On Paradigm Shifts and the Historicity of the Bible
While I've never written directly about them, I have spoken quite a few times on various "paradigm shifts" in science. (One can scan my topics list if interested.)
The term was coined by one Thomas Kuhn in a book about the philosophy of science. A paradigm is essentially a fundamental model, a model so fundamental to current thinking in a given field that it generally is taken as fact or a given assumption rather than a model.
A paradigm shift is when a discovery is made in science that shows that the model is flawed or not able to account for all of the observational data known. A new model must be designed to explain both the old observations and the new observations. However, because scientists, as most any human would, tend to think of their models as facts instead of theories, a paradigm shift is a difficult and usually slow process, usually involving denial and accusation. No one wants to find out that his or her beliefs don't check out anymore. No one wants to have to rewrite his/her world view.
But if one cares more about truth than about being correct, he or she should welcome paradigm shifts, as it leads closer to actual truth and away from falsehood. Unfortunately, we humans are prideful creatures. During paradigm shifts, scientists will start making some rather silly arguments, anything to continue holding onto their old model.
Some well-known examples from history are when it was discovered that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around or the discovery of genetic inheritance or when it was shown that time is a dimension or the idea that energy and matter must be quantized. In all of these cases, the new observations and theories were not readily welcomed. In some cases, the new ideas were not even accepted until after the one discovering the new data had already died.
Today, I want to speak about paradigm shifts in archaeology.
I subscribe to an e-mail newsletter from the Biblical Archaeology Review, a secular magazine regarding modern archaeological findings related to ancient Middle Eastern history. I would estimate that the large majority of the scholars and archaeologists contributing to the magazine each month are neither orthodox Jews nor Evangelical Christians; none of them take the whole Bible literally. I mention this because I want to suggest that regardless of whether or not you put any trust at all in the Bible as a religious document, BAR is probably a trustworthy source for historical information about the Bible, as they have no religious agenda from what I can tell.
One of the current modern paradigms in Biblical archaeology has been the model known as "Biblical minimalism". Biblical minimalism is the idea that the Bible, because it is a religious document, contains only a very minimal amount of actual historic value. If the Bible claims that some event occurred in history, it is almost always discounted by default as simply a literary invention and not as a valid historical source - unless the same event is mentioned in, say, an Egyptian or Babylonian source.
For example, the popular view among scholars in recent times has been that one can think about King David much as we might think about King Arthur. Sure, both men probably lived, but neither was ever really a king of any kingdom. There was no sword of Goliath; there was no Excalibur. There was no anointing by a prophet Samuel; there was no guiding Arthur to the crown by a wizard Merlin.
In the former case, this is all an assumption. It is an assumption based on absence of data, which is never proof of anything.
But as in other sciences, assumptions die hard in archaeology.
...And not just in Biblical archaeology. For a long time, archaeologists denied that there was ever a siege of Troy. Surely, Homer made up the whole thing! There was never a war; Troy never even existed! But recently, more and more discoveries have indicated that the siege really did happen to a real city of Troy. Granted, few people accept every Homeric detail, but it was not all made up, just exaggerated.
The May/June issue of BAR includes an article titled "The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism." I will not go into all the details - you can read the article on your own, if interested - but it is only one of quite a few articles I've read recently suggesting that the Bible contains more historical truth than the modern scholar gives it credit for.
One finding is a tablet with the inscription, "House of David," confirming a Davidic dynasty. In my opinion, though, the biggest findings reported in this article have to do with a fortified city in Judah that indicates an urban, structured, kingdom-like society, not just a tribal, farming society. Found at the site were standardized jars with a regular inscription, "belonging to the king".
These are recent findings, but there have been many others in the past. It used to be believed that the Bible invented the people group known as the Hittites, since there was no archaeological record of them at the time. Nowadays, one can take the Hittite language as a course here at Johns Hopkins.
The book of Daniel made reference to a ruler known as Belshazzar, "a son of Nebuchadnezzar." For a long time, this was laughable, as it was known that Nebuchadnezzar's son and successor was named Nabonidus, and no records outside the Bible ever mentioned anyone named Belshazzar. It was later discovered that Belshazzar did in fact live and reign. He was Nabonidus' son and ruled in place of his father when his father went off into the dessert to worship the moon god. (Also, "son" was not so precise as to mean immediate son; it could also be used for descendant.) It was, in fact, Belshazzar, grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, in charge of Babylon when the Persians conquered it, as Daniel stated.
I'm not trying to argue here that everything in either the Iliad or the Bible be taken at 100% face value in terms of historic usefulness; I am just suggesting that, oftentimes, because of a paradigm, archeologists - like any other scientists - are too slow to accept new discoveries and too quick to discount documents that may be loaded with historical clues as to what really happened in mankind's past simply because of their mythological and/or religious characteristics.
