Evidence That Old Testament Is 100% Fiction?

Articles

Dan Shanefield

Evidence That Old Testament Is 100% Fiction?
Mar 12, 2004

It's a disgrace among intellectuals that they have not called more attention to a book entitled "It Ain't Necessarily So," by Matthew Sturgis. (Note: quite amazingly, there are several other books with exactly that same title, completely unrelated to this one.)

This short book reports the evidence that there are no archeological remains of the main cities and temples described in the Bible (or else only a few remains at very wrong places and with very wrong carbon-14 dating, built many hundreds of years after biblical times.) The publisher is F. A. Thorpe, in Leicestershire, England, and the printing date is 2001. The ISBN is 0- 7089-4886-3. The book points out that excellent records were kept by the Egyptians, Romans, Assyrians, etc., but none report anything about biblical people or events before King Josiah, about 700 years after Moses, David, Solomon, etc., were supposed to have lived. The conclusion is that Josiah probably commissioned a crew of Hebrew scribes (who were truly writers of genius) to make up all the great stories.

Although many people are trying hard to ignore this important book, it was favorably reviewed by The Times (of London) Literary Supplement (Jan.11, 2002, page 27). The same ideas (in general agreement with Sturgis) were summarized on page B7 of the March 9, 2002 N.Y. Times, in connection with another book, "Etz Hayim" by David L. Lieber, but that book is mostly a modernized version of the Bible, and only the footnotes and appendices report the contradictory evidence from archeology (although they do quite honestly report it).

Regarding the Times Literary Supplement and the N.Y. Times reviews, probably your local city public library can make a Xerox for you, or they can order one via the inter-library network, for about 5 dollars U.S.

I think the Sturgis book should be in all city public libraries and discussed in college courses, but it is notably absent from those. Possibly some readers of this column might want to donate the book to their local libraries. (Possibly some others will want to burn all the copies that they can get their hands on!) The book was the subject of a non-profit TV network show in Australia, but most Americans have succeeded in making believe that there is no such book.

------------

About the author: Visit his website or email Dan Shanefield: shanefield@ieee.org

Tell a friend about this site!

------------