Historicity

Historicity is the historical actuality of persons and events, meaning the quality of being part of history as opposed to being a historical myth, legend, or fiction. Historicity focuses on the truth value of knowledge claims about the past (denoting historical actuality, authenticity, and factuality). The historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status.

Some theoreticians characterize historicity as a dimension of all natural phenomena that take place in space and time. Other scholars characterize it as an attribute reserved to certain human phenomena, in agreement with the practice of historiography.Herbert Marcuse explained historicity as that which “defines history and thus distinguishes it from ‘nature’ or from the ‘economy’” and “signifies the meaning we intend when we say of something that is ‘historical’.” The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy defines historicity as "denoting the feature of our human situation by which we are located in specific concrete temporal and historical circumstances." For Wilhelm Dilthey, historicity identifies human beings as unique and concrete historical beings.

Historicity of the Bible

The historicity of the Bible is the question of its "acceptability as a history," in the phrase of Thomas L. Thompson, a scholar who has written widely on this topic as it relates to the Old Testament. This can be extended to the question of the Christian New Testament as an accurate record of the historical Jesus and the Apostolic Age.

Many fields of study compare the Bible and history, ranging from archeology and astronomy to linguistics and comparative literature. Scholars also examine the historical context of Bible passages, the importance ascribed to events by the authors, and the contrast between the descriptions of these events and historical evidence.

Archaeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th century have supported some of the Old Testament's historical narratives and refuted some of the others.

Materials and methods

Manuscripts and canons

The Bible exists in multiple manuscripts, none of them autographs, and multiple canons, none of which completely agree on which books have sufficient authority to be included or their order (see Books of the Bible).

Historicity (album)

Historicity is an album by pianist Vijay Iyer released on the ACT label in 2009.

Reception

The album received universal acclaim with Metacritic giving it a score of 87 from 8 reviews. The Allmusic review by Michael G. Nastos awarded the album 4½ stars out of 5, stating "Vijay Iyer has mad skills, overwhelmingly and powerfully demonstrated on all of his recordings, but especially this one. He's also maturing at a rapid rate, while at the height of his powers on this incredible effort that sounds like much more than a mere piano-bass-drums mainstream jazz trio. This is an incredible CD, and a strong candidate for best jazz CD of 2009". Writing for All About Jazz, Chris May said "A galvanizing album. No further explanation necessary. Please".PopMatters writer Will Layman said "Pianist Vijay Iyer is happy to stun you, to knock you into awe, to blow your mind. He brings technique, imagination, and wide perspective to his art. Historicity, the first recording wholly devoted to Iyer’s trio with bassist Stephen Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore, is a jewel".