Subnostr

I find this particular point persuasive but am doubtful as to the total historical veracity of the Jewish or Christian Bible

Arthur Conan Doyle's writings regarding Sherlock Holmes document many well-confirmed features of Victorian England, yet despites this coherence is not historically reliable

Marakesh 𓅦 2y ago

Did Arthur Conan Doyle ever purport to be writing history in his Sherlock Holmes stories? (I actually haven't read any of his stories, so I don't know.)

The Bible does make the claim to be historical, so therefore we should expect its claims to comport with what we know from archeology and history, and it does in many ways.

This is unlike the Book of Mormon, which refers to rivers and other geographical features, and tribes of people which archeology and history know nothing of. This would be because Joseph Smith was unfamiliar with Latin American geography and history and was making it all up, unlike Arthur Conan Doyle, who at least had a personal acquaintance with Victorian England.

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Discussion

a source familiar with the matter 2y ago

I don't think Doyle ever explicitly claims to author fiction or non-fiction within the books

But there are works which are definitely fiction but purport to be historical eg The Silmarillion, so such a claim within a work is not dispositive

I think much of the Bible likely corresponds in a very rough way to actual history and/or psychology (eg the filling of the Mediterranean Basin as a global flood, see also Atlantis) but I think you would be foolish to accept it as literal historical truth (pi is not 3, Adam was not around to witness the first 6 days of creation, I very much doubt that man coexisted with dinosaurs, etc)

Moreover I doubt the moral worth as well, which perhaps introduces a certain bias regarding the claims of historicity. Judaism is almost unique in positing a creation in which man is neither one with nature nor God(s)