When ancient Israel used the genre of a national history in order to provide the country with a national identity (Mullen 1993), rather than to recreate a past reality out of an interest in ‘history’, this is in accordance with a long tradition. It was only in ancient Israel, however, that this practice developed into a fully fledged national history-writing.
The History of Ancient Israel: What Directions Should We Take?, Barstad
I appreciate that this quotation tries to sever Israel’s history-writing from a positivistic historiography (as if anyone at any time in any place merely wrote the facts of history without being framed and guided by some kind of personal or cultural narrative, world-view, and sociological perspective). However, I find it problematic in a great many respects.
Firstly, writing, reading, and reception of Israel’s history-writings
would only matter to an elite and closed social group (the scribes) that couldn’t account for more than five percent of total population. While the scribes could influence the general populace in terms of religious devotion and such, the texts themselves could in no way redefine and substitute an ideal national vision for the realities of tribal identities, traditional blood ties, and folkloric culture.
Secondly, even if there was political motivation by the scribes to reconstruct Israelite history in order to give it a national identity it didn’t have, the idea that even a powerful political entity could cause an entire people to accept a history they never knew and which contradicted their own knowledge, experiences, stories, traditions, and cultural identities is absolutely ridiculous—especially among a people which was defined by its social structures and did not resemble our Modern and Post-Modern self-defining individualism.
Thirdly, this method of history-making which is claimed of ancient Israel is anachronistic, arising only in present times, and cannot therefore be applied to the ancient world.
Fourth and finally, any argument that seeks to say a nation-state or people operated and thought in such a way radically disassociated from the entire culture and world in which they exist so that they stand unique and alone not only betrays a complete lack of historical understanding, but smacks of Modern evolutionary triumphalism.
I find it interesting that the primary focus and thought in a great deal of Protestantism today is theology and that, for the most part, if the historical process is any concern at all, it only appears and disappears when called on by the processes and initiatives already worked out in the philosophical and theological realms of the mind. For instance, how often have you heard a Protestant ask what is historical study?
or what part does history play in my theology?
Chances are, you haven’t. Chances are, the only thing you’ll get when you bring up history and faith is a nice discussion of the history of other Christians’ theologies and philosophies. And woe be the one who thinks to veer away from this historical
faith. It’s as if history
has been removed from the sphere of the world and become only a sphere of the mind—and even, perhaps, only the sphere of the regenerate
mind. Why is that? I stumbled onto an eloquent description that seems to sum up the situation:
…the necessary truths of an aesthetically shaped reason were a more reliable path to true religion than the contingent truths of history.
Setting the Scene: A Brief Outline of Histories of Israel, Rogerson
Could it be Protestantism in general has so moved away from and lost the historical foundation of its faith that the only thing left to make sense of it is a philosophical/theological construction? Did people start thinking that history probably denied or refuted what they believed and that, therefore, they had to retreat into a faith that had nothing to do with it? What is this Christianity that takes the trinity, the hypostatic union, justification, atonement, original sin, predestination, free will, etc, and makes many or most of these mental concepts to be the highest and most essential thing of faith?
I believe history is the foundation of faith and that no amount of sophisticated theological theory will provide an answer about or a way to move forward in one’s faith as well as a good understanding of history. History is the realm in which YHWH works. And it is by history that he is known.
(I speak solely in terms of Protestantism since I belong to this grouping and not another.)
Wow. I have received a lot of spam in my time. But I have never received a wantonly illegal phishing scam dressed in the name of God. And the interesting thing is that whoever is perpetuating this was specifically looking for people with a Christian faith who might be taken in by the false spiritual declaration and, naively, respond. Someone actually took the time to conjure all this up. If I ever meet the person who did this, I will kick them in the nuts so hard that they will have their first vision of God.
From Sister(Mrs).Mary Saleh
Abidjan Cote d Ivoire West Africa.
Dearest in the lord,
I am Mrs Mary A.Saleh ,from Kuwait.I am married to late Mr Jacob Saleh, who worked with Kuwait Embassy in Ivory Coast for Twenty-Six years before he died in the year 2003,after a brief illness that lasted for only five days…[more bullshit]…When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of (US$2.5M )Two Million,Five hundred Thousand United States Dollars) in a General Trust Account with a prime bank in Abidjan Cote d Ivoire. Presently,this money is still with the bank. Following my ill health, being a victim to cancer , I have decided to donate this fund to a Christain organizations (Church) that will utilize this fund the way I am going to instruct herein,according to the desire of my late husband. I want this fund to be used in Christain Activities like,Orphanages, Christain schools, and Churches for propagating the word of God and to endeavour that the house of God is maintained…[even more bullshit]…Please always be prayerful all through your life as well commit me into your daily prayers. Contact me on this e-mail address (DELETED), any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another Church for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein. Hoping to receive your reply immediately .
Remain blessed in the Lord.
Yours in Christ,
Sister Mary Saleh.
-some spammer/computer fraud
