[Avodah] History?

[Lisa Liel]

Okay, but I think the question is more complicated for us.  Tanakh is 
not a history book.  The selections of history that are included in it 
are included for teaching reasons.  In terms of what we understand as 
history, Tanakh is an extremely biased view, which leaves out so many 
(historically) pertinent facts that if we knew the full history of the 
times being recorded, Tanakh would look virtually dishonest to us.

For example, there are Assyrian records that show Ahab leading a 
coalition of Phoenecian and Aramean states against their Assyrian 
overlords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qarqar).  There's no 
hint of this in the books of Kings or Chronicles.  The Mesha Stele 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesha_stele) describes Omri conquering a 
lot of Moab and building in their capitol.  Again, there's nothing about 
that in our records.  In the actual historical context, it turns out 
that the northern kingdom of Israel wasn't even what we'd call a 
kingdom.  It was a number of independent city-states, only somewhat 
allied with one another.  Some of our worst kings had major military 
victories, and some of our best kings were failures by normal historical 
standards.

So the question is whether there's a value for us in learning the actual 
history, even when, or particularly when, the picture we gain from it 
includes elements that the Nevi'im and Sofrim intentionally omitted, 
lest we learn the wrong lessons.

Lisa


On 8/21/2012 2:26 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 03:23:08PM -0400, I just wrote:
> : R' Hutner believed that there was much to be gained. We need "to be
> : inspired by their example and learn from their experience" at overcoming
> : setbacks, failings, and limitations. He wrote in letter 128, as translated
> : in the JO (Dec 1981):...
>
> I should have mentioned Mishlei 24:15:
>      Ki sheva yipol tzadiq vaqam
>      ursha'im yishashlu vera'ah
>
> Where are we supposed to learn how to dust ourselves off and get up again
> if we erase from our memories all the examples we are to learn from?
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>
>