Is the Bible a storybook or a history book?

Answer 1

• The Bible is a storybook placing the setting in historical places and persons.

• While the Bible is a story book it is His-Story, that is the story of Jesus Christ who created the world in the beginning , who redeemed it on the cross and who will come again. Some of the Biblical record is clearly in the 'storytelling' genre such as Jesus' parables. Much of the Old and New Testament contains historical details which can and have been tested, particularly since the advent of modern archaeology in the last hundred years or so. Much that was thought to be nonsense due to the anti-Biblical evolutionary view (when applied to history) of the 19th Century scholars such as Wellhausen etc has been proven true. Good examples are the assumption that the Hittites spoken of in Genesis, Exodus, Joshua and Samuel etc simply did not exist and that Moses could not have written what was attributed to him (in 1400 BC) since such literary skills were not supposed to have 'evolved' yet. Both of these and other assumptions based on an anti-Biblical bias without the slightest basis in fact, have been proven false and the Bible shown to be historical fact.

  So, while all the historical events mentioned in the Bible undoubtedly occurred, it is not primarily a book of history but the story of mankind and of God's dealings with man, particularly of His redemptive purpose and His character of justice and of love and of power etc. The historical events are relevant because they are the points where the infinite and eternal God had dealings with man or where the wrongs of man are highlighted 'for our instruction'. This also explains why many other important historical events which occurred at the same time the Bible was being written are not recorded there.

• It is a book of fiction written by people who believed what they wrote. There are a lot of facts and details in the Bible that make it a valuable resource. We know a lot about how the political world was structured, what people ate, what the wore, how they spent their days, who they traded with and how they viewed their world and the people in it. We learned a lot of this from reading the Bible. The Bible is an excellent resource if you want to know more about the people who's story it is. But, the story itself is just a story.

• The Bible is a history book because it is all completely true. In regards to Revelations (which hasn't happened yet), it definetely will happen.

• It is also a story book. You will notice much of the Old Testament is comprised of many stories. These are true historical stories, but they are there for more than just to give an historical account of something or someone. The stories in the Old Testament are like word pictures that paint pictures of concepts that were later revealed by Christ and in the New Testament. All New Testament teachings are found within the pages of the Old Testament, many of these teachings are illustrated clearly by certain stories, where the Characters in the stories are a Type of a truth or a person illustrated in the New Testament. Two examples, are Joseph and David. They are types of Jesus Christ, they are 2 of 21 to be found in the Old Testament. The purpose of each of these types is to show or demonstrate certain characteristics that the future character, or teaching will embody, they flesh things out. So in that sense, the Bible is also a storybook, but with very deep meanings attached to everything.
• There are many rescources proving the truth of the Bible. I found "And God Said..." by Dr. Farid Abou-Rahme most enlightening.

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***** There is almost universal agreement amongst professional historians that the Jewish, Christian and Muslim bibles are fiction - from cover to cover. The notion that there is a framework of historical fact lurking within these books is utterly obsolete. Nothing in these books corresponds to the broad strokes of history as assessed by archaeologists, linguists, historians and geneticists.

***** Holy books are a kind of pseudo-history, written by people who lacked a modern concept of academic honesty. Their authors believed that self-glorifying legends of divine origins could be turned into fact just by writing them down. It is unfortunate that so many 21st century people, living in academically free countries, fail to understand the difference between legitimate scholarship and pre-scientific storytelling.