Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Should we trust the histories written by skeptical winners?

Scholars like Ehrman cite in this regard the well-worn adage: "It's the winners who write the histories." That is, those who get to write the histories are those who have already won the cultural battle. Thus they write history in a way that favors their own party, and puts any rivals in a bad light. The winners who wrote the histories were biased, often so biased, they couldn't even see their own biases. So, when we read early orthodox [Christian] writers today, we need to adopt a hermeneutic of suspicion, and read against the grain.

This is what the history books are telling us today. But then, isn't history always written by the winners? And aren't the winners often so enmeshed in the reigning cultural narrative that they can't see their own bias? Which is why we ought to read today's historians with the same sort of critical suspicion as they recommend we apply when reading the ancient writers.

(Charles Hill, Who Chose The Books Of The New Testament? [Bellingham, Washington: Lexham Press, 2022], approximate Kindle location 99)

2 comments:

  1. So Ehrman claims Ehrman can be rejected outright, or at least read very skeptically, simply because he's in the culturally dominant camp? Good to hear.

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