18 July, 2008

Supernatural history

Recently I responded to an an online letter to The West newspaper by Kathleen Smith that said:
"How can the Bible be historical if it is fiction? The word, "historical", implies factualness and the supernatural aspects of the bible can hardly be described as historical"
Here's my response:

The only way we know anything about history is from the people who were there and recorded it. We can only assess the accuracy or credibility of them as witnesses.

You might say "I think it is extremely unlikely that someone could be raised from the dead, therefore it probably didn't happen."

But, I might tell you that I won the lottery 10 years ago. You could say, "It's extremely unlikely for someone to win the lottery (1 chance in billions?) therefore it probably didn't happen". Well we know that a better idea would be to investigate my claim by talking to people who were in my life 10 years ago, and they may just be able to convince you that it did happen.

So just because something is "supernatural", that doesn't mean can't be historical.

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