Biblical History Quotes

“Mary Magdalene is the madwoman - angry mad - in Christianity’s attic. She was hidden there because of an open and not fully appreciated secret, and its implications, at Christianity’s core: that the male disciples fled and the women did not.”
― Jenny Schaberg

“As I look hard at the Bible, however, and at the two thousand years of church history since the Bible's completion, it seems evident that God has accommodated himself over and over to the weakness and even the sin of human beings. He also has called his faithful ones to a similar accommodation. The 'already but not yet' tension is clear not only with the coming of Christ but also throughout the Old Testament story of redemption. God chooses a people as a vehicle for global salvation and then works with them in a convoluted trajectory of obedience and blessing, disobedience and punishment, first this way and then that way. God puts up with a compromised plan for the conquest of Canaan, blesses a monarchy he did not want, forestalls the prophesied judgment on both northern and southern kingdoms for generations, and even then preserves a remnant and reestablishes it in Jerusalem. God works not only through Israel but also through the empires of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Rome. God works not only through prophets and saints but also through Joseph's brothers, Balaam and his donkey, Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, Caiaphas and Pilate.”
― John G. Stackhouse Jr., Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender

“Father is pleased with your progress. You humans are all the same you know. You’re always refusing just to enjoy the moment you’re in when you don’t understand things. You know just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. Father gave you all this for a gift. Have fun a little. You are at a royal affair. Maybe you should lighten up.” Really? My life was on hold and an angel was complaining to me that I needed to kick back and relax. Did an angel just tell me to lighten up?”
― Anna Aquino

“For Genesis 1, therefore, to proclaim that Israel's God is the one true God who created the sun, moon, stars, sea creatures, and all the animals would have been a countercultural and subversive message. Genesis would be highlighting how the very gods that the pagans worship are actually not deities at all, but merely creatures of Israel's God, the one and only true God!”
― Edward Sri, The Real Story: Understanding the Big Picture of the Bible

“As an archaeologist who deals with material evidence along with ancient Near Eastern cultures and texts, and who is also an evangelical Christian, I often find the debate about biblical inerrancy puzzling, if not irritating. For me, the concept of inerrancy is tied to divine intent. It is clear to me that Scripture has come to us as God’s unique representation of reality, an aggregate of authentic ancient records and eyewitness accounts driven by divine selectivity toward the ultimate goal of bringing forth the final record of the New Covenant through Messiah, Jesus. Because it is self-evident that God does not superintend error, ‘doctrinal’ inerrancy is axiomatic. Further, on the pragmatic side of the issue, my 45+ years of examining biblical texts in the light of archaeology and history (and vice versa!) have given me unequivocal confidence in the Bible’s ‘inductive’ inerrancy; i.e., I have yet to identify anything in it that I would consider to be in error. In my mind, an errant Scripture is an affront to logic, science, and faith.”
― Steve Collins

“Unlike modern historians, who analyze the proximate reason why things happen and strive for even-handedness, biblical writers reflected on events' ultimate meanings and sided with those who promoted the One God's worship against backsliders and idolaters. This perspective yielded the radical insight that God evaluates human behavior morally and favors the just, even though they may not triumph in the world like the Assyrians and the Babylonians—victors who, according to adage, write history on their own terms.”
― Charles L Cohen, The Abrahamic Religions: A Very Short Introduction: A Very Short Introduction

“The impression that one has now is that the debate has settled down. Although they do not seem to admit it, the minimalists have triumphed in many ways. That is, most scholars reject the historicity of the 'patriarchal period', see the settlement as mostly made up of indigenous inhabitants of Canaan and are cautious about the early monarchy. The exodus is rejected or assumed to be based on an event much different from the biblical account. On the other hand, there is not the widespread rejection of the biblical text as a historical source that one finds among the main minimalists… Most who write on the history of ancient Israel now take a position that accepts some minimalist positions (as just noted) but is also willing to make use of the biblical text as one of the sources in reconstructing the history of Israel and Judah.”
― Lester L. Grabbe, Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?