Neil Godfrey

2006-11-21

Jonestown: the power and the myth of Alan Jones / Chris Masters. (Allen & Unwin, 2006) Review

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

by Neil Godfrey

This review is very difficult for me to write given my past student experience with Alan Jones. I’m too involved emotionally and know it’s not like my other reviews and other reviewers will surely give a more rounded view of the book. But here goes anyway — at least pending the time when I will have another look back on this review of mine and reshape it to give a more objective chapter by chapter overview of the contents, sources and presentations. Continue reading “Jonestown: the power and the myth of Alan Jones / Chris Masters. (Allen & Unwin, 2006) Review”

2006-11-20

In Search of Ancient Israel

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by Neil Godfrey

In 1992 Philip Davies published a monograph that began a heated controversy over the origins of the Bible and what light archaeology shed on this question. Davies criticized conventional biblical scholarship for lacking the rigour found in archaeological studies of sites without theological significance. He argued that the archaeological evidence suggested that the Bible was composed as late as the Persian era and that the stories of Abraham, the Exodus, David and Solomon were mythical inventions. I have begun to summarize the argument of Davies’ book, In Search of Ancient Israel.

Book details: Davies’ In search of ancient Israel (Sheffield, 1997)

Neil Godfrey

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bible+archaeology, biblical+archaeology, bible+archeology, biblical+archeology, ancient.israel, bible.history, bible,

Hezbollah not a terrorist organization

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by Neil Godfrey

[NOTE: The link is dead; I would like to post afresh on the nature and history of Hezbollah. — Neil Godfrey, 20th July, 2019]

Link to my earlier discussion on the role and status of Hezbollah. Since that post it was clear that Hezbollah launched rockets into civilian areas in retaliation to the massive Israeli bombardment of Lebanese urban areas. Presumably this was in part to demonstrate to Israel the ineffectiveness of their campaign to destroy Hezbollah. While scarcely on a comparable scale to Israeli bombing of urban areas this sort of bombing by Hezbollah did, sadly, prove that given the means they are capable of acting no differently in a war situation than the Allies did with their aerial bombing campaigns in World War 2.

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
"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
"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 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 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)
"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
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-- Jim West, – September 2010
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
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
"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’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
"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
"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
"Fantastic. I’m so glad you’re helping to spread these ideas!"

Nancy Fraser - June 2019 (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
"I always enjoy reading Neil’s blog because I think that he is careful, thorough, intellectually fair, and honest."

— April DeConick, – November 2007
"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
"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
"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
"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, 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
"These reviews of yours are so bloody weird!"

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"Many thanks for this post, and for the quality of your blog."

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"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, this is actually rather useful. Good job."

— R. Joseph Hoffmann, – June 2014
"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
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 Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “Russell Gmirkin and Robert Tulip referred to Michael Lockwood’s work on Buddhism and Christianity. Another Buddhist who has also studied…” Sep 16, 04:35
ABuddhist on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “From my limited understanding, the traditional narrative about Buddhism’s history in Sri Lanka is very similar to Christianity’s traditional history,…” Sep 15, 16:23
David Ross on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “It *is* interesting; I do like that map of coin hoards. Inasmuch as “India” to a postHellenistic Iranian would mean…” Sep 15, 16:12
Neil Godfrey on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “I loved that book. Thanks for putting it in the context of Dalrymple’s latest publication. If I were on a…” Sep 15, 10:19
Steve Ruis on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “As they say, the victors write the histories and that is certainly true of the Roman Catholic Church. I am…” Sep 15, 00:10
Neil Godfrey on Meet the Prophets of Israel’s Predecessors: “With respect to archaeological finds, the closest we get to the prophets is the the name of Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch.…” Sep 12, 20:47
James Faubel on Meet the Prophets of Israel’s Predecessors: “While we do have some extra-biblical evidence for the existence of at least some of the Kings of Israel and…” Sep 12, 17:41
Al Cannistraro on Meet the Prophets of Israel’s Predecessors: “New Testament connection? https://vridar.org/2013/07/16/brodies-mythicist-case-the-facts/” Sep 12, 08:30
ABuddhist on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “>Some interesting stories in the above, like the “a sramana who burned himself alive in Athens to demonstrate his faith”…” Sep 12, 00:07

Author: Neil Godfrey

2006-11-21

Jonestown: the power and the myth of Alan Jones / Chris Masters. (Allen & Unwin, 2006) Review

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

by Neil Godfrey

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2006-11-20

In Search of Ancient Israel

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

by Neil Godfrey

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Hezbollah not a terrorist organization

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by Neil Godfrey

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