Bible - Fiction?

[aliceBB]

It's not about you know is true, it's about what you believe is true

 

 

Most people would make a judgement based on evidence and reason. If there's enough evidence or reason to believe it, then they will most likely believe it.

If there's no evidence or reason to believe, most won't develop such a belief, although some might.

 

That doesn't really help us determine whether something is fact or fiction, though, does it? Just because someone (or even a lot of people) believe something is a fact doesn't make it one. People once believed the Earth was flat, but science has now convinced most people that it is not. Mediaeval doctors believed that bloodletting had a curative effect; it does not, it seems. Those are evidence-based 'facts', I suppose, although the first is easier to 'test/prove'' objectively than the second!

 

Conversely, not believing something doesn't make it untrue or not a fact. I agree, some kinds of evidence is better than others and reason helps us decide whether an argument may be true, but neither of them helps when it comes to ancient religious texts.

 

One of the supposedly easy questions in GCSE English examinations was designed to test whether candidates could distinguish between facts and opinions. It was used for quite a number of years, despite teachers pointing out that F/G grade candidates found such questions easy, but higher ability candidates found them impossible. That's because the more intelligent kids realised that we cannot know definitively what is a fact and what is not, especially in a piece of writing (regardless of the genre). Journalists are trained to present opinions and untruths/distortions as facts and they often do it very persuasively. But it doesn't make what they write true.

 

Which is why I asked whether people thought biography/autobiography is fact or fiction.

 

Discuss, with reasons...

[SnailyBoy]

That doesn't really help us determine whether something is fact or fiction, though, does it? Just because someone (or even a lot of people) believe something is a fact doesn't make it one. People believed the Earth was flat, once, but science has now convinced most people that it is not. Mediaeval doctors believed that bloodletting had a curative effect; it does not. Those are evidence-based 'facts', I suppose, although the first is easier to 'test'[ objectively than the second. Conversely, not believing something doesn't make it untrue or not a fact. I agree, some kinds of evidence is better than others and reason helps us decide whether an argument may be true, but neither of them helps when it comes to ancient religious texts.

 

One of the supposedly easy questions in GCSE English examinations was designed to test whether candidates could distinguish between facts and opinions. It was used for quite a number of years, despite teachers pointing out that F/G grade candidates found such questions easy, but higher ability candidates found them impossible. That's because the more intelligent kids realised that we cannot know definitively what is a fact and what is not, especially in a piece of writing (regardless of the genre).

 

Which is why I asked whether people thought biography/autobiography is fact or fiction.

 

Discuss, with reasons...

 

Which biography/autobiography?

[aliceBB]

Which biography/autobiography?

 

It doesn't matter. Any. As a genre, is it concerned with fact or fiction?

[SnailyBoy]

It doesn't matter. Any. As a genre, is it concerned with fact or fiction?

 

Of course it matters. It depends on the claims made in the book, the reference material used etc.

 

For example, Sir Alex Ferguson's autobiography may claim that he won x number of trophies, that can be checked.

 

If he further claimed that Bill Shankly visited him as a ghost, then that would require extraordinary evidence to be considered fact.

[aliceBB]

Of course it matters. It depends on the claims made in the book, the reference material used etc.

 

For example, Sir Alex Ferguson's autobiography may claim that he won x number of trophies, that can be checked.

 

If he further claimed that Bill Shankly visited him as a ghost, then that would require extraordinary evidence to be considered fact.

 

Precisely. Which is why your original thread question (Is the Bible fact or fiction?) is a bit silly, or at the very least unanswerable since we cannnot even agree on what those categories encompass.

 

We can't agree because the categories 'fact' and 'fiction' are unhelpful or even useless, in the context of literary or other written texts.

[SnailyBoy]

Precisely. Which is why your original thread question (Is the Bible fact or fiction?) is a bit silly, or at the very least unanswerable since we cannnot even agree on what those categories encompass.

 

We can't agree because the categories 'fact' and 'fiction' are unhelpful or even useless, in the context of literary or other written texts.

 

 

 

I'd be interested to know what you think are facts in the Bible.

[aliceBB]

I'd be interested to know what you think are facts in the Bible.

 

I do not know enough about Bible history to say what I think is fact in it and what is not. But that is my point. People who believe the Bible is fact base that belief not on scientific evidence but largely on religious faith. I'm not one of them, btw.

 

Faith is faith regardless of objective evidence.

[SnailyBoy]

I do not know enough about Bible history to say what I think is fact in it and what is not. But that is my point. People who believe the Bible is fact base that belief not on scientific evidence but largely on religious faith. I'm not one of them, btw.

 

Faith is faith regardless of objective evidence.

 

And there lies the problem.

[aliceBB]

And there lies the problem.

 

I think we agree that it's difficult to say with any certainty whether the Bible is fact or fiction. Not just because it is difficult to prove its truthfulness (or otherwise ) by means of scientific testing, but also because of the semantic problem set up by the terms 'fact' and 'fiction', which are frequently bandied around (especially with regard to books/written texts), but which in that context are probably indefinable.

 

I was hoping someone would point the following out, but unless I've missed it, nobody seems to have said it : that the best fiction contains essential truths about what it is to be human, in a way that bad fiction doesn't. So 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is true in that it reveals some truths about what it is to be black - or female, or abused by your father, or innocent - in Alabama in the 60s. David Beckham's autobiography, ostensibly 'fact', is a lie from the start as the man himself did not write it. Shakespeare's plays are supposedly 'fiction' but they tell political truths (e.g. power corrupts) which are still valid today. Good journalism is supposed to be 'fact' but it also offers interpretation/commentary about the facts (some would call this 'opinion'...)

 

It all depends what you mean by the terms 'fact' 'fiction', 'truth' and 'belief'. So far nobody in this thread has even tried to do that. Probably because it's very difficult!

 

Unless you do that (or at least try), everything people say will boil down to one of two statements: I think it's true because God tells me it is, or I don't believe in God, so I reject the idea it is true. Which isn't much of a discussion. Plus, you cannot debate the truth (or otherwise) of God or religion using facts-based evidence, any more than you can establish whether it is a fact or not that someone loves someone else.

[Ryedo40]

But there are accounts of Jesus In the New Testament by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John but you just don't wish to believe them.

 

They aren't contemporary accounts; they were written 30-100+ years after his supposed death(I find that, in itself, quite odd.) The authors are also unknown.