Are we applying a double standard to the Old Testament?

[Carson]

Hi friends,

I’ve recently been reading through Kenneth Kitchens’ massive book On the Reliability of the Old Testament. So far, it has answered many of my questions about the reliability of the Old Testament.

The reason? Kitchens has an encyclopedic command of the relevant archaeology and literature of not only the Israelite’s context across thousands of years, but also of other cultures, including from Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and so on.

Consequently, he can provide specific, detailed comparisons between the Old Testament documents in regards to their vocabulary, structure, geographical names, and a hundred other specific details, with other ancient near eastern sources.

As I’ve worked my way through the text, Kitchens has repeated one argument a number of times that I think is particularly fascinating.

One common reason for discounting the Old Testament (and the New Testament!) as historical is that it gives God credit for various events. However, under the assumption that YHWH doesn’t exist, these interpretations are wrong. And if the interpretations of why XYZ are false (or invented), then perhaps event XYZ is fictional, too.

However, here’s what Kitchens observes:

The ancients habitually ascribed a role in their history to higher powers, their deities — as in war, for example. It is not legitimate to condemn this feature as marking a nonhistorical episode in the Hebrew writings and still accept this same feature in provenly historical episodes in records from Egyptian, Hittite, Mesopotamian, or other such sources, commonly firsthand.

If it is wrong in Hebrew texts, it is wrong in the others. If it is unavoidably part of a genuine historical account in the latter records, then it must be conceded to be so, or at the very least possibly so, in the Hebrew narratives. Nobody now (so far as I know) believes in Amun, Ashur, Marduk, or BaalHadad, just as none are compelled to believe in deity/ies still worshiped currently.

A modern historian must not confuse beliefs of the ancients with modern belief. It has to be understood that “deuteronomic” writers generally interpreted actual history; they did not invent it. The ancients (Near Eastern and Hebrew alike) knew that propaganda based on real events was far more effective than that based on sheer invention, on fairy tales.

A laconic chronicle may record that King A warred against King B and was defeated. A royal annalist or a deuteronomist may, equally, claim that King A had offended a deity, and so the deity had punished him with defeat by King B. To the ancients (within their beliefs), both versions would be true, and possibly to a modern believer if the deity were his or hers also.

To a secular observer the laconic statement would be true (unless faulted by better sources), and the interpretative version should represent exactly the same degree of history (B defeated A), but with the observation that the event was interpreted in a particular way by the ancient writer(s) concerned. That is the proper impartiality at which a true historian must aim.

So the fashion with some to dismiss “deuteronomically interpreted” narratives as automatically nonhistorical (and without explicit factual data to prove it) is gratuitous, illegitimate, and bad methodology (pp. 453-454)

Having considered his argument, I think it’s well-made. I take it for granted that Egyptian, Assyrian, etc. documents can be used to reconstruct the history of these civilizations. By no means does that mean a blind faith in all the details they record, but it’s relatively easy to acknowledge the theological commentary and hyperbole within these texts while recognizing the historical events they reference.

At the same time, this doesn’t mean that Yahweh sent the plagues on Egypt! Nor does it mean that Osiris or Isis caused the events attributed to them.

Kitchens’ argument merely seeks to provide a more level-headed understanding of the historical reality presented alongside its theological interpretation.

Still, the consequences are significant. If we undermine the skeptical critique of the Old Testament that is erroneously based on rejecting its theology, and thereby recover its historical accuracy, and its proper dating, then we may be open to reconsidering whether or not the Biblical authors were also correct when they attributed their experiences to God’s intervention in their lives.

I’d be curious to hear what you think of Kitchen’s argument, and the implications of it.

[blake (Blake Thompson)]

I think it’s true that a double standard is frequently applied to the Old Testament that isn’t applied to other ancient texts (which are often far less well-preserved and further in time from the events they describe). Though I may go even further and buck against Kitchens’ statement here a little bit:

@Carson

To a secular observer the laconic statement would be true (unless faulted by better sources), and the interpretative version should represent exactly the same degree of history (B defeated A), but with the observation that the event was interpreted in a particular way by the ancient writer(s) concerned. That is the proper impartiality at which a true historian must aim.

I’d say a proper historian ought to understand a history within its own context and cognitive environment (in so far as is possible) first before making their own interpretative claims.

To the ancients, the offense of a deity was just as a much a part of the history (and perhaps a more important one) than any one battle, and to dissect records too quickly to parcel them into secular “history” and theological “commentary” is to impose an entirely foreign framework that threatens the coherence of the texts.

I think John Walton in his book Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (Baker Academic 2018) is right in saying

“When we study the historiography of a pre-Enlightenment culture, it is important to recognize the cognitive environment that drives that historiography and to respect the integrity of it. The cognitive environment in the ancient world is one in which the directive activity of deity is of primary importance. This view extends far beyond the recognition of occasional supernatural interventions. In fact, even the word “intervention” is inappropriate because it implies that some historical events are not supernaturally driven. In the view of the ancient Near East, even “natural” occurrences are the result of divine activity” (p. 193).

So, while one might reject certain details within the record in the end, putting in the effort to first understand the history in its own terms ought to be an important step. Doing so means holding back from such stark differentiations between the “laconic text” and the “annalist” as even the laconic text would have come about in a cognitive environment where what seems “natural” is believed to be the action of the divine whether directly stated or not.

So, even though I agree there is a double standard for the Old Testament regarding historicity, I think even the handling of other historical documents bears much need for improvement.

The double standard itself is rather wild as well, not only given the better dating and attestation of biblical records, but also the values and uses of the various records in the ancient Near East compared to that of the OT.

Walton points out that

“whereas the highest value in the ancient Near East was the legitimation of the king, in Israel the highest value was the legitimation of the covenant. Ancient Near Eastern historiography desired to reveal the king to the people and to the deity. Israelite historiography desired to reveal the Deity to the king and the people” (ANE Thought and the OT, p. 207).

In writing to their deities, the annalists of the ancient Near East were incentivized to spin events for the good of their king that the deities would be pleased and prosper the land for generations to come, the historiography of the OT consistently condemns the kings and the evaluative lens which they applied was a covenant which we still have access to today. There is no incentive to spin because the goals of the OT historiographers were to change the people to whom they spoke (by calling out their actions) rather than to change the views of deities or future generations who may have otherwise been oblivious to the actual actions.

Thus, compared to the surrounding histories, those accounts within the Old Testament were far less likely to be altered than those of the surrounding cultures, since doing so would upend the aims of the OT accounts.

I think you are totally right about the consequences of this double standard, and would also add that so often when we get lost in dissecting the OT into theology and history or into separate sources, we miss the message of a book or of the canon as a whole. The Bible so often interweaves and juxtaposes narratives meant to be held in tension, that when we pull these apart, the point that was meant to be conveyed often unravels entirely.