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It is often said that history is written by the victor. History is also full of liars. Historical revisionism is an attempt to undo some of the damage that can be caused by these lies.

But how do you personally feel about it? Do you think it can over step its bound and go to far? Or do you think its necessary to uncover the truth about the past?

First, I'd like to say that "History is written by the victors" is total bullshit. The term often get used by wehraboos or neo-nazis in regards to World War 2 mostly to say BS like "The nazis wasn't so bad" or "Allies were just as bad!". But that is ignoring the fact that after World War 2, books and memoirs written by the Germans flooded the market and historical archives. Our views on the Eastern Front is COMPLETELY dominated by German records and memoirs because until recently, western historians had little to no access to Soviet/Russian archives. While it may had some truth in the ancient past, it just doesn't hold up in most wars you can read about.

History is bound to get re-written several times, and it is not a bad thing. New records or what not will be found, like the Soviet/Russian archives I mentioned in above paragraph or some archaeologist digging up some old ruins or something. Old prejudices or myths can often find itself in historical documents, those should be cleared up as well. History should not be treated as a code of law that is set in stone.

That it disproves "history is written by the victors" is one of the most astonishing things about the Old Testament. The Hebrews were emphatically not the victors throughout ancient history and yet theirs are the most complete records we have of the Ancient Near East. Even though they were slaves in Egypt, and even though innumerable pagan empires occupied the Holy Land, God's people therein outlasted all of them. How often do we think about Assyria and Babylon, the most powerful nations of their day, except in the context of how they treated the ancient Jews?

The New Testament can be viewed in a similar manner. The early Christians were mostly poor people: the Disciples were mainly fishermen and they wrote at least four (the Gospels) of the most important and recognized documents in history. Compare them to the Greek and Roman authors. Nearly all the great writers of Athens (Thucydides, Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Plato, Aristotle, and so on) were born into noble and wealthy families. Likewise with the Romans. Today, people are much more likely to be able to recognize Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John than Cicero or Livy (assuming they'd recognize any of these writers).

The prevailing narrative around the Christians and Jews should have been controlled by their pagan neighbors, but two thousand years later, we find the opposite is true.

@Kourosh Kabir
Eh… I'm not sure if that really holds up. I think the Jews were "victors" in the context of their own society. Outside of that, there wasn't really much interest in the Hebrew Bible until it got taken along for the ride in the meteoric rise of Christianity. Which, I'll remind you, happened largely thanks to the winds of change in this little thing called the Roman Empire.

History has to continually be revised, because we discover newer and better techniques or more information. However, that revision and continuation should be based on facts, not hearsay, not propaganda, or in some sort of non objective interest.

People often confuse revisionism with other branches of historical approach. This is because one generation of historians typically has a different historical approach than the previous generation (similiar to different art movements), which tends to critically revise their predecessor's work.

What many people told call historical revisionism is actually historical iconoclasm, a school of historical thought that began appearing in the early 20th century and peaked in 1970s along with other aspects of the counter-culture movement. Like all historical movements, this generation of historians introduced a new perspective when studying historical sources but also injected their own set of biases into their interpretation.

Current historians, at least the good ones, weigh the biases not only of their predecessors but of the historical record during their research.

There's a book called Paul Revere's Ride (David Hackett Fischer) which has a really good appendix outlining how different generations of historians have interpreted Revere and his actions. It's a perfect introduction to historiography, which is the study of the history of history

0.999=1

Two points.

1. "Bondage" or "vassalage might be better terms for what the Jews in Egypt endured. Even if it wasn't slavery, their condition was some kind of subjugation where the Egyptians held power over them. The general point still stands that they were beholden to the commands of a political entity more powerful than them. Internal to Israelite civilization the priestly factions responsible for the Scriptures were victorious in their struggle against the pagans in Palestine, but overall Israelite civilization never surpassed the Assyrians, Hittites, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Babylonians, or Persians, in political, military, or economic capital. Despite that deficiency on the part of the Jews, the Hebrew Bible has historically been more valuable as a historical document (even discounting its religious significance) than any literature produced by those other civilizations.

2. Conservative estimates in contemporary New Testament scholarship place authorship of the Gospels around the 70s AD at the latest, which is still significantly before Constantine's conversion to Christianity. Regardless of whether the later Roman Empire was Christianized, the Roman government contemporary to the Evangelists was most certainly not in favor of Christianity. If the Gospels were written around 70 AD, then that was right after the Great Fire in Rome (for which Nero blamed them) and right before the Flavians' destruction of Jerusalem. This is not to mention the non-Roman parts of the world: the Zoroastrian Sassanian Empire was hostile to Christianity, as were the various pagan cults of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Hence, the New Testament was written in a time during which the competing religions of the world were much more powerful and more widely rooted.