"It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference."--Nelson Glueck, archaeologist
"What experience and history teach is this--that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."--Georg W. F. Hegel
"I don't know much about history, and I wouldn't give a nickel for all the history in the world."---Henry Ford
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."--George Santayana "A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts."--Paul Johnson, historian
"It is not now the man of faith, it is the skeptic, who has reason to fear the course of discovery."--Ibid.
Henry Ford had no respect for the academic discipline of history and called it bunk! History is not circular or cyclical, but we must learn the lessons again, or relearn from our mistakes the hard way. You cannot relegate the study of history to consisting of the narrative of man's inhumanity to man, nor of the survival of the fittest; there is a divine input and factor to be reckoned with. Biblical history is linear: it has a starting point, a direction, a climax, a culmination or consummation, and a climactic ending point or conclusion.
In Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, he referred to time beginning at the Big Bang as it has become popularized, [posited as the corollary of space and matter] (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2; Gen. 1:1). There was a beginning to everything that exists in time and space, except God Himself, who had no beginning and is, therefore, eternal and unbound or defined by the time/space continuum in which He created and we are imprisoned and confined so to speak. History is important because Christianity is the only faith grounded in history and fact, and its historicity has been vouched for by over 25,000 archaeological digs and over 5000 manuscripts proving the veracity and fidelity of scriptural transmission to give us an accurate text, with much corroboration. It is deplorable that when a secular historian is a contrarian to a biblical scholar, the former is assumed the unbiased one.
Modern man tends to interpret history in the so-called uniformitarian way or denying any supernatural intervention such as the Deluge or Noah's flood. Christianity is history and history is God's story in a manner of speaking--it has a storyteller. If you could "dehistoricize" the Bible, it would be completely discredited, even if one legitimate, proven error was found in its portrayals of events, persons, or places. But even secular historians will not deny that the coming of Christ changed the course of history and that He is the dominant figure in Western civilization. I wonder if the disciples had any presentiment of the place they'd occupy in world history and of the history of the Church, as narrated so accurately and faithfully by Luke in Acts.
I heard that the present administration has no regard for history and is relatively ignorant of it; the error is that they fail to see any meaning in history or its inherent worth as an academic discipline. We should not resort to the cynicism of Karl Marx, who said that the point is not to interpret history, but to change it! Change isn't always good, and change for change sake is evil and one must be willing and ready to go forward, not backward and relive our errors and mistakes of the past. What is the scope and view of history from God's eye? It is nothing but creation, fall, redemption, judgment, and finally eternity in heaven or hell. The Bible picks up the story as going from generation to degeneration to regeneration!
Yes, history is headed toward a climactic conclusion and resolution and it's up to us to interpret the times and act accordingly and appropriately, knowing what to do! It used to be that secular historians and scholars would even doubt the historicity of Jesus Christ, but none would risk his reputation by alleging that stance today, because the evidence is overwhelming and the corroborating evidence so convincing and even conclusive, that secularists must realize that Christ and the Christian faith must be reckoned with and explained or accepted, because they cannot be dismissed as legend or myth--the great question of history that must be answered by all is this: "Who is Jesus?" He is the center point and focuses of history, the Bible being all about Him, and He will bring it to a head, and everyone's judgment of Him will be the criterion for his eternal destiny. The Christian experience is real because it's based on verifiable, historical fact and can be tested by subjective, personal experience--as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating or "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good" (cf. Psalm 34:8, ESV).
The great comfort of the faith is that we can be assured that God is in absolute, complete control and we can know that there will be a future for all believers with Him. Josh McDowell sums it up quite well in that the resurrection is the central fact of the faith, and it's based in history as objective fact, and it is either the most wonderful event in history or it's the cruelest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. According to D. James Kennedy, the resurrection is arguably the best-attested fact of antiquity. If one looks at the evidence with an open mind with no preconceived notions or bias, there are "many infallible proofs," as Luke wrote in Acts 1:3. The downside is that there is never enough evidence for the skeptic, but ample evidence for the sincere seeker of truth. God and truth are inseparable, and that is why the Bible's veracity and fidelity are so paramount to the faith--one cannot disbelieve due to lack of evidence!
