Messiahood, or anything like that.
It was not until very recent times that the actual historical existance of JC was questioned.
The OP is pretty broad here. There are lots of “sacred texts” that don’t really lend themselves very well to archaelogical proof or disproof. Within the Western monotheisms, I believe Islam’s Qur’an isn’t really as much of a narrative/historical work as the Jewish and Christian Bible, and therefore isn’t really as susceptible to being poked at by archaeologists. Parts of the Old Testament have been confirmed (the existence of King David and his dynasty), other parts have been disproved (the Flood story, if you read it literally as a universal deluge which covered the entire Earth), and parts would have to be regarded as “not proven” (the Exodus story; I still don’t think there’s any independent confirmation that the Israelites were in Egypt). With some parts of the Old Testament–the Book of Job, say–archaelogical evidence is probably sort of beside the point. There’s really very little historical confirmation of the events of the New Testament outside of the New Testament itself; then again, you probably wouldn’t really expect one religious leader/messiah, executed as a rabble-rouser by the provincial authorities, and his small band of followers, to leave a very big archaelogical “footprint”. I would think that Matthew 27:51-53 might have gotten a mention in someone’s historical chronicles if it had actually happened as described.
Among sacred texts which are in principle confirmable by scientific examination, the Book of Mormon is probably the one which has most spectacularly failed the test.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise (for the record I also believe the actual existence of Jesus is most probably true). It is just that the question of whether any valid extra-biblical sources mention Jesus does relate much more to the question of his historical existence than to questions of his nature. Naturally, what scholars believe re Jesus’s existence may influence how they evaluate those extra-biblical sources, and I was merely trying to be upfront about the author’s perspective.
Sifting gears a bit, I agree in general with the points MEBuckner made, but will offer two small exceptions- First, re archaelogists confirming things in the Qur’an: Nova had a show on the uncovering of the supposed lost city of Ubar. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2312lost.html The destruction of the city was mentioned in the Qur’an, but also in other Arabic sources, so the verification of its existence does not imply the Islamic scripture had some unique knowledge in this case.
Second, re evidence for the existence of King David: As far as I know the only evidence outside the Bible is one fragmentary inscription found at the old city of Dan. It has been translated to include the phrase “House of David”. Not all scholars agree with that interpretation, so the issue is still somewhat open. See http://members.nbci.com/gathas/teldan.htm
Could you expand upon the evidence for these points? I’m unfamiliar with the former, and the only evidence for David that I know of is a fragment of a controversial inscription.
Incidentally, the ancient Greeks had a very good track record for this sort of thing. Think of Troy, Atlantis, and Minoan Crete, for example. The ancient Greeks also (after a fashion) anticipated the nebular hypothesis, evolution by natural selection, and the atomic theory. If you take the ancient Greeks as a baseline, then claims of the Koran containing knowledge ahead of its time look very weak indeed. For that matter, Gulliver’s Travels competes well with the Koran- it predicted the Pacific ring of fire, the moons of Mars, and the existence of Alaska. (I seem to remember finding a few other things foreshadowed in GT, but I don’t remember them all at the moment.)
Ben_ there is a note by a Roman historian, which mentions the death by stoning of James. It mentions James something along the lines of “James, the brother of the one called Jesus Christ”. Not much of a mention, true. There is also a much longer mention is Josephus, but which is likely added later.
OK, I meant the House of David, ie there are lots of evidence & mentions of later Jewish Kings. Archeological evidence for David, himself, is sparse, but again there is little reason to doubt his existance- later Kings, with solid evidence of their existance, did trace their linage to him. Ahab & Omri would seem to be amoung the best mentioned Kings in non-Jewish records. On the other hand, if one is willing to accept the writeen eveidence on a stone somewhere, which may also contain fantastic claims (many of the egyptian stones are notorious for this), why not accept the Bible- it is written evidence, and archeological digs have unearthed very early versions which differ very little for the current version.
It is kinda like saying- “outside Roman records, is there any evidence for the actaul historical existance of Ceasar?”
Oh, please. That “evidence” for David’s existence is just like saying Japan’s Sun Goddess actually exists because there’s a royal family tracing heritage to it!
Ir David, the City of David, is an actual 5,000 year old archaeological site south of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Apparently, artifacts found there make reference to David, although I can’t remember the details. I’m too tired right now, but later I shall skim through my textbook from Historical Geography of Jerusalem, a class in which I went on a field trip to Ir David. Be back later with details.
[Update: I’m looking through my textbook, and the authors of these articles seem to assume that David was a real person. I don’t know if this is because they have physical proof, or because they are religious.]
Also, the Holy of Holies comment is incorrect. It was destroyed with the rest of the Temple in 70 BCE. The structures presently on the Temple Mount are the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Okay, I just reread Daniel’s post, and I would add that there is a ton of archaeological proof for certain events that the Bible says take place during David’s reign, specifically the seige of Jerusalem.
Don’t patronize me. Read my post in context instead. Ben claimed that the Greeks had a very good record for “this sort of thing,” namely verifying ancient events in their archaeological record.
Atlantis was one of his examples. Troy? Yup, found by Schliemann. Minoan Crete? Yup, Linear A, Linear B, and an overwhelmingly large material record.
But Atlantis? Plato mentions it in one of his illustrative stories. Hardly an example of ancient Greek veracity.