John Romer's Testament, has there been any disproving of it?

[thrikreen]

Hi, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, and I'm a Sociology major, at Northern Michigan University. I signed up for what I believed was going to be a Sociology of Religion class, and within a week or so I figured out that it has turned into my proffessors little class on why he thinks Christianity is the worst thing ever to have happened. I'm really dissapointed and plan to complain to the head of the department after the semester. But getting to the point, he is making us watch this documentary film series by John Romer, called Testament. Which is this guys archeological resons for the Bible not being accurate. I have read the Bible and alot of parts multiple times, and to me this guy does not make valid arguments at all. He counterdicts himself it seems throughout the films, there are though some things he brings up that do seem interresting. When looking on the internet it was almost impossible for me to find anyone criticizing his work, this seemed to odd to me, for there is usually Christians always making sense of other conspiracy theories. Anyway if anyone can lead me in the right direction in finding professional people, theologians perhaps, that have made light of these films, that would be great, thanks Dan

 

[justified]

I haven't read any of Romer's works. I am at a prominent British University studying Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern studies -- naturally my field is directly related to your question. I've also spent time at sites in Israel and have studied issues in Old Testament chronology and synchronism. And I can tell you 100% positively that the Old Testament is not 100% historically accurate. I can also tell you that it was not meant to be so. But, the important thing is,

do you think it has to be 100% historically accurate to be inspired by God?

 

[thrikreen]

I am very passionate about scripture, I beleive that it is the best thing we have that is God's revelation. To answer your question though, no I don't believe it has to uphold 100% to archeology to be God's revelation, mainly for 2 reasons. First, archeology is a great thing, that tells us lots of great things about ancient people, and civilizations. However, it is completely filled with errors, and educated guesses on how exactly things happen. So in this comparison from acheology I believe nothing including the Bible would uphold 100%. Second humans obviously physically wrote the Bible, and though I believe God inspired these people to write these scriptures, humans are obviously filled with error. So yes there is the possibility there might have been error not on God's behalf but on human's. I am not ignorant of that fact that changes in the Bible most likely existed when King James mandated an English Bible. I must have faith, however, that these changes did not in anyway significantly alter the meaning, and teachings in which the original texts were presented. I also must have faith that the Bible of this day and age, satisfies what God wants his people to read. After all, all we have is faith. Two great chapters on faith Romans chapter 4, and Hebrews chapter 11. Clearly though there is a difference, between not being 100% and what John Romer displayed in his documentory films, though there were some legitmate questions he had, and granted he seemed sincere in his beliefs, some of his beliefs made me think that if they were true, the Bible would pretty much just be concieved as a folk tale book, of Jewish myths. Maybe, my opinions were due to a lack of translation of what he was really trying to say, but I'm pretty sure I'm not totally off.

 

[dcyates]

Hi, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, and I'm a Sociology major, at Northern Michigan University. I signed up for what I believed was going to be a Sociology of Religion class, and within a week or so I figured out that it has turned into my proffessors little class on why he thinks Christianity is the worst thing ever to have happened. I'm really dissapointed and plan to complain to the head of the department after the semester. But getting to the point, he is making us watch this documentary film series by John Romer, called Testament. Which is this guys archeological resons for the Bible not being accurate. I have read the Bible and alot of parts multiple times, and to me this guy does not make valid arguments at all. He counterdicts himself it seems throughout the films, there are though some things he brings up that do seem interresting. When looking on the internet it was almost impossible for me to find anyone criticizing his work, this seemed to odd to me, for there is usually Christians always making sense of other conspiracy theories. Anyway if anyone can lead me in the right direction in finding professional people, theologians perhaps, that have made light of these films, that would be great, thanks Dan

I have to say I've both watched and enjoyed John Romer's "Testament," and have both the television series on tape and the companion book. He is entertaining for a host of a documentary series and has some worthwhile insights. However, as far as him being anything of a Bible scholar, either of its historicity, contents, or theology, well... let me put it this way, I know of no prominent Bible scholar who even bothers to interact with any of Romer's theories. In fact, some of those theories were quite dated even before "Testament" was first broadcast.
By the way, if you wish to consult first-rate archeaologists of ancient Israel, in my opinion, you could hardly do better than rely on the works of such true archeaological scholars as John Currid, W.G. Dever, H.D. Lance, E.M. Meyers, M.B. Schiffer, and the book Archeaology and Biblical Interpretation, edited by L.G. Perdue, L.E. Toombs and G.L. Johnson.

 

[justified]

To answer your question though, no I don't believe it has to uphold 100% to archeology to be God's revelation, mainly for 2 reasons.

I didn't ask you whether archaeology and the Bible had to match up. I asked whether you believed to be God's inspired revelation, scripture had to be 100% historically accurate. Answer that question.

First, archeology is a great thing, that tells us lots of great things about ancient people, and civilizations. However, it is completely filled with errors, and educated guesses on how exactly things happen. So in this comparison from acheology I believe nothing including the Bible would uphold 100%.

"Completely filled with errors" might be a bit excessive. What do you know about archaeology?

As far as your second point, that's much more agreeable.

 

[mark kennedy]

Hi, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, and I'm a Sociology major, at Northern Michigan University. I signed up for what I believed was going to be a Sociology of Religion class, and within a week or so I figured out that it has turned into my proffessors little class on why he thinks Christianity is the worst thing ever to have happened. I'm really dissapointed and plan to complain to the head of the department after the semester. But getting to the point, he is making us watch this documentary film series by John Romer, called Testament. Which is this guys archeological resons for the Bible not being accurate. I have read the Bible and alot of parts multiple times, and to me this guy does not make valid arguments at all. He counterdicts himself it seems throughout the films, there are though some things he brings up that do seem interresting. When looking on the internet it was almost impossible for me to find anyone criticizing his work, this seemed to odd to me, for there is usually Christians always making sense of other conspiracy theories. Anyway if anyone can lead me in the right direction in finding professional people, theologians perhaps, that have made light of these films, that would be great, thanks Dan

I had a simular experience in a philosophy of religion class. The first question the class was asked was whether or not an atheist could be moral. Puzzled by the question we answer something like, sure why not. At the end of the semester one of our last classes revealed the true intent of the class, the philosophy of religion they were teaching was secular humanism. Humanism is religion without God, just like everything else in modern academia God is a dirty word. Redemptive history is out, natural history is in. The Bible has history is out while the Bible as mythology is in. This is from top to bottom no modern secular University professor would dare suggest the Bible is actual history.

"This has been possible because of the doctrine of Scripture that has gained entrance into the churches. Scripture is regarded as a human book formed by a historical process. In Genesis 1-11 Scripture is a weak, fallible word of man on origins. John Romer is probably a little strong for some evangelical and Reformed defenders of a figurative interpretation of Genesis 1-11, but he does accurately indicate what is going on in these circles as regards their doctrine of Scripture. In a semi-popular work on Scripture titled Testament, Romer states that the book of Genesis introduces us to the "world of myth." "Myth," he describes as "a sacred tale. . . carefully designed [to] deal with the deepest issues of the day." How this has come about in the Bible, Romer explains this way:

This whole process began when the sagas of Mesopotamia were carefully re-examined by the authors of Genesis and the thoughts and structures of that most ancient story were turned to the purposes of Israel and their most singular and solitary God. [21]​

[/quote]

http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/apologetics/genesis111.html

The Bible as history is simply rejected by modern scholarship. Not because of archeology but because of it's religious content. Many people reduce it the myth and legend, it was not allways so. Sir William Ramsay studied the subject for thirty years and while skeptical of Acts early on, he considered Luke to be an historian of the highest order:

"Luke is a historican of the first rarnk; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy...this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historicans."

(Sir William Ramsey, The Bearing of Recent Disvovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament)

If you are interested in an indepth discussion of Ramseys work try this:

"I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation without any prejudice in favour of the conclusion which I shall now attempt to justify to the reader. On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavourable to it, for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the Tübingen theory had at one time quite convinced me. It did not lie then in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely; but more recently I found myself often brought in contact with the book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne in upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvellous truth. In fact, beginning with the fixed idea that the work was essentially a second-century composition, and never relying on its evidence as trustworthy for first-century conditions,. I gradually came to find it a useful ally in some obscure and difficult investigations. "

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/ramsay/paul_roman.iv.html

You are looking at a modern bias against anything remotely religious, particularly the Bible as literal history. There is ample reason to believe the narratives of much of the Bible are reliable historical events. You wont find it in modern academia though, they rejected this concept a hundred years ago and never looked back.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[thrikreen]

Thanks for those insights on things, its been really helpful. As for the question directed towards me, I know about archeology in a fair sense, I would suppose. I have never been on a dig, though I would love to sometime. I know that archeology in its most basic goal is to try to peace together the past of ancient civilizations using what pieces of the puzzle they can find. The problem though is all the pieces usually fail to be there, for obvious reasons (war destruction, weather, catastrophes, etc.). So it is the teams job to find as much stuff as they can, piece it together then from the information they have come up with, and then create a theory about whatever it is they are trying to discover. Granted there are cases where there is so much information they find, its accurate to say they are right, but there is no 100% certainty that there may or may not have been something else that was crucial in leading them in the right direction, that could of been lost throughout time. So that is what I mean by error, basically.

 

[Just Me Garry]

Typical of a heathen who refuses to believe the truth.

 

[Nazaroo]

I wouldn't let archaeology put too much of a crimp on your trust in the Holy Scriptures.

The fact is, archaeology both a 'soft science' (largely a kind of conjectural detective work), and hence for the most part tentative, and secondly a kind of argument from 'silence'. That is, beliefs are formulated according to arguments of plausibility or certain assumptions about the forces of history, (usually overly skeptical), and then they are 'disproven' or corrected by the shovel or contradictory/modifying evidences of various kinds.

And therefore, archaeology, while often helpful, is not the ultimate yardstick by which to measure the accuracy of the Holy Scriptures.

Peace, Nazaroo.

 

[WAB]

I wouldn't let archaeology put too much of a crimp on your trust in the Holy Scriptures.

The fact is, archaeology both a 'soft science' (largely a kind of conjectural detective work), and hence for the most part tentative, and secondly a kind of argument from 'silence'. That is, beliefs are formulated according to arguments of plausibility or certain assumptions about the forces of history, (usually overly skeptical), and then they are 'disproven' or corrected by the shovel or contradictory/modifying evidences of various kinds.

And therefore, archaeology, while often helpful, is not the ultimate yardstick by which to measure the accuracy of the Holy Scriptures.

Peace, Nazaroo.

Am tickled to be able to express an unqualified AMEN!