Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
I intend in this post to throw an idea into the ring for consideration. I have very little with which to defend the idea but I find it of interest. I have nothing stronger than that as my motive for posting it here: that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was an allusion to … Continue reading “Seeking a Plausible Origin for the Seducing Serpent in the Garden of Eden”
Something I’ve been wanting to start for ages is a compilation of notes from Wesselius’ book as much for my own interest as others. I know it’s not the most popular hypothesis in biblical studies, but gosh it is interesting and at least thought provoking, i think. By the time I finish I may well … Continue reading “Herodotus’ Histories and the Primary History of Israel”
Most of us have been conditioned by the conventional wisdom that the Old Testament books were written between the eighth and fifth centuries. But there is no independent evidence for the existence of any of the Bible’s books or any knowledge of biblical traditions (Davies, 1992 and Vridar.info notes), nor any evidence for the practice … Continue reading “Where Did the God of the Bible Come From? – [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus-Critias – 8]”
How reliable as historical records are the genealogies of patriarchs and the different tribes of Israel? 1977 saw the publication of Robert Wilson’s thesis, Genealogy and History in the Biblical World, a work that set the main framework for further studies of biblical genealogies. Wilson used two different studies of genealogies as a basis for … Continue reading “The Sons of Jacob and the Sons of Heracles”
I am copying here a comment that Philippe Wajdenbaum made in relation to another post. (I have reformatted the original.) Many thanks for this post, and for the quality of your blog. Russell Gmirkin’s “Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible” is a most important book that will elicit a paradigm shift in biblical … Continue reading “Genesis to Kings, the work of a single authorship?”
Before continuing with the scholarship that questions the traditional view that many of the Old Testament books were stitched together from much older texts, let’s lay out on the table a very broad overview of the thesis of a Dutch scholar, Jan-Wim Wesselius (I love his homepage photo and caption), as published in The Origin … Continue reading “Old Testament based on Herodotus? Acts on the myth we read in Virgil?”
This post will open by taking us back thirty or forty years to a scenario in Old Testament scholarship that is remarkably similar to a debate taking place right now among New Testament scholars. I am currently reviewing a book, Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity, that spotlights the flaws of the traditional approaches … Continue reading “Did a Single Author Write Genesis – II Kings? (Demise of the Documentary Hypothesis?)”
What does one make of the two opposing accounts of the creation of humans in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2? In Genesis 1 God manages to fit in the making of the first man and woman — “in his own image”! — just at the close of the last day of creation. Gary Greenberg suggests … Continue reading “Explaining (?) the Contradictory Genesis Accounts of the Creation of Adam and Eve”
The classical Greek myths related to the founding of the colony of Cyrene in North Africa (Libya) are worth knowing about alongside the biblical narrative of the founding of Israel. This post is a presentation of my understanding of some of the ideas of Philippe Wajdenbaum found in a recent article in the Scandinavian Journal … Continue reading “Greek Myths Related to Tales of Abraham, Isaac, Moses and the Promised Land”
I love to read fresh insights that potentially open new understandings on how a biblical author worked to produce what became a part of the foundational canon of western civilization. I’ve recently been catching up with New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism by classics professor George A. Kennedy (1984). Acts 1:1-15:35 seems to be a … Continue reading “A classicist’s insights into how Acts was composed and stitched together”
More occasional notes added here. This time a web page comparing the biblical story of the Exodus with Herodotus’s account of Xerxes‘ invasion of Greece. A table outlines dot points from the views of Dutch Head of Department of Semitic Studies in the Theological University of Kampen, Dr Jan-Wim Wesselius. Not everyone will have a … Continue reading “Moses’ Exodus and Xerxes’ Greek Campaign”