Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Leaving aside intellectually fraught efforts to argue that ancient Israel is an epic fiction manufactured in the Persian or Greek era — an effort that will forever stumble over the Merneptah stele— . . . . . Jonathan Bernier, Re-Visioning Ancient Israel, 23rd March 2019 Such statements (this is but one example) mystify me. They … Continue reading “The Great Divide in Biblical Studies”
Philip R. Davies, In Search of Ancient Israel (1992) pp. 35-36 historical research by biblical scholars has taken a . . . circular route, whose stages can be represented more or less as follows: Davies then lists the four assumptions that these scholars have brought to their study: 1. The biblical writers, when writing about the past, … Continue reading “Bible Scholars Who Get History Right”
Someone asked me who among atheists were critical of Jesus mythicism when I posted Atheist Hostility to Jesus Mythicism … making sense of it and a number have questioned my own view of why they do, or at least have offered alternative viewpoints. All fair enough. Meanwhile, someone on Facebook chided me for not having read … Continue reading “On mythicism, creationism and the wrath of ancient kings”
… Continuing from PZ Myers interviews a historian about Jesus mythicism and How do historians decide who was historical, who fictional? –o– PZ Myers asks: How do we approach this kind of topic? Eddie Marcus, introduced as a professional historian, responds: Eddie Marcus informs listeners that his expertise is in Australian culture and history, not … Continue reading “How do we approach the question of Jesus being historical or mythical?”
Genre can be a highly fluid concept. In studies of Gospels I’ve noticed that discussions of genre sometimes overlap with intertextuality. Moreover, we may conclude that an ancient narrative belongs to the genre “history”, but once we learn what “history” could mean to the ancients we quickly move into discussions about the place of fictional … Continue reading “Genre of Gospels, Acts and OT Primary History: INDEX“
Philip R. Davies has died. Philip Davies was a major influence on my own understanding of the origins and history of ancient Israel, including the origins and nature of the Hebrew Bible. I understand that his book, In Search of Ancient Israel, was groundbreaking in that it influenced the way many of his peers came … Continue reading “Tribute to an Influential Scholar – Philip R. Davies”
One of the purposes of Vridar is to share what its authors have found of interest in biblical scholarship that unfortunately tends not to be easily accessible to the wider lay public. (Of course, our interests extend into political, science and other topics, too. For further background see the authors’ profiles and the explanations linked … Continue reading “Reply to Larry Hurtado: “Why the “Mythical Jesus” Claim Has No Traction with Scholars””
Continuing from Plato and the Hebrew Bible: Legal Narratives (esp. Panegyrics), continued . . . . There is one more Greek comparative illustration I wanted to look at before picking up with Gmirkin’s main example as I promised at the end of the previous post. I had meant to look at a section in Plato’s Timaeus before … Continue reading “Plato and the Hebrew Bible: Legal Narratives continued . . . Solon and Atlantis”
The previous post, How Does One Date the Old Testament Writings?, was a step back for a broader look through a discussion by Niels Peter Lemche at the kind of literature we find in the Pentateuch, how it compares with literature expressing similar interests and ideas found in other ancient literature, and the relevance of this … Continue reading “Plato and the Hebrew Bible: Law-Giving Narratives as Greek-Inspired Literature”
Jim West, a biblical studies pastor whose name sometimes appears in publications alongside the likes of Thomas L. Thompson and Niels Peter Lemche, and who also runs a blog that I follow for its occasional titbits of news on recent publications, did not earn his academic qualifications at an accredited university, if I understand correctly, … Continue reading “Peer Review may be problematic, but it’s not this bad….”
Postmodernism has been making its inroads into historical Jesus studies with what I think are most convenient results. This post is a plug for the old-fashioned rules for the proper way to do history. We can’t get any more old-fashioned than the nineteenth century founder of modern history, Leopold von Ranke, who has become a … Continue reading “The Basics of History — They’re Still the Basics”
How does one go about questioning and engaging in discussion views that we find problematic. Jim Davila, Professor of Early Jewish Studies at the University of St Andrews, was impressed with words of wisdom posted by Larry Hurtado, Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology at the University of Edinburgh, to add good advice of his … Continue reading “Wise Words from Larry Hurtado and Jim Davila”
I have been posting insights from Russell Gmirkin’s Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible (archived here) in which he argues that both many core and peripheral features of the text of the Hebrew Bible bear closer similarities to Classical Greek writings and practices than to what we find in ancient Mesopotamian and Levantine culture. … Continue reading “How Does One Date the Old Testament Writings?”
A number of biblical scholars appear to be afflicted with something akin to the Red Scare or the Yellow Menace of the old Cold War days. They don’t need to know much about communism to know that it’s bad and evil and a threat to everything decent and that it appeals mostly to benighted minds in … Continue reading “Why do professional scholars blog this sort of vacuous nonsense?”