by jimwalton » Sun Jun 04, 2017 8:43 pm
OK, so you want to talk about the Tower of Babel (ToB) as it relates to methodology. Three options are available:
1\. It's an ahistorical event with no correlation to actual happenings. A problem with this view is how many of its components can be linked to known and even preserved historical realities.
2\. It's an agnostic (undetermined) historical event composed of generalities and taking liberty with facts while admitting multiple points of contact with known historical realities.
3\. It's a known historical event. This is where the strength of the evidence lies.
It's a narrative of creating God in our own image so that he caters to our designs. In other words, they were playing God. The story is a first occurrence statement of God against enculturated paganism. Let's talk about the historicity.
Walton, Matthews & Chavalas say, "Many of the features of this account point to the end of the 4th millennium to the end of the 3rd as the setting of the narrative. This is the period when receding water allowed settlement of the southern Tigris-Euphrates basin. Many settlements on native soil show that the occupants brought the northern Mesopotamian culture with them. It is likewise in the period known as the Late Uruk phase (toward the end of the 4th millennium) that the culture and technology known from these settlements in southern Mesopotamia suddenly starts showing up in settlements throughout the ANE. Thus both the migration referred to in v. 2 and the dispersion of v. 9 find points of contact in the settlement pattern identified by archaeologists for the end of the 4th millennium. Urbanization, ziggurat prototypes and experimentation with kiln-baked brick also fit this time period."
There are historical accounts that corroborate such a possibility in about 2110-2000 BC, which accords well with the biblical account. Numerous ziggurats have been found, and there is plenty of other reliable cultural and historical information in the biblical text (thoroughly-baked bricks, tar for mortar, temple complex in the city, tower to connect heaven and earth, etc.). We don't need to take the story as the origins of all human languages, but an invading army that dispersed them to various nations so that they began to speak different languages. It's also a religious theme consistent with the agenda of Genesis, though it's embedded in a thoroughly historical event. The strength of the evidence in Gn. 11.1-9 is a historical narrative in a particular time frame, interpreted theologically.
What most likely happened here is that "the united cultures of the Sumerians are invaded by the Babylonians (Semitic language segment) and dispersed, heightening an existing clash of languages, creating a disintegration and mixing of language as the Sumerian civilization collapsed and people groups were mixed by the permeation of foreign languages" (Paul Penley). By doing so, God shut the project down. Cooperation and progress were impossible. It's not a story describing the origin of all languages, but a localized confusion of a major language in Mesopotamia.
Their offense is the ziggurat, representing the religious system in which the gods were recast with human natures. People were no longer trying to be like God, but more insidiously, were trying to bring God down to the level of fallen humanity. The fall of Sumer was a fall of the religious system there.
The date of this event is somewhere in about 3000-2000 BC. According to Sumerian chronology, the Sumerian dynasty at Ur III in about 2110-2000 BC (±50) saw its demise and transition to the first Babylonian dynasty right in this exact time frame. The Ur III period was one of great prosperity, with a booming economy allowing great construction programs. Archaeologically speaking, the most significant feature of the Ur III period is the magnificent monumental architecture.
> How did Judas die?
We can approach Judas the same way. It's not far from what you said. There is certainly no contradiction. Both accounts can easily be true. A contradiction occurs when one account excludes the possibility of the other. The Second Law of Logic (the Law of Non-Contradiction) holds that something can't be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense. That's clearly not what's going on here: Matthew says Judas hanged himself, and Acts says that Judas fell headlong and burst open. First off, two different actions. Both are possible, since neither negates the possibility of the other. So, it's plausible, or at least possible, that Judas hung himself, and then later somehow (through a broken branch or rope, possibly) that his body fell and split open. Matthew tells us how Judas died; Acts doesn't tell us how he died, but of some happening surrounding his death.
Let's pretend two men are brawling—fighting to the death. Man A punches man B in the throat, crushing his larynx. He can't breathe any more, stumbles around, falls to the ground, and his head hits a curb and breaks open. So, the police come to the scene and ask witnesses what happened. One says, "The guy punched him and killed him!" A second guy says, "The guy couldn't breathe and died." And even a third claims, "He hit his head on the curb and his skull split open." Contradictions? Nope. They can actually be pieced together to create the whole story for someone who knows the whole story.
