Biblical History

The Bible is the history book of the universe. It provides an accurate account of historical events that serve as a foundation and a framework for understanding, dating, and interpreting secular history and historical science.

1. The chaotic view claims the human story has no purpose, pattern, or significance. No one controls history, and no one knows when, if, or how it will end.

2, The circular or cyclical view focuses on history repeating its patterns in cycles of various lengths or in a spherical pattern with some movement but as basically repetitious. Observation of natural seasons and life cycles advances such a theory, as seen in the Baal religion that tempted Israel. The Greeks described history as a “wheel of unending recurrences,” thus a periodic repetition that saw growth and decay again and again. Not surprisingly, the cyclical view provided little ground for the hope that life has ultimate meaning. The absence of a progressive historical view is illustrated by the often cited example from Homer’s Iliad. The Greek warrior Achilles stood over the body of his victim Hector. His victory was darkened by his sorrowful acknowledgment to Hector’s grieving father that he could be nothing but a warrior. Achilles was trapped within personal history he could not change and was condemned to repeat. In contrast, biblical characters can change; evil persons may turn to God; good people may turn away.

3. The Bible’s linear view of history gives history a beginning and an end and a purpose or direction. The Bible is uniquely tied to history. Christianity links the Christian experience with God to certain historical occurrences. Scripture notes God’s blessing for the ordering of the seasons (Genesis 8:20-22 ) and recognizes that apart from God, the cycle may lead to a hopeless understanding of life (Ecclesiastes 1:4 ). Old Testament saints recited their confession by recounting what God had done (Deuteronomy 26:5-9 ). New Testament saints tell the good news of God’s actions through Jesus: that Christ died, that He was buried, and that He rose. Paul said that without Christ’s resurrection the Christian faith was without meaning (1Corinthians 15:3-4,1 Corinthians 15:14 ). While the Greeks often disparaged this world of constant change and sought to discover the divine by contemplating changeless eternal truths, the Hebrews held that God reveals Himself in history. Interestingly, many modern approaches which may reject the Christian message are nevertheless indebted to the faith for the linear notion of history.

4. A mechanistic view of history attempts to tell mankind’s story while seeing humans as a product of nature and completely subject to outside influences. According to this view, the environment determines our history, making our freedom no more than an illusion.

5. A progressive or developmental view of history consists of many varieties with a common belief that to understand the past one must trace the “history” of institutions and movements from their emergence at a simple stage to the culminating, complex stage. Understanding a topic “historically” is often explicitly identified with imposing a developmental scheme. This developmental approach was applied in biological science in early evolutionary theory and in the social theory of Hegel and Marx. The common element is development toward a final climax through the tension of opposing ideas (Hegel) or after a series of conflicting classes or epochs (Marx).

History in the Biblical Story The biblical narrative reveals the major characteristics of a biblical approach to history. The Bible tells history as a series of God’s acts in which He interacts with people to reveal Himself and His saving will for them.

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