Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
In a comment to the previous post, Russell Gmirkin took issue with my explanation of Kuhn’s definition of a paradigm and my conclusion that fields of study outside of natural sciences don’t have Kuhnian paradigms, and hence no “paradigm shifts.” He quoted from his forthcoming book, as follows: One may define an academic paradigm as … Continue reading “Paradigm Shifts in Religious Studies (Part 3)”
We know the story of Elisha retrieving the iron axe head by having it float to the surface of a river. It is in 2 Kings 6:1-7: The company of the prophets said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. Let us go to the Jordan, … Continue reading “From Hermes to Yahweh”
My original plan for a single post has now stretched out into four. Time to wrap up with Russell Gmirkin’s explanation for the relationship between the Solomon narrative and Assyrian records of Shalmaneser’s ninth century conquests and subsequent (eighth century) Assyrian building accounts. The close correspondence between Sennacherib’s building account of Solomon’s temple and palace … Continue reading “How the Story of Solomon Emerged from Assyrian and Babylonian Elites — part 4”
One of the main tasks of the historian is to compare and cross-reference sources. If different sources attest independently to the same phenomenon, the historical reliability of that phenomenon is greatly enhanced. Thus, the biblical description of Solomon’s Temple, the stone building model from Khirbet Qeiyafa, and the temple from Motza correspond to one another, … Continue reading “Solomon’s Palace and Temple as Re-worked Assyrian Accounts — part 3”
In the previous post we saw that the biblical account assigned the same boundaries as the later Assyrian empire (150 years after Solomon’s near-namesake Shalmaneser III) to the kingdom of Israel in the time of Solomon. And Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines, as far … Continue reading “The Acts of Solomon as a Neo-Assyrian Composition — part 2”
Here we [begin to] conclude our overview of Russell Gmirkin’s chapter ‘Solomon’ (Shalmaneser III) and the Emergence of Judah as an Independent Kingdom by addressing his view that the Acts of Solomon that we read about in 1 Kings were sourced from records of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser. For context see the previous two posts: … Continue reading “Is Solomon’s Glory Based on the Assyrian Shalmaneser III’s Exploits? – part 1”
Here I bring together different scholarly views on the sources cited in the Old Testament books of Kings directing readers to other writings for further information about a particular monarch. I conclude with a new perspective on one of those sources (the chronicles or annals of the kings of Judah) that would actually subvert the … Continue reading “Those Sources the Bible Cites”
This post is based on Russell Gmirkin’s chapter, “‘Solomon’ (Shalmaneser III) and the Emergence of Judah as an Independent Kingdom”, in the Thomas L. Thompson festschrift, Biblical Narratives, Archaeology and Historicity. All posts addressing the same volume are archived here. Russel Gmirkin’s conclusions (p. 77): • That the area later known as the kingdom of … Continue reading “Reconstructing the History of “Biblical” Israel and Judah”
The previous posts in this series: 25th August 2020 (introduction and Part 1 and half of Part 2) 27th August 2020 (completion of Part 2) 28th August 2020 (first half of Part 3) This post concludes my overview of the festschrift to Thomas L. Thompson on his 80th birthday. I hope to post soon a … Continue reading “conclusion … Biblical Narratives, Archaeology, Historicity – Essays in Honour of Thomas L. Thompson”
Why a volume of essays in honour of Thomas L. Thompson? The opening paragraph of the Introduction explains (with my highlighting): Thomas L. Thompson has been, for the past five decades, behind some of the – if not all – major changes in Old Testament historiography, if we consider that his criticism of the patriarchal … Continue reading “Biblical Narratives, Archaeology, Historicity – Essays in Honour of Thomas L. Thompson”
Excerpts from Philippe Wajdenbaum’s Argonauts of the Desert (related to an earlier post, Biblical Scholars, Symbolic Violence, and the Modern Version of an Ancient Myth) where he draws upon the study of structures of myths by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss: . . . to give an interpretation of a myth is to create a new variant … Continue reading “Historical Jesus Scholarship and Mythmaking”
We declared a while ago on Vridar that we would never sell anything so I am at this moment trapped between gratitude and principle. Yale University Press kindly agreed to send me a review copy of M. David Litwa’s How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths but, as it turned out, they requested their … Continue reading “Review, pt 1a: How the Gospels Became History / Litwa”