Isn't that the truth!
Posted on 05/06/2010 4:31:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
What are your most embarrassing moments? You don’t want to admit them. And if you do admit them, you certainly won’t add to your shame by inventing embarrassing moments about yourself to make you look even worse. Who’s going to lie to make himself look bad? People will lie to make themselves look good (especially politicians), but no one will lie to make himself look bad.
That’s why when historical accounts contain events embarrassing to the authors (or heroes of the authors) those events are probably true. Historians call this the principle of embarrassment, and it’s one reason why I think the writers of the Bible are telling the truth. There are far too many embarrassing details about the supposed heroes of the faith to be invented.
Just take a look at the Old Testament storyline. There’s little chance the Jews would have invented it. A story invented by Hebrews would more likely depict the Israelites as a noble and upright people. But the Old Testament writers don’t say this. Instead they depict their own people as sinful and fickle slaves who, time after time, are miraculously rescued by God, but who abandon him every chance they get. For example, after witnessing miracle after miracle that frees them from slavery in Egypt, they can’t resist worshiping the Golden Calf when Moses spends a few extra nights on the mountain. Talk about ungrateful folks with short memories! (We seem to suffer from this in America too).
The Old Testament writers record a Hebrew history filled with bone-headed disobedience, distrust, and selfishness. Their leaders are all world-class sinners, including Moses (a murderer), Saul (a paranoid egomaniac), David (an adulterer, liar, and murderer), and Solomon (a serial polygamist). These are supposed to be the “chosen people”—the ones through which God brings the Savior of the world? Yes, and the Old Testament writers admit that the ancestors of this Messiah include deeply sinful characters such as David and Solomon and even a non-Hebrew prostitute named Rahab. This is clearly not an invented storyline!
While the Old Testament tells of one embarrassing gaffe after another, most other ancient historians avoid even mentioning unflattering historical events. For example, there’s been nothing found in the records of Egypt about the Exodus, leading some critics to suggest the event never occurred. But what do the critics expect? Peter Fineman imagines what a press release from Pharaoh might say:
“A spokesman for Rameses the great, Pharaoh of Pharaohs, supreme ruler of Egypt, son of Ra, before whom all tremble in awe blinded by his brilliance, today announced that the man Moses had kicked his royal butt for all the world to see, thus proving that God is Yahweh and the 2,000-year-old-culture of Egypt is a lie. Film at 11:00.”
Of course no press secretary for Pharaoh would admit such an event if he wanted to keep his head! The Egyptian silence on the Exodus is understandable.
By contrast, when the Egyptians scored a military victory, they went to press and exaggerated greatly. This is apparent from the oldest known reference to Israel outside the Bible. It comes from a granite monument found in the funerary temple of Pharaoh Merneptah in Thebes. The monument boasts about the military victory of the Pharaoh in the highlands of Canaan, claiming that “Israel is laid waste, his seed is not.” Historians date the battle to 1207 B.C., which confirms that Israel was in the land by that time. We know this account is exaggerated because, as history attests, Israel was not laid waste. Its seed lived on and sprouted into a great empire under David 200 years later. And its seed lives on to this day more than 3,200 years later.
How does the New Testament measure up to the principle of embarrassment? While embarrassing testimony is alone not enough to ensure historical reliability—early, eyewitness testimony is also necessary (which the New Testament has)—the principle of embarrassment is even more pronounced in the New Testament. The people who wrote down much of the New Testament are characters (or friends of characters) in the story, and they often depict themselves in an extremely unflattering light. Their claims are not likely to be invented.
Let’s put it this way: If you and your manly friends were concocting a story that you wanted to pass off as the truth, would you make yourselves look like dim-witted, uncaring, rebuked, doubting cowards who ran away at the first sign of trouble while the women were the brave ones who remained faithful? No way! But that’s exactly what we find in the New Testament. That’s one reason why I don’t have enough faith to believe that the New Testament tells an invented story.
I’ll highlight some of the New Testament’s more embarrassing details in the next column—even a few details that some could interpret as embarrassing to Jesus. In the meantime, you can find a cumulative case for God and Christianity in the book from which this column is adapted: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.
There's a lot of material there that you don't want to explain to kids. I knew the story of the mob that attacked Abraham's nephew Lot in Sodom years before I had any idea what that mob was after. I can still remember the way my dad looked at me when I mentioned the story to him, as if he were wondering how much I understood at the age of 8.
All the same, you might check out how when the Bible recounts such stuff, it avoids the titillation that you find in pr0n. Stuff like the rape of Tamar by Amnon, where the writer manages to make the scene practically materialize before the reader, as he does with all the events in his history, but completely without salacious details. If a modern novelist were to write the same story, there would be no avoiding such.
loved your response...
An interesting perspective on the history presented by the Bible.
THX FOR THE PING.
Will check it out.
But the Old Testament writers don’t say this. Instead they depict their own people as sinful and fickle slaves who, time after time, are miraculously rescued by God, but who abandon him every chance they get.
Just like the rest of us fallen creatures unless and until God grabs us by the collar, gives us new ears and new eyes and a heart of flesh in place of our heart of stone, and renews our mind by the Holy Spirit so that we can understand the things of God and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, God and Savior.
Initially, a bit "embarrassing," given none of us sinners deserves any of those free gifts. But all in all, a miraculous plan ordained by God, all for His glory and the welfare of His family, named and numbered from among all nations and races and eras who mercifully have been redeemed by the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
I like your homepage. Just think how different this world would be today if Duncan Hunter had been elected to the Presidency. (((sigh)))
The page has been taken down from Townhall.
??
Still comes up for me.
Isn't that the truth!
Right! And saying Song of Solomon is R-rated would be too nice.
Must’ve been temporarily down, I have it now, thanks.
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Right! And saying Song of Solomon is R-rated would be too nice.
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I’m no Biblical expert...but I do recall hearing on some radio program
(Focus On The Family??) that “Song of Solomon” was generally kept
behind locked doors (during Biblical times).
And it was only available to young Israelis when they were approaching “adult” status.
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