Here's at least a possible scenario: Judas takes the money to betray Jesus, and does exactly that. Afterwards, filled with remorse, he goes back to the priests. They won't take the money. In anger and guilt, the throws it into the temple courtyard and leaves. He makes his way out to a field, hangs himself, something breaks, and he falls to the ground and his body gashes open (or possibly when his body is discovered and people cut him down, his bloated dead body hits the ground and splits). The priests gather up the money, but they can't use it, according to the Law—it's blood money. It's still legally Judas', not theirs. They buy a field with his money in his name.
> Again, however, this would be a highly artificial way of doing history. Why is this? Because in doing this I am essentially inventing what Matthew Ferguson calls a “super version of the event”, not attested in any records, without any text-internal indication that this is a warranted approach.
I know what you mean, and the Pandora's box it opens. And yet we know how selective the Gospel writers were. Any historian has to be—no one writes everything they know or every piece of research they have. They all filter, edit, and write in conformity to their thesis. Now I will grant you that the assembly of the Judas accounts is exactly as you say—assembling an unattested "super-version". Is it impossible? No. Is it likely? That's much tougher to get a grip on. Is it inferring the most reasonable conclusion? This is extremely difficult.
> What would you consider a valid warning sign that we're engaging in what German scholars so colourfully term Hineininterpretierung (anachronistic interpretation from a modern point of view)?
This is a great question, and an awesome vocabulary word (hineyinterpretung, or whatever). The answer comes only through a thorough study of the ancient cultures to discern where we are guilty of anachronistic presentism. I see it all the time in my conversations on this forum, for instance, when people assume that the way we understand and define slavery has to have been the way the ancients understood and practiced it. It is only our knowledge of the ANE that reveals the mistake. Since the oral records of Jesus' life seem to have risen immediately after his resurrection, and since the Gospel accounts are within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses and to some extent written by the eyewitnesses themselves, those are all reason to dismiss hieininterpretierung (awesome word) for the Gospel accounts.
> Do you have a clear definition of what does constitute a contradiction?
I do. Contradictions are intentional conflicts of position and information, so much so that if you sat the two authors across from each other at a table, they would have a debate over the matter. In other words, a true contradiction is when two people oppose each other in the accurate representation of a truth, with each claiming opposing and mutually exclusive truths.
OK, so you want to talk about the Tower of Babel (ToB) as it relates to methodology. Three options are available:
1\. It's an ahistorical event with no correlation to actual happenings. A problem with this view is how many of its components can be linked to known and even preserved historical realities.
2\. It's an agnostic (undetermined) historical event composed of generalities and taking liberty with facts while admitting multiple points of contact with known historical realities.
3\. It's a known historical event. This is where the strength of the evidence lies.
It's a narrative of creating God in our own image so that he caters to our designs. In other words, they were playing God. The story is a first occurrence statement of God against enculturated paganism. Let's talk about the historicity.
Walton, Matthews & Chavalas say, "Many of the features of this account point to the end of the 4th millennium to the end of the 3rd as the setting of the narrative. This is the period when receding water allowed settlement of the southern Tigris-Euphrates basin. Many settlements on native soil show that the occupants brought the northern Mesopotamian culture with them. It is likewise in the period known as the Late Uruk phase (toward the end of the 4th millennium) that the culture and technology known from these settlements in southern Mesopotamia suddenly starts showing up in settlements throughout the ANE. Thus both the migration referred to in v. 2 and the dispersion of v. 9 find points of contact in the settlement pattern identified by archaeologists for the end of the 4th millennium. Urbanization, ziggurat prototypes and experimentation with kiln-baked brick also fit this time period."
There are historical accounts that corroborate such a possibility in about 2110-2000 BC, which accords well with the biblical account. Numerous ziggurats have been found, and there is plenty of other reliable cultural and historical information in the biblical text (thoroughly-baked bricks, tar for mortar, temple complex in the city, tower to connect heaven and earth, etc.). We don't need to take the story as the origins of all human languages, but an invading army that dispersed them to various nations so that they began to speak different languages. It's also a religious theme consistent with the agenda of Genesis, though it's embedded in a thoroughly historical event. The strength of the evidence in Gn. 11.1-9 is a historical narrative in a particular time frame, interpreted theologically.
