2019-02-01

Very sad news

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

by Neil Godfrey

In memoriam: Dr. Hermann Detering—Pt. 1

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider donating to Vridar. Thanks!

85282

"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
"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
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
"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
"These reviews of yours are so bloody weird!"

— James Crossley, – April 2010
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
"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)
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
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 always enjoy reading Neil’s blog because I think that he is careful, thorough, intellectually fair, and honest."

— April DeConick, – November 2007
"Fantastic. I’m so glad you’re helping to spread these ideas!"

Nancy Fraser - June 2019 (personal email)
"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
"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)
"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)
"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)
"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
"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’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
"Neil, this is actually rather useful. Good job."

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

— Philippe Wajdenbaum, – November 2018
"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
"Very good. This post is going straight to the March 2016 Biblical Studies Carnival."

—N.T. Wrong, – March 2016

Neil Godfrey on Further Agreement with the Hellenistic Dating of the Hebrew Scriptures: “To shift the focus somewhat: There’s an interesting question posed by Diebner in his chapter on 2 Kings 22. He…” Aug 29, 02:05
Neil Godfrey on Historical Jesus: two vacuous responses from Dunn on Price: “We can assume that the gospel narratives are based on some basic core facts; we can assume that the story…” Aug 28, 22:31
Niels Peter Lemche on Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 8: “A short question based on a quesgtion formulated in my The Old Testam,ent: A Hellenistic Book? SJOT 1993: Is there…” Aug 28, 16:58
Niels Peter Lemche on Further Agreement with the Hellenistic Dating of the Hebrew Scriptures: “You write: “There was no historical Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, or Josiah.” Not absolutely happy with the formulation. I see…” Aug 28, 14:32
Jonathan on Making of a Mythicist, Act 1, Scene 2: “Brodie seems to be one of too few Biblical scholars that get the important things correct. Brodie thinks Genesis was…” Aug 28, 03:07
db on Historical Jesus: two vacuous responses from Dunn on Price: “Bruno says, “…initially Christians spread the message [about a prominent historical figure executed in 1st-century Judea,] “Jesus, the Messiah was…” Aug 27, 18:56
Bruno on Historical Jesus: two vacuous responses from Dunn on Price: “I don’t quite understand why it’s problematic to assume that initially Christians spread the message “Jesus, the Messiah was crucified”…” Aug 27, 16:19
Neil Godfrey on Good King Josiah: Why did he have to die like that? (Like Moses? Like Jesus?): “still recovering, thanks. (and still have emails to catch up with.) — my previous message was tongue in cheek –…” Aug 24, 03:45

Share this:

Like this:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Discover more from Vridar