Leopold Green Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 Hi Although I bought the Graphics package last year I haven't really used the Timeline very much. Recently I have been reading Genesis and was bemused that no one from this 'pre historic' period is reflected on the timeline - I am not wanting to get into myth vs. metaphor vs history but surely a timeline within a biblical study programme would feature Noah? Sorry if I am being a bit thick - I'm just starting to study the Bible so maybe this is some sort of accepted convention? Interested in hearing why anyway Thanks Leopold Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel Brown Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Leopold, When developing the timeline, we decided to limit the Timeline to events that can be dated archaeologically and/or historically. Pre-Abrahamic people, such as Noah, can only be dated using the Genesis geneologies, and many scholars would not take these as an accurate method of dating. So, even in the 'Conservative' dating set, we decided to leave of everything pre-Abraham. You are very welcome to add in your own dates for people and events, though! If you'd like to add in your own dates for these people, you can easily do so by defining Custom User Items. In the Accordance help, under Comprehensive Reference > Dialog Boxes > Timeline > Define User Items Dialog Box, you can find a good reference to adding these items. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Brylov Christensen Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 (edited) Hi Leopold It's a complex matter, and it does have something to do with myth vs. metaphor vs. history, as you put it. Most conservative European Biblical scholars tend not to date anything prior to the Exodus. The logic behind this, as Wellhausen puts it, was that you cannot begin to reconstruct the history of a people before they actually became a people. Thus, Noth (and most of his students) considered the creation, the patriarch stories and even the Exodus itself as strictly "founding myths" of the people of Israel whereas traces of actual history begins to show in the book of Joshua and onwards. The situation was rather different in the US at the time. William F. Albright, a contemporary and critic of Noth, gave more historical credit to most of the stories in Genesis than his German counterparts would, and I would assume that these pre-Exodus datings in the Timeline are either from his very own or a similar Biblical Archaeological tradition - but I guess that even he wouldn't go further back than Abraham. This might be due to the fact that the Flood story has many similar parallels in the Ancient Near Eastern epic literary corpus which Albright knew pretty well, as he could read Akkadian. My guess as to why he wouldn't include Noah and the flood story as a historical event is that he'd then have to explain how it all adds up when comparing it to the similar content in the epics of Gilgamesh and Atra-Hasis. So all in all, there are conventions, sort of, but they differ: In European conservative circles, the convention is to not date anything prior to the Exodus, whereas in the US, the convention is to not date anything prior to Abraham. With kind regards Peter Christensen*EDIT*Didn't see Joel's post - looks like he beat me to it! Edited February 14, 2015 by Pchris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leopold Green Posted February 14, 2015 Author Share Posted February 14, 2015 Thanks Peter and Joel! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alistair Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 Didn't see Joel's post - looks like he beat me to it! No disrespect to Joel, but I liked your post better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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