What most likely happened here is that "the united cultures of the Sumerians are invaded by the Babylonians (Semitic language segment) and dispersed, heightening an existing clash of languages, creating a disintegration and mixing of language as the Sumerian civilization collapsed and people groups were mixed by the permeation of foreign languages" (Paul Penley). By doing so, God shut the project down. Cooperation and progress were impossible. It's not a story describing the origin of all languages, but a localized confusion of a major language in Mesopotamia.
Their offense is the ziggurat, representing the religious system in which the gods were recast with human natures. People were no longer trying to be like God, but more insidiously, were trying to bring God down to the level of fallen humanity. The fall of Sumer was a fall of the religious system there.
The date of this event is somewhere in about 3000-2000 BC. According to Sumerian chronology, the Sumerian dynasty at Ur III in about 2110-2000 BC (±50) saw its demise and transition to the first Babylonian dynasty right in this exact time frame. The Ur III period was one of great prosperity, with a booming economy allowing great construction programs. Archaeologically speaking, the most significant feature of the Ur III period is the magnificent monumental architecture.
> How did Judas die?
We can approach Judas the same way. It's not far from what you said. There is certainly no contradiction. Both accounts can easily be true. A contradiction occurs when one account excludes the possibility of the other. The Second Law of Logic (the Law of Non-Contradiction) holds that something can't be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense. That's clearly not what's going on here: Matthew says Judas hanged himself, and Acts says that Judas fell headlong and burst open. First off, two different actions. Both are possible, since neither negates the possibility of the other. So, it's plausible, or at least possible, that Judas hung himself, and then later somehow (through a broken branch or rope, possibly) that his body fell and split open. Matthew tells us how Judas died; Acts doesn't tell us how he died, but of some happening surrounding his death.
Let's pretend two men are brawling—fighting to the death. Man A punches man B in the throat, crushing his larynx. He can't breathe any more, stumbles around, falls to the ground, and his head hits a curb and breaks open. So, the police come to the scene and ask witnesses what happened. One says, "The guy punched him and killed him!" A second guy says, "The guy couldn't breathe and died." And even a third claims, "He hit his head on the curb and his skull split open." Contradictions? Nope. They can actually be pieced together to create the whole story for someone who knows the whole story.
Here's at least a possible scenario: Judas takes the money to betray Jesus, and does exactly that. Afterwards, filled with remorse, he goes back to the priests. They won't take the money. In anger and guilt, the throws it into the temple courtyard and leaves. He makes his way out to a field, hangs himself, something breaks, and he falls to the ground and his body gashes open (or possibly when his body is discovered and people cut him down, his bloated dead body hits the ground and splits). The priests gather up the money, but they can't use it, according to the Law—it's blood money. It's still legally Judas', not theirs. They buy a field with his money in his name.
> Again, however, this would be a highly artificial way of doing history. Why is this? Because in doing this I am essentially inventing what Matthew Ferguson calls a “super version of the event”, not attested in any records, without any text-internal indication that this is a warranted approach.
I know what you mean, and the Pandora's box it opens. And yet we know how selective the Gospel writers were. Any historian has to be—no one writes everything they know or every piece of research they have. They all filter, edit, and write in conformity to their thesis. Now I will grant you that the assembly of the Judas accounts is exactly as you say—assembling an unattested "super-version". Is it impossible? No. Is it likely? That's much tougher to get a grip on. Is it inferring the most reasonable conclusion? This is extremely difficult.
> What would you consider a valid warning sign that we're engaging in what German scholars so colourfully term Hineininterpretierung (anachronistic interpretation from a modern point of view)?
This is a great question, and an awesome vocabulary word (hineyinterpretung, or whatever). The answer comes only through a thorough study of the ancient cultures to discern where we are guilty of anachronistic presentism. I see it all the time in my conversations on this forum, for instance, when people assume that the way we understand and define slavery has to have been the way the ancients understood and practiced it. It is only our knowledge of the ANE that reveals the mistake. Since the oral records of Jesus' life seem to have risen immediately after his resurrection, and since the Gospel accounts are within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses and to some extent written by the eyewitnesses themselves, those are all reason to dismiss hieininterpretierung (awesome word) for the Gospel accounts.
> Do you have a clear definition of what does constitute a contradiction?
I do. Contradictions are intentional conflicts of position and information, so much so that if you sat the two authors across from each other at a table, they would have a debate over the matter. In other words, a true contradiction is when two people oppose each other in the accurate representation of a truth, with each claiming opposing and mutually exclusive truths.