It's important to interpret history in light of Scripture, because secularism sees us as progressing towards perfection and utopia, while we are really headed toward world-wide confrontation and war, culminating in one-world government by the Antichrist before Christ ushers in his reign during the Millennial Kingdom, coming after a Great Tribulation and judgment of God on the nations. What is history then? It's the ultimate unfolding, progressing of God's redemptive, judgmental plan for all mankind in real time. It makes a difference what one makes of history--it's HIS STORY!
Caveat: Secular worldviews jeopardize our future with such interpretations as seeing us heading toward and evolving into utopia and globalism; or that tomorrow belongs to Islam; or that history is the judge; or that it's a dialectic of class warfare; and even that there is no purpose or meaning to it and it's not worthy of our serious study. We must persevere with faith in Providence, that our Forefathers adhered to and believed God is ultimately in control and good will triumph over evil in God's timetable.
In sum, the whole Christian concept and worldview of history are dependent on the veracity, reliability, credibility, fidelity, and accuracy of the Bible, which is a historical document from cover to cover. All in all, such concepts as God punishing our nation or smiling upon us with blessings, are foreign to the secular outlook on history, which removes God from the equation and reckoning, trying to declare God dead or irrelevant to history. We can be thankful that the God of faith is the God of history, who orchestrates it, and doubting its historicity is mere hyper-criticism--it's never been proven erroneous, so why not trust it?
NOTE: IT'S A SAD COMMENTARY ON OUR TIMES THAT SO MUCH EVIDENCE IS AVAILABLE AND THE BIBLE HAS ALWAYS PROVEN TRUE TO ITS FACTS AND HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS, YET WHEN THERE IS A DISCREPANCY WITH A SECULAR HISTORIAN, THE BIBLE IS THE ONE THAT IS QUESTIONED AND HELD UP TO SCRUTINY. WHY IS THAT WHILE THE BIBLE HAS PROVEN SO RELIABLE IN ITS FACTS AND HISTORY, THAT SOME DOUBT ITS SPIRITUAL AND MORAL VALUES? Soli Deo Gloria!
"What experience and history teach is this--that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."--Georg W. F. Hegel
"I don't know much about history, and I wouldn't give a nickel for all the history in the world."---Henry Ford
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."--George Santayana "A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts."--Paul Johnson, historian
"It is not now the man of faith, it is the skeptic, who has reason to fear the course of discovery."--Ibid.
Henry Ford had no respect for the academic discipline of history and called it bunk! History is not circular or cyclical, but we must learn the lessons again, or relearn from our mistakes the hard way. You cannot relegate the study of history to consisting of the narrative of man's inhumanity to man, nor of the survival of the fittest; there is a divine input and factor to be reckoned with. Biblical history is linear: it has a starting point, a direction, a climax, a culmination or consummation, and a climactic ending point or conclusion.
In Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, he referred to time beginning at the Big Bang as it has become popularized, [posited as the corollary of space and matter] (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2; Gen. 1:1). There was a beginning to everything that exists in time and space, except God Himself, who had no beginning and is, therefore, eternal and unbound or defined by the time/space continuum in which He created and we are imprisoned and confined so to speak. History is important because Christianity is the only faith grounded in history and fact, and its historicity has been vouched for by over 25,000 archaeological digs and over 5000 manuscripts proving the veracity and fidelity of scriptural transmission to give us an accurate text, with much corroboration. It is deplorable that when a secular historian is a contrarian to a biblical scholar, the former is assumed the unbiased one.
Modern man tends to interpret history in the so-called uniformitarian way or denying any supernatural intervention such as the Deluge or Noah's flood. Christianity is history and history is God's story in a manner of speaking--it has a storyteller. If you could "dehistoricize" the Bible, it would be completely discredited, even if one legitimate, proven error was found in its portrayals of events, persons, or places. But even secular historians will not deny that the coming of Christ changed the course of history and that He is the dominant figure in Western civilization. I wonder if the disciples had any presentiment of the place they'd occupy in world history and of the history of the Church, as narrated so accurately and faithfully by Luke in Acts.
