Writing History

We wrote an article on something Dr. Victor Matthews wrote in his book ‘Studying the Ancient Israelites, called The Most Likely Story. Just click on the title of the article to read it.

As we read further, we felt that some of what Dr. Metthews wrote belongs on this website. History writing has always been tenuous as the old saying goes ‘history is in the eye of the historian’. That is what Dr. Matthews seems to be implying with the nature of his content in the chapter History & Historiographies.

It is virtually impossible to write a completely objective history because of the social filtering that has taken place… (pg. 161)

We tend to disagree at some point for there are situations where you can be objective. Those situations are recognized when the historian has been honest and truthful. Both of these characteristics must be present to be objective.

This is rare because most historians have personal influences that shape their view of the topic they are writing about. It is possible to be honest and truthful without importing personal views into the subject matter.

We know that Dr. Matthews did not do this as his book is filled with personal influences that expose his prejudice about the Ancient Israelites and the Bible. The clues come in the form of the specific words he uses to describe both.

Objectivity is hard to do when writing history, not because historical material is not complete for any event, but because historians have personal biases, etc., that tend to take their writing in a different direction.

Dr. Matthews is not the first to declare that obtaining objectivity in archaeology or history is impossible. Dr. Wm. Dever in his book ‘Did God Have a Wife’, says in two places in this book that objectivity is impossible.

However, this admonition is not applied equally or fairly as Dr. Dever also criticized and condemned biblical writers because they were not objective. That is unfair as if objectivity is impossible for more modern writers, then it must have been impossible for ancient writers.

Dr. Dever also charged the biblical writers with propaganda which is an outrageous charge as he presents no verifiable evidence to support his charge. His many books could lead to a charge of propaganda against Dr. Dever because he refused to be objective in his writing.

He is writing from his personal viewpoint which could be judged to be propaganda as he is not presenting the material honestly or objectively. Evolutionary scientists can be charged with propaganda under Dr. Dever’s logic because they write and do experiments under the assumption that evolution is true.

To be truly objective, one does not omit any possibility that created the events or results and lets the readers decide for themselves. To be objective takes a lot of hard work.

We do not pretend to be objective here as our articles are written because we believe in Jesus. Our viewpoint is certainly different from the secular viewpoints who write on the same topics. This does not mean we write propaganda but are expressing what we know from our perspective.

As a result, when examining ancient sources, modern historians have to learn to recognize, and takeinto account  such things as self-servingpropaganda, theological justifications for the decisions that were made in the editing process and the cultural-centered masking of real intentions (pg. 161)

This statement is problematic for several reasons. First, it implies that the historian can accurately label self-serving propaganda or theological justifications. The labeling is often subjective and no two historians or archaeologists fully agree with each other as to which is the correct label for the historical information.

Second, it assumes that the historian is correct in their labeling. Since people disagree on these matters, for example, many biblical scholars would disagree with Dr. Dever’s labeling of the biblical writer’s content as propaganda, it is hard to get to an objective definition that places historical work under these categories.

Third, the statement assumes that modern historians can read long-dead minds and determine the real intent when the historical author wrote his work. With the Bible we know the real intent, the biblical writers wrote about God, revealed him and Jesus Christ, and captured as much history as was needed for people to believe in both.

The charges that the elite wrote the biblical books to control the masses not only do not hold any validity but are also made without any real verifiable evidence proving their case.

There is no way for modern historians to support such charges as they are not objective but are using their personal negative bias they have against the Bible to formulate those charges.

Fourth, the majority of historians and archaeologists are not qualified to make those judgments, especially any theological justifications. They tend to dismiss the biblical justifications, whether those justifications are true or not.

Without even considering the validity of those justifications, they are deemed wrong automatically, just because they are related to the Bible. Without the right qualifications, historians and archaeologists are in no position to make such judgment calls.

As for other religions, their holy works are written to inform the people of their beliefs. Usually, people have a free choice to accept those beliefs or not. The fact that people are held against their will when they have accepted those beliefs and joined the religious order does not indicate the real intentions of the authors.

The situation reflects the attitude of the current leaders of the religious order. We can only guess at the true intentions of the original writers of those religious works.

Historians recognize that storytellers were not objective. They wanted their audience to know what their experiences meant to their lives. They were not describing what happened, buty what it meant. In doing this they were selective in describing the events contianed in their story (pg. 161)

This is not even close to being true. If it were, that would mean that we have no history and the historians have nothing to write about. But that is not the only problem with that statement.

That statement is applying some modern historians’ attitudes toward ancient authors. That never works as the modern historian does not know what the ancient historian was doing as they cannot read their minds at the time of the ancient authors’ writing.

We have studied history and archaeology for decades and have never encountered this attitude in the works that we have read. The historian, ancient or modern, is not writing history if they are relating what the topic of their work meant to them.

We cannot trust the ancient authors because the stories they told could not be verified. What that attitude does is undermine confidence in the Biblical record. If the biblical authors only wrote what things meant to them, then we do not have an accurate picture of what took place in the past.

We cannot leave it to secular historians to provide that accurate information as they write following different rules and present history as they see it. They will and have done left out many vital pieces of history or changed it to fit their personal views on the ancient world leaving the public with no hope of getting to the truth.

That is not history writing but propaganda. The biblical authors wrote only the history that was needed and often left references where their readers could go and get more information.

Those mentions also provided the readers with the verification of what the biblical authors wrote. They did not change history or write propaganda.

This is the problem for the modern world, as historians take a great deal of license with history. When the late Eilat Mazar published her findings on a 10th-century wall she had uncovered, other archaeologists leaped to oppose her conclusion.

They did not do so because they had verifiable evidence to prove she was wrong, but because it ruined their theories and conclusions about the Ancient Israelites. Historical opposition is often not based on facts but on the bias and perspectives of those historians who want the past to be the way they want it to be.

Another example is the literacy/illiteracy debate in the ancient world. This has been an ongoing debate for more than a few decades. Dr. Dever and other archaeologists are firm in their conclusion that the ancient world was illiterate.

Others, including ourselves, tend to disagree with that conclusion. There are just too many ancient manuscripts, inscriptions, pottery shards, and other documents with writing on them to justify labeling the ancient population as illiterate.

In the end, modern historians need to be honest and truthful. They should not exclude information because it does not fit their view of history or goes against their personal beliefs.

Being truthful and honest should be the writing and research goal of modern historians. Instead of framing the past according to the way they want it to look. Also, modern historians should not label ancient writers’ extant works. There is too much missing information to make those judgment calls.

It is possible to be somewhat objective and one can leave their personal views to the conclusion section of the book or research paper they are writing. Reporting the facts is essential, but importing modern perspectives is not.