The Bible & History

Catalog description

Though Christians and Jews look to the Bible for guidance in the present, much of its content consists of narratives about distant pasts. At the heart of the Bible lies an epic history of ancient Israel set in the context of a larger world history. Tales of the first humans are followed by stories of ongoing political and religious conflict in the ancient Middle East and, in the New Testament, by multiple accounts of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. Why is the Bible so profoundly concerned with history? Who wrote the Bible? How did the historical contexts of its writers-their own social and political experiences, cultural assumptions, and religious beliefs-shape their tellings of history? How do its versions of events compare with those found in other ancient sources? What is the relationship between history as told in the Bible and history as reconstructed by modern, critical historians?