The term was coined by one Thomas Kuhn in a book about the philosophy of science. A paradigm is essentially a fundamental model, a model so fundamental to current thinking in a given field that it generally is taken as fact or a given assumption rather than a model.
A paradigm shift is when a discovery is made in science that shows that the model is flawed or not able to account for all of the observational data known. A new model must be designed to explain both the old observations and the new observations. However, because scientists, as most any human would, tend to think of their models as facts instead of theories, a paradigm shift is a difficult and usually slow process, usually involving denial and accusation. No one wants to find out that his or her beliefs don't check out anymore. No one wants to have to rewrite his/her world view.
But if one cares more about truth than about being correct, he or she should welcome paradigm shifts, as it leads closer to actual truth and away from falsehood. Unfortunately, we humans are prideful creatures. During paradigm shifts, scientists will start making some rather silly arguments, anything to continue holding onto their old model.
Some well-known examples from history are when it was discovered that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around or the discovery of genetic inheritance or when it was shown that time is a dimension or the idea that energy and matter must be quantized. In all of these cases, the new observations and theories were not readily welcomed. In some cases, the new ideas were not even accepted until after the one discovering the new data had already died.
Today, I want to speak about paradigm shifts in archaeology.
I subscribe to an e-mail newsletter from the Biblical Archaeology Review, a secular magazine regarding modern archaeological findings related to ancient Middle Eastern history. I would estimate that the large majority of the scholars and archaeologists contributing to the magazine each month are neither orthodox Jews nor Evangelical Christians; none of them take the whole Bible literally. I mention this because I want to suggest that regardless of whether or not you put any trust at all in the Bible as a religious document, BAR is probably a trustworthy source for historical information about the Bible, as they have no religious agenda from what I can tell.
One of the current modern paradigms in Biblical archaeology has been the model known as "Biblical minimalism". Biblical minimalism is the idea that the Bible, because it is a religious document, contains only a very minimal amount of actual historic value. If the Bible claims that some event occurred in history, it is almost always discounted by default as simply a literary invention and not as a valid historical source - unless the same event is mentioned in, say, an Egyptian or Babylonian source.
For example, the popular view among scholars in recent times has been that one can think about King David much as we might think about King Arthur. Sure, both men probably lived, but neither was ever really a king of any kingdom. There was no sword of Goliath; there was no Excalibur. There was no anointing by a prophet Samuel; there was no guiding Arthur to the crown by a wizard Merlin.
In the former case, this is all an assumption. It is an assumption based on absence of data, which is never proof of anything.
But as in other sciences, assumptions die hard in archaeology.
...And not just in Biblical archaeology. For a long time, archaeologists denied that there was ever a siege of Troy. Surely, Homer made up the whole thing! There was never a war; Troy never even existed! But recently, more and more discoveries have indicated that the siege really did happen to a real city of Troy. Granted, few people accept every Homeric detail, but it was not all made up, just exaggerated.
The May/June issue of BAR includes an article titled "The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism." I will not go into all the details - you can read the article on your own, if interested - but it is only one of quite a few articles I've read recently suggesting that the Bible contains more historical truth than the modern scholar gives it credit for.
One finding is a tablet with the inscription, "House of David," confirming a Davidic dynasty. In my opinion, though, the biggest findings reported in this article have to do with a fortified city in Judah that indicates an urban, structured, kingdom-like society, not just a tribal, farming society. Found at the site were standardized jars with a regular inscription, "belonging to the king".
These are recent findings, but there have been many others in the past. It used to be believed that the Bible invented the people group known as the Hittites, since there was no archaeological record of them at the time. Nowadays, one can take the Hittite language as a course here at Johns Hopkins.
The book of Daniel made reference to a ruler known as Belshazzar, "a son of Nebuchadnezzar." For a long time, this was laughable, as it was known that Nebuchadnezzar's son and successor was named Nabonidus, and no records outside the Bible ever mentioned anyone named Belshazzar. It was later discovered that Belshazzar did in fact live and reign. He was Nabonidus' son and ruled in place of his father when his father went off into the dessert to worship the moon god. (Also, "son" was not so precise as to mean immediate son; it could also be used for descendant.) It was, in fact, Belshazzar, grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, in charge of Babylon when the Persians conquered it, as Daniel stated.
I'm not trying to argue here that everything in either the Iliad or the Bible be taken at 100% face value in terms of historic usefulness; I am just suggesting that, oftentimes, because of a paradigm, archeologists - like any other scientists - are too slow to accept new discoveries and too quick to discount documents that may be loaded with historical clues as to what really happened in mankind's past simply because of their mythological and/or religious characteristics.