2007-10-18

The complex lives of earliest humans

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

What can be deduced from a bit of ochre and a whale barnacle . . . .

News story of a recent publication in Nature, with related audio file:

Earliest humans lived complex lives, scientists find by Sarah Clarke

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"Here I give an admittedly subjective short list, in random order, of useful, high level and regularly updated weblogs on the study of the Old Testament . . . ‘Vridar: Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science’ (http://vridar.org/) by Neil Godfrey"

-- Klaas Spronk, - Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXI, 3/4 (2014)
"I have found your website really valuable as an interpretive filter for Biblical scholarship, especially the origins of Christianity and historicity of Jesus issue. Your clarity of expression, fair comments and personal insights are much valued. I refer to your site frequently as yet more names and publications pop up requiring an academic critique and helpful recommendations for book purchases. So, please continue to delve deeply and share this intellectual sustenance with your grateful readers."

— Mary Booker, – February 2020 (personal email)
"These reviews of yours are so bloody weird!"

— James Crossley, – April 2010
"I’ve even been cited by atheists with approval (which I really don’t know how to take, so thanks, I think, but I’m not sure, Vrider (even though I feel like I need to take a shower now))."

-- Jim West, – September 2010
"Note that I do not use the term ‘amateur’ pejoratively. . . . In fact, Godfrey is extremely well read and his librarian skills have brought many important academic works to my attention."

Raphael Lataster - August 2019
"Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work."

— Richard Carrier, – March 2014
"Neil, this is actually rather useful. Good job."

— R. Joseph Hoffmann, – June 2014
"Many thanks for this post, and for the quality of your blog."

— Philippe Wajdenbaum, – November 2018
Congratulations, Vridar, . . . I declare, Vridar, your own hard work translating Bruno Bauer will make a major difference in future studies of Bruno Bauer and the evolution of Hegel’s philosophy of religion.

-- Paul Trejo, - April 2023
"I think you have a high quality blog that provides a positive public service by discussing academic topics within a wider audience."

— Russell Gmirkin, – October 2016
"For an excellent example of generally high-quality scholarship by someone who isn’t a biblical studies professor, see Neil Godfrey’s work posted on the website vridar.org."

— Tom Dykstra, – JOCABS 2015
"I want to say here that this site is so resourceful and highly on top of the most modern scholarship in the areas discussed here. . . I know of no other site which offers a wide range of topics related to careful critical analysis of historically and scripturally related issues."

-- Martin Lewadny, - March 2009
"Neil, in my mature judgement (I am now an old man), this fine 4-part study is a brilliant reworking, an instructive restatement of Hayden White’s Metahistory (and his subsequent writings). Your critique of certain historiographic representations as imbedded in the case study of the “scientistic”, “empirical” Richard Carrier provides a solid starting point for the more honest “fictive” reading of the New Testament that you encourage. Your last paragraph is a very intelligent call to sensitive readers of these texts. I suspect a whole generation of biblical students has been educated without the insights provided by the incomparable White. Bravo!"

-- Timothy Bagley, - November 2024
"Neil, for what it is worth it is obvious to me that if you had earlier in life tracked into a graduate program at one of the world’s leading research universities you would be one of the world’s formidable ones. You are doing essentially the same quality now (apart from the philology and languages) except mostly sticking to commenting on others’ work as informed comment/discussion."

— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
"Vridar is consistently thought-provoking, well-informed, and asking the right questions. There are intelligent, thoughtful comments and commenters regularly offering productive discussion. Books and publications are covered with a range of perspectives with attempts at fair and accurate representation of others’ arguments and content (where there are occasional and inevitable missteps on that I notice Neil making corrections and apologies where warranted, which wins points with me). Please carry on."

— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
"By the way, my thanks to Neil for an ongoing superb job of exposing Jim’s review for what it is: a farcical and none too effective exercise in mythicism assassination, nothing to do with rational, let alone unbiased, scholarship. I’m also happy to see even Jim giving Neil credit where credit is due."

