Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 146:583 (Jul 1989)
Article: The Pastor’s Use of the Old Testament Part 3: Learning the Lessons of History
Author: R. K. Harrison

BSac 146:583 (Jul 89) p. 243

The Pastor’s Use of the Old Testament
Part 3:
Learning the Lessons of History

R. K. Harrison

Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

[Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of four articles delivered by the author as the W. H. Griffith Thomas Lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, November 1–4, 1988.]

Many people, when asked to define the term “history,” furnish a vague and comprehensive statement as to its nature and character, and tend to explain it as “everything that has ever happened.” Even an aphorism such as this is usually produced only after some reflection, as though the person concerned is aware of the inadequacies of the definition. While dictionary definitions are more concise, they too have broad statements such as “the study of past events,” or “the record of mankind’s past.” The vagueness of the first of these two definitions raises questions as to the terminus a quo, or point of origin of the historical process. Does history commence with a cosmogony, the theory of the creation of the universe and its inhabitants, as was the case in ancient Near Eastern creation myths? Or is history to be traced through cosmology, on the understanding that the universe comprises a system that is characterized by order? If the earth’s own history is to be dealt with on this basis, the science of geology makes important contributions to one’s knowledge of processes as they are thought to have occurred. If the second definition of history is adopted, the interest of the historian is shifted from the cosmos to the inhabitants of planet earth, with the result that historical records would contain something of the activities of human beings over the millennia.

The Writing of History

A more satisfactory definition of “history,” from a reputable, traditional source used by an earlier generation, is that it is a narration of facts and events arranged chronologically or otherwise, with

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their changes and effects.1 The inference of possible chronological order places the study of history within the span of measurable time, that is, from the Sumerian period, since this ancient race was the first to quantify time. The definition is sufficiently flexible to allow the character of the historian’s work to be selective, and in fact this feature is typical of all the early Near Eastern annals, which recorded only the most important events of the period being covered. Thus much of what has happened to humanity during its existence will have been forgotten, and this reality shows the inadequacy of the definition of histo...