Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…. There was once a very pious man who lived in a city that had been taken over by very wicked people. Messengers from the deity came to visit that pious man and were very impressed with his hospitality toward them even though he did not know they … Continue reading “Two Mini-Apocalypses, Greek and Biblical & A Common Mythic Grammar”
This post is a presentation of a few of the key points set out by Steve Mason in his 2016 study A History of the Jewish War, AD 66-74. The points are taken from the first part of his second chapter titled Understanding Historical Evidence. I found his explanation a most enjoyable read because it … Continue reading “Understanding Historical Evidence”
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?”
I have made a correction to a serious error in my recent post How Plato Inspired Moses: Creation of the Hebrew Bible. In that post I took credit for identifying many parallels between the Hebrew Bible and Plato’s Laws prior to reading Russell Gmirkin’s book. I should have acknowledged — and I have now made … Continue reading “Correction to my latest post on Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible“
Plato’s Laws provides the only example in antiquity of an ethical or national literature comparable to the Hebrew Bible. . . . . . . . One may therefore reasonably propose that the biblical authors not only found in Plato’s Laws a blueprint for the creation of a persuasive legal code, but a mandate and … Continue reading “How Plato Inspired Moses: Creation of the Hebrew Bible”
One of the oddities for us moderns of the Genesis creation account is that the sun, moon and stars are not created until the fourth day of the week even though light was created on the first day and vegetation on the third. How can light exist without the sun? That’s our first thought. (If … Continue reading “Why the Sun, Moon, Stars Were Created So Late in the Week”
The previous post on this topic ended with the following: The first genuinely biographical detail of Jesus arrives when Jesus is twelve years old facing the wise men in the Temple. We learn about the parents’ very natural and everyday concerns and the “adolescent arrogance” of Jesus, his separation from this world, his first signs … Continue reading “Evolution of the Gospels as Biographies, 2”
This post continues the discussion of Russell Gmirkin’s Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible. All posts in the series can be accessed in the archive. –o0o– After discussing the popularity of Greek foundation stories and the appearance of the same genre in the Pentateuch, Gmirkin looks at one more type of narrative that is … Continue reading “Plato and the Hebrew Bible: Political Evolution in Literature”
The Bible’s narratives evidently share much of the cultural heritage of ancient Syria and Mesopotamia but zoom in for a more detailed study and one arguably sees many signs of a distinctively Greek influence. That’s the argument of Russell Gmirkin in Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible. Previous posts in this series that … Continue reading “The Tribes of Israel modeled on the Athenian and Ideal Greek Tribes?”
Russell Gmirkin in his new book, Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible draws attention to striking similarities between the Pentateuch (the first five books of the “Old Testament”) on the one hand and Plato’s last work, Laws, and features of the Athenian constitution on the other. Further, even the broader collection of writings that … Continue reading “Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible”
It’s not always a happy experience to get to know too much about some of our favourite talents. Forgive my latecomer status to this little bit of knowledge — but I have just learned that Alice in Wonderland contains a number of scenes that were inspired by the author’s disdain for Darwin’s theory of evolution. … Continue reading “Hidden Meanings and Memories”
The ancient Greek world appears to have been ignorant of the Jews (or even Israel) in Palestine until around the end of the fourth century. I still recall my high school disappointment when I read the famous work of the Greek “father of history”, Herodotus, only to find not a single mention of biblical Judea even though … Continue reading “Judea, an Ideal State of the Greek Philosophers?”
This post complements my previous one about the Ham “seeing his father’s nakedness” story developing in three stages: Originally the story was an adaption of the myths of the youngest son castrating his father (the motive: to maintain an inheritance) Then it was more delicately shifted to a story of illicit sex And finally most … Continue reading “Castration of Ouranos and the Drunkenness of Noah”
This post continues from my earlier one that concluded with Mark W. G. Stibbe’s “very broad list of similarities” between Euripides’ Bacchae (a play about the god Dionysus) and the Gospel of John. Stibbe discusses these similarities in John As Storyteller: Narrative Criticism and the Fourth Gospel. What Mark Stibbe is arguing Stibbe makes it … Continue reading “Jesus and Dionysus (2): Comparison of John’s Gospel and Euripides’ Play”