Some think I (and other atheist/skeptics) are here just to cause trouble. Not so! I learn LOTS while engaging these debates. So today I was wondering about how HISTORIANS can know if a historical account is reliable or not....so I Googled it and found this: Core principles for determining reliability The following core principles of source criticism were formulated by two Scandinavian historians, Olden-Jørgensen (1998) and Thurén (1997): -Human sources may be relics such as a fingerprint; or narratives such as a statement or a letter. Relics are more credible sources than narratives. -Any given source may be forged or corrupted. Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability. -The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate historical description of what actually happened. -An eyewitness is more reliable than testimony at second hand, which is more reliable than hearsay at further remove, and so on. -If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased. -The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. -Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations. -If it can be demonstrated that the witness or source has no direct interest in creating bias then the credibility of the message is increased. So the question for me and, I assume, YOU is how does the bible stand up to how HISTORIANS evaluate the reliability of historical texts?
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 19:47:19 +0000
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