Patriarchs: Historical or Legendary? Pt. 1

Imagine…

As the Constitution’s signatures still sat wet, the question arose amongst the auspicious Congress, “Does not this new nation need a historical background as a foundation for the new Republic?” Indeed, the need for heroic figures and a common cultural background to unite and inspire the thirteen legislatures and their people groups so aroused the writers leading them to assign Thomas Jefferson with the task of creating a national history. Hence the account originated: of a brave Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus, lineage of the Separatists and Moravians who followed the reformed faith of Martin Luther and the courageous Miles Standish and Thomas Hooker. Indeed, contemplated the Congress upon reviewing the historical and detailed nature of Jefferson’s work, such a “history”, though fictional, embodied the spirit of freedom and bravery to be emulated and found in this new land and home. Thus in further legal documents and popular Gazette reports, the Congress promoted the created heritage to the American populous.

Imagine such a scenario. Imagine it truly relates the origins of our national heritage. What pride would you take in following, honoring and imitating such a respectable…but fictional legacy? The scenario illustrates the position of the minimalist school on Israel’s heritage portrayed in the Biblical account. Israel Finkelstein writes on the minimalist viewpoint,
It [Old Testament] is a largely fictional composition motivated by the theology of the time of its compilation, which occurred centuries after the alleged events took place….it contains only vague and quite unreliable information about the origins and early history of Israel…. the authors…stitched together old myths, folktales, imaginary records, legendary narratives, and a few memories of historical facts…into a single saga of apostasy and redemption.
In other words, the authors wrote up a history with a specific ideological bent for political purposes. Such a viewpoint targets the Pentateuch’s veracity, a portion containing Abrahams, Jacobs and Isaacs’ stories, pivotal to the Biblical chronicle and theology. Thus with archaeology’s emergence, the Bible’s historicity has been challenged. Its historical portions and accounts of the Patriarchs remain highly critiqued due to a lack of archeological confirmation. With textual criticism, the dating of Patriarchal narratives has raised questions on authorship and date composition along with questioning the reliability and possibility of historical data and the accounts’ oral transmission. Such doubts engendered the hypothesis that the biblical account was constructed during the Persian or Hellenistic periods in an attempt to create a history and present an ideology. Such challenges and hypotheses demand a response. While the Scriptures demonstrate certain literary styles such techniques do not invalidate the content. While scholars doubt the possibility for accurate oral transmission, it is a viable option in a culture accustomed to its practice and especially when a sovereign God directs the transmission. The archeological field contains a variety of arguments for or against the Patriarchs’ existence but contains enough data to maintain their historicity. Overarching each of these considerations is the theological testimony for and dependence on the historical nature of these biblical characters. This response will address theories on the Bible’s literary genres, the debate and evidence regarding the Patriarchal narratives’ historicity and the theological implications of either viewpoint.