A.R. Bredenberg's Blog

How do you write historical fiction about an era for which historical documents are brief and fragmentary?

This was one of the problems I faced when I decided to write a series of Biblical fiction novels set in the ancient world before the global flood described in the book of Genesis. Most of what the Bible writers say about the world of that time is contained in chapters one through eight of Genesis. The writer of Genesis includes some information about what the world of that time was like – for example, increasing violence and the influence of a population of beings called “Nephilim,” who possibly were giants (see “Nephilim: Good Guys, Bad Guys? Humans, Something Else?“). But for a writer trying to tell a story about people living during that time, I didn’t have much to go on.

The solution: I made stuff up.

A lot of stuff. To really build an engaging story, I decided, this series would have to receive the same kind of world-building treatment as a work of fantasy or science fiction....

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The question whether the remains of Noah’s Ark still exist interests me and my readers (I think), because my Biblical fiction series, The Cursed Ground, takes place in the ancient world before its destruction by a worldwide flood. Whether the Bible account is literally true or not is, in a way, irrelevant to the fictional world I’m developing. It’s fiction, after all. But the historicity of Bible accounts is certainly of interest to many thinking persons, and the ancient story of a society destroyed by a global catastrophe is relevant in a moral and religious sense, and perhaps also to those concerned about the environmental problems facing humanity today.

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The short answer is no, but he has said some interesting things about who God might be.

This question came to my attention this past week, when someone pointed me to articles on this topic, including “Top scientist claims proof that God exists, says humans live in a ‘world made by rules created by an intelligence’” ...

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Many educated people take it as a given that the Exodus of the nation of Israel from Egypt, as described in the Bible, is simply a legend. After all, that’s the claim of prominent archaeologists working in Egypt and Palestine.

I’m interested in the question as a writer of Biblical fiction. It’s possible to write the stories of The Edhai even if the literary sources are mythology. But if they are authentic history, that does add some weight to the stories themselves, as they then become historical fiction.

Even though the fictionality of the Exodus is taken for granted in mainstream academia and much of the educated public, this is not a universal view. I’ve recently come across a remarkably well-developed body of research that is worth considering by the thinking person.

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I recently read E.M. Forster’s 1924 classic, “A Passage to India,” so I was interested to learn that he had written a book about fiction writing. “Aspects of the Novel” is based on a series of lectures Forster gave in 1927 at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Copy on the back cover describes “Aspects of the Novel” as “Forster’s renowned guide to writing.” However, ...

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This morning I thought about this trope, which I often run into as a reader. But as a fiction writer who sometimes portrays screaming people, I wonder whether it ever really happens.

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In recent years, independent investigators have become interested in the claim that remains of gigantic humans have been found in association with some of the North American mound-building cultures. At the same time, self-styled “skeptics” have taken up the task of debunking these claims.

Why are people drawn to this idea of giants walking the earth, and why does the idea draw such rabid opposition?

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I’m very happy to let readers know that Children of the Keeper, Book 2 of my historical fiction saga, The Cursed Ground, was released today on Amazon Kindle eBooks. This new book follows Book 1 in the series, The Child-Stealers. I’ve written Children of the Keeper as a standalone story, and I’m told that it reads quite well that way.

I’ve been categorizing The Cursed Ground series as historical fiction, but in truth the story is a crossover...

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Since publishing Book 1 of The Cursed Ground, I’ve started to get questions from readers about the world the story is set in. I like to let the story tell itself, so I avoid including a lot of backstory in the narrative. But for those who are interested, I thought I would set out some of the very broad concepts behind the fictional world I’m using.

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Did Moses write the Bible book of Genesis, or was it someone else? I have a particular interest in the issue as a fiction writer, because the first installments of my Edhai fiction series are all set during the time period covered by the Bible book of Genesis, particularly the very earliest history recounted in Gen 1-11, from the creation of the first humans up to the time of Abraham.

A consideration of this question requires an explanation of what's called the "documentary hypothesis." Here's what that's about.

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