Greate Boston wrote:We're on square one, then. What's the reason Quran/Bible/whatever isn't used as a historical source? If it's "people don't use it" (because, unless it's a written law, it's probably just precedent. Hell, it might still be precedent even if its written down somewhere) then, well, that's not a good argument, is it?Olerand wrote:I'm not using precedent at all. I'm using the established good practice guides of the historical profession.
If ever historians change their minds on this, then the validity of these sources will change, but that has nothing to do with precedent. Many historians could wrongly use the Bible as a source, it will remain, as of today, not a valid source.
As an example, you may break the law, but that doesn't change the law. But the law might yet be changed, which would effectively change the law.
Good practice says these books are not sources. No matter who breaks this practice, it is still the established rule. When the rules change, then it won't be.
As for Legal codes (the example you made, which is in my personal opinion not a very good one, at least in this stance), those are always written down somewhere. Hell, even in a society with Common Law, it's there in the case reports (that make "the law", per se, saying stealing is wrong).
I'm not disagreeing with you that Religious books aren't and shouldn't be used as source in historical debates, of course, but that I don't know your reasoning for such argument. For me, it's the same reason that while I may take cues from, as I said above, Romeo and Juliet, I'm not going to take it as a historical source for how Medieval Italian society worked.
It's established guidelines that you would learn in a university when you seek a history degree. It is written down in the material you study, and in the grades you will receive if you turn in a paper using them as a source.
It's as much precedent as any law is precedent, as in, we have codified not killing because our ancestors didn't like killing. Sure, in that case, everything is precedent.
You wouldn't take Romeo and Juliet as an example of that society because it wasn't written in that society. Using English literature from the Renaissance to assess Italian medieval life is nonsensical. Using Italian medieval literature to assess the society it was made out of is good historical practice however.
