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Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any war that had preceded it … The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content.  In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.

Thucydides

460-395BC

History of the Peloponnesian War (1:1:1; 1:22:4), pp. 3,16 of The Landmark Thucydides – in contrast to Christian historiography

– in contrast to Christian historiography

With reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible.  My conclusions have cost me some labor from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other.

Thucydides

460-395BC

History of the Peloponnesian War (1:22:2-3), pp. 15-16 of The Landmark Thucydides – in contrast to the “fact check” procedures of Christian historiography

– in contrast to the “fact check” procedures of Christian historiography

After passing through those periods which probable reasoning can reach to and real history find footing in, I might very well say of those that are farther off: “Beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants are the poets and inventor of fables; there is no credit, or certainty any farther.” [But he writes, he intends to write such a history despite this.] ... Let us hope that Fable may, in what shall follow, so submit to the purifying processes of Reason as to take the character of exact history.  In any case, however, where it shall be found contumaciously slighting credibility and refusing to be reduced to anything like probable fact, we shall beg that we may meet with candid readers, and such as will receive with indulgence the stories of antiquity.”

Plutarch

46-127

Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, “Life of Theseus” (1), pp. 1-3 – in contrast to the “fact check” procedures of Christian historiography)

– in contrast to the “fact check” procedures of Christian historiography)

Although you [disciples of Jesus] lied, you were not able to conceal plausibly your fictitious tales … some believers, as though from a drinking bout, go so far as to oppose themselves and alter the original text of the gospel three or four or several times over, and they change its character to enable them to deny difficulties in face of criticism.

Celsus

c. 180

The True Word, as quoted by Origen in Against Celsus (2:26-27), p. 90

[I will] tell the story of Moses as I have learned it, both from the sacred books [the Torah] — the wonderful monuments of his wisdom which he has left behind him — and from some of the elders of the nation; for I always interwove what I was told with what I read, and thus believed myself to have a closer knowledge than others of his life’s history.

Philo

25BC-50AD

Life of Moses (1:4), p. 279 – emphasis added, in contrast to the “fact check” procedures of Jewish historiography

– emphasis added, in contrast to the “fact check” procedures of Jewish historiography

Most of them take it as a fundamental principle that Scripture is true and divine throughout.  But of course this is the very thing that should emerge from a critical examination and understanding of Scripture.  It would be much better to derive it from Scripture itself, which has no need of human fabrications, but they assume it at the very beginning as a rule of interpretation.

Baruch Spinoza

1632-1677

Theological-Political Treatise (preface: 9), p. 8

There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas.  He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead.  He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance.  Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith.  If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation.  The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading.

Bertrand Russell

1872-1970

History of Western Philosophy (chapter 13), p. 463

Here then we are first to consider a book [the Torah], presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people [the Jews], written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts, which every nation gives of its origin.  Upon reading this book, we find it full of prodigies and miracles.  It gives an account of a state of the world and of human nature entirely different from the present:  Of our fall from that state: Of the age of man, extended to near a thousand years: Of the destruction of the world by a deluge: Of the arbitrary choice of one people, as the favorites of heaven; and that people the countrymen of the author: Of their deliverance from bondage by prodigies the most astonishing imaginable: I desire anyone to lay his hand upon his heart, and after a serious consideration declare, whether he thinks that the falsehood of such a book, supported by such a testimony, would be more extraordinary and miraculous than all the miracles it relates; which is, however, necessary to make it be received.

David Hume

1711-1776

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (10(100))

By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, — that the more we know the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become, — that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, — that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, — that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses; — by such reflections such as these, which I give influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.

Charles Darwin

1809-1882

Autobiography, p. 85

But the faithful who fly to allegory in order to escape absurdity resemble nothing so much as the sheep in the fable who — to save their lives — jumped into the pit.  The allegory pit is too commodious, is ready to swallow up so much more than one wants to put in it.

Thomas H.Huxley

1825-1895

Agnosticism and Christianity, p. 324

It is important here to clear up a common misunderstanding.  Many secular writers seem to think that the orthodox Christian position is that the universe and the earth were literally made in six calendar days … Most traditional Christians have no problem with a creation account that extends over millions, even billions of years.

What’s So Great About Christianity (chapter 11), p. 122

It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

Mark Twain

1835-1910

attributed to

In religion, what damned error, but some sober brow will bless it and approve it with text, hiding the grossness with fair ornament.  There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.

William Shakespeare

1564-1616

Merchant of Venice (3:2:79-84) – Bassanio speaking to Portia

– Bassanio speaking to Portia

… Josephus is virtually our only source for a profoundly important chapter of history.  He adds enormously to our information.  Where his personal prestige was not involved and his taste for hyperbole not enlisted, he tells a knowledgeable, exact and comprehensive story, and tells it conscientiously and fascinatingly. … Assisted by [a] powerful vein of frankness, which goes far to counterbalance his other aberrations, Josephus’ narratives are, for the most part, both illuminating and reliable.  They had to be since they would be read by important people who had actually played a leading part in the events.

Michael Grant

1914-2004

Ancient Historians, pp. 258-259

… this account [that of Eusebius, the earliest surviving Christian historian] bears no relation to secular history.  It reduces history to the foreordained movement of supernatural forces.  Historical inevitability, which was to recur in Augustine [City of God] and ever afterwards, was receiving its first classic exposition … Accordingly he claimed — in anticipation of a widespread medieval theory — that the communications and common language of the Empire had been willed by God so as to facilitate the dissemination of the Gospel … And so the long story moves on in its strange and fateful way, a mixture of invaluable detailed fact and devout fiction … Moreover, Eusebius’ style is depressing … Eusebius employs a cumbersome, obscure and slovenly Greek.  His narrative is shallow and uninspired, and follows a dull, muddled and haphazard plan.

Michael Grant

1914-2004

Ancient Historians, pp. 348-349,357 – in contrast to the “fact check” procedures of Greek historiography

– in contrast to the “fact check” procedures of Greek historiography

Thomas the Israelite, makes this report to all of you, my brothers among the Gentiles [non-Jews], that you may know the magnificent childhood activities of our Lord Jesus Christ—all that he did after being born in our country.

Infancy Gospel of Thomas

(1), as translated by Bart Ehrman in Lost Scriptures: books that did not make it into the New Testament, p. 58 – example of an early non-biblical gospel

– example of an early non-biblical gospel

What Jesus Christ revealed to his disciples ... as we have heard [it], kept [it] and written [it] for the whole world, so we entrust it to you.

Epistle of the Apostles

(1), as translated by Bart Ehrman in Lost Scriptures: books that did not make it into the New Testament, p. 74 – example of an early non-biblical letter

– example of an early non-biblical letter

From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned.  A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible.  But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, and that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.

George Orwell

1903-1950

“The Prevention of Literature,” p. 371, in The Orwell Reader: fiction, essays and reportage

Books are not destroyed as physical objects but as links to memory, that is, as one of the axes of identity of a person or a community.  There is no identity without memory … at the root of book destruction is the intent to induce historical amnesia that facilitates control of an individual or a society.

Fernando Báez

A Universal History of the Destruction of Books (introduction, p. 13

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