Sacred history is the parts of the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
narrative on the boundary of
historicity
Historicity is the historical actuality of persons and events, meaning the quality of being part of history instead of being a historical myth, legend, or fiction. The historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status. Historicity denot ...
, especially the
Moses and
Exodus stories which can be argued to have a remote historical nucleus without any positive evidence to the effect.
[
Rabbi Neil Gillman, professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, states
]
In a wider sense, the term is used for all of the historical books of the Bible – i.e.,
Books of Kings,
Ezra–Nehemiah
Ezra–Nehemiah ( he, עזרא נחמיה , ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible found in the Ketuvim section, originally with the Hebrew title of Ezra ( he, עזרא, links=no, ). The book covers the period from the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE t ...
and
Books of Chronicles
The Book of Chronicles ( he, דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third sec ...
– spanning the period of the 10th to 5th centuries BC, and by extension also of the later books such as
Maccabees and the books of the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...
. The term in this sense is used by
Thomas Ellwood
Thomas Ellwood (October 1639 – 1 March 1714) was an English religious writer. He is remembered for his relationship with poet John Milton, and some of his writing has proved durable as well.
Life
Ellwood was born in the village of Crowell, Ox ...
in ''Sacred history, or, the historical part of the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments'', published 1709.
In yet another sense, the term may refer to
ecclesiastical history
__NOTOC__
Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception.
Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritua ...
.
See also
*
The Bible and history
The historicity of the Bible is the question of the Bible's relationship to history—covering not just the Bible's acceptability as history but also the ability to understand the literary forms of biblical narrative. One can extend biblical his ...
*
Exegesis
Exegesis ( ; from the Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretation ...
*
Historical theology
Historical theology is the study of the history of Christian doctrine. Stanley Grenz, Grenz, Guretzki and Nordling describe it as, "The division of the theological discipline that seeks to understand and delineate how the church interpreted Scri ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sacred history