I heard that the present administration has no regard for history and is relatively ignorant of it; the error is that they fail to see any meaning in history or its inherent worth as an academic discipline. We should not resort to the cynicism of Karl Marx, who said that the point is not to interpret history, but to change it! Change isn't always good, and change for change sake is evil and one must be willing and ready to go forward, not backward and relive our errors and mistakes of the past. What is the scope and view of history from God's eye? It is nothing but creation, fall, redemption, judgment, and finally eternity in heaven or hell. The Bible picks up the story as going from generation to degeneration to regeneration!
Yes, history is headed toward a climactic conclusion and resolution and it's up to us to interpret the times and act accordingly and appropriately, knowing what to do! It used to be that secular historians and scholars would even doubt the historicity of Jesus Christ, but none would risk his reputation by alleging that stance today, because the evidence is overwhelming and the corroborating evidence so convincing and even conclusive, that secularists must realize that Christ and the Christian faith must be reckoned with and explained or accepted, because they cannot be dismissed as legend or myth--the great question of history that must be answered by all is this: "Who is Jesus?" He is the center point and focuses of history, the Bible being all about Him, and He will bring it to a head, and everyone's judgment of Him will be the criterion for his eternal destiny. The Christian experience is real because it's based on verifiable, historical fact and can be tested by subjective, personal experience--as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating or "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good" (cf. Psalm 34:8, ESV).
The great comfort of the faith is that we can be assured that God is in absolute, complete control and we can know that there will be a future for all believers with Him. Josh McDowell sums it up quite well in that the resurrection is the central fact of the faith, and it's based in history as objective fact, and it is either the most wonderful event in history or it's the cruelest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. According to D. James Kennedy, the resurrection is arguably the best-attested fact of antiquity. If one looks at the evidence with an open mind with no preconceived notions or bias, there are "many infallible proofs," as Luke wrote in Acts 1:3. The downside is that there is never enough evidence for the skeptic, but ample evidence for the sincere seeker of truth. God and truth are inseparable, and that is why the Bible's veracity and fidelity are so paramount to the faith--one cannot disbelieve due to lack of evidence!
It's important to interpret history in light of Scripture, because secularism sees us as progressing towards perfection and utopia, while we are really headed toward world-wide confrontation and war, culminating in one-world government by the Antichrist before Christ ushers in his reign during the Millennial Kingdom, coming after a Great Tribulation and judgment of God on the nations. What is history then? It's the ultimate unfolding, progressing of God's redemptive, judgmental plan for all mankind in real time. It makes a difference what one makes of history--it's HIS STORY!
Caveat: Secular worldviews jeopardize our future with such interpretations as seeing us heading toward and evolving into utopia and globalism; or that tomorrow belongs to Islam; or that history is the judge; or that it's a dialectic of class warfare; and even that there is no purpose or meaning to it and it's not worthy of our serious study. We must persevere with faith in Providence, that our Forefathers adhered to and believed God is ultimately in control and good will triumph over evil in God's timetable.
In sum, the whole Christian concept and worldview of history are dependent on the veracity, reliability, credibility, fidelity, and accuracy of the Bible, which is a historical document from cover to cover. All in all, such concepts as God punishing our nation or smiling upon us with blessings, are foreign to the secular outlook on history, which removes God from the equation and reckoning, trying to declare God dead or irrelevant to history. We can be thankful that the God of faith is the God of history, who orchestrates it, and doubting its historicity is mere hyper-criticism--it's never been proven erroneous, so why not trust it?
NOTE: IT'S A SAD COMMENTARY ON OUR TIMES THAT SO MUCH EVIDENCE IS AVAILABLE AND THE BIBLE HAS ALWAYS PROVEN TRUE TO ITS FACTS AND HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS, YET WHEN THERE IS A DISCREPANCY WITH A SECULAR HISTORIAN, THE BIBLE IS THE ONE THAT IS QUESTIONED AND HELD UP TO SCRUTINY. WHY IS THAT WHILE THE BIBLE HAS PROVEN SO RELIABLE IN ITS FACTS AND HISTORY, THAT SOME DOUBT ITS SPIRITUAL AND MORAL VALUES? Soli Deo Gloria!
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