6. Read Dr. Isbell’s article “History and Writing.” According to him, what is the biblical text disclosing? What is the relationship of the Bible with History?
According to Dr. Isbell, the biblical disclosing:
The biblical narrative is not the kind of historical evidence we would use to prove OR disprove such things. The Bibleis less concerned to be used as a source of historythan it is to offer a prophetic, a moral, a Yahwistic interpretation of the true meaning of history! Whenever we encounter biblical stories clothed in the format of historical narrative, this prophetic or interpretative perspective of the Bible can never be overlooked, just as it is essential to know the perspective of the author of any book.
The relationship of the Bible with History:
Certain biblical data are dry facts and figures, at least some of which can be checked and cross-referenced. Thus, the dates of a king’s rule may be synchronized with Babylonian or Assyrian sources, and Isaiah’s account of the siege of Sennacherib can be compared with the Assyrian view of the same incident.
the authors and editors of Scripture did not intend to write what we define as history. If the Bible is read only as a search for facts,then most of its message will be lost, for the authors of the Bible were not interested in gust the facts. which they assumed true influenced people to live. That is why the Bible is so difficult to read and understand. We want to know facts of a kind that the Bible most often does not give. But it does not follow that because their interest in historywas different from ours we may pronounce them at fault, even less that we may accuse them of twisting the truth to create out of whole cloth a piece of writing they themselves knew to be false and did not believe. We may be so arrogant as to assume that we know better than they did what they should have put in their Bible. But I doubt that they were so arrogant as to presume readers would be so gullible that both their present and all later generations [including us] could be fooled by ideas they themselves knew fully well to be mere fiction.