— Earl Doherty, June 2011
"I find your blog most interesting and appreciate your ongoing effort to keep to the evidence for the issues discussed!"

-- Thomas L. Thompson, - April 2020
"Fantastic. I’m so glad you’re helping to spread these ideas!"

Nancy Fraser - June 2019 (personal email)
"Thanks for this detailed interaction! I’ll try to offer something more substantial than 'Thank you' in response at some point, but I didn’t want to wait . . . to express appreciation for your detailed interaction with what I’ve written!"

— James McGrath, – June 2009
"I still wonder at all the material you turn out for Vridar. The more I read your stuff (and I still do, of course), the more I realize how much we all owe you. Your voice is unique."

— Earl Doherty, November 2013 (personal email)
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

-- Enrico Tuccinardi, - October 2022
"I’d like to thank you for this very nice representation of what I was trying to show in the book. It’s always gratifying when a reader zeroes in on exactly those aspects I thought were most interesting and most central to my argument. Thank you for this careful and engaged reading of my work – much appreciated!"

— Eva Mroczek, – June 2017
It is worth saying another word of appreciation here for Neil Godfrey's effort to make Bruno Bauer accessible in English.

-- Peter Kirby, - May 2023
"Very good. This post is going straight to the March 2016 Biblical Studies Carnival."

—N.T. Wrong, – March 2016
"Thanks for your very elaborate review! I realized that I hadn’t added your blog to our blogroll. This oversight has been corrected. Looking forward to more segments."

— Anthony Le Donne, – September 2009
"I always enjoy reading Neil’s blog because I think that he is careful, thorough, intellectually fair, and honest."

— April DeConick, – November 2007
"Neil, You’ve done a clean job in your posting on ‘Jesus the Healer’. It reflects well on you. Best, John"

— John Moles, September 2011 (personal email)
"Thanks much for this book review. I think it expands, and contributes to, the effort in honouring Thomas that we with Lukasz originally had in mind with this volume. Best, Emanuel"

-- Emanuel Pfoh - August 2020
This is superb work, Neil, and reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s work from a century ago. . . . .

I commend you for being the first to even TRY to translate Bruno Bauer’s brilliant Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs, which is now more than 150 years old.

. . . . .Thank you for your historic effort.

-- Paul Trejo, M.A., - November 2022
Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed

Neil Godfrey on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “Schmidt describes as “new evidence” a hypothetical source behind two or so specific witnesses of the TF in late antiquity/early…” Jun 24, 23:56
Stephen on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: ““and not even their calamities [The Jewish War] opened their eyes to the truth” of this ambiguous prophecy applying to…” Jun 24, 23:38
Stephen on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “I think Josephus may be saying the ambiguous prophecy of a world ruler coming out of Judea was true (truth)…” Jun 24, 23:27
Neil Godfrey on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “ἀρετή is not the word being discussed here. I want to keep the focus on what Schmidt himself is arguing.” Jun 24, 21:39
Neil Godfrey on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “It’s worth following through on Nina Livesey’s book that I discussed in depth here: https://vridar.org/tag/livesey-letters-of-paul-in-their-roman-literary-context/ — there is no historical…” Jun 24, 21:31
Neil Godfrey on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “but I guess if they aren’t refuted they just sit in the corpus providing ammunition for each new generation of…” Jun 24, 21:27
db on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: ““ἡδονῇ . . . also to pleasures in doing right, self-sacrifice, spiritual laws etc.” Cf. Arete ‘…being and doing one’s…” Jun 24, 21:12
Stephen on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “Perhaps I should have said: “It might be noted the Gentile churches of Paul also did not like the Jerusalem…” Jun 24, 18:41
Stephen on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “Stephen said: “Therefore I guess Josephus is saying Jesus taught the truth, but to men who received it with worldly…” Jun 24, 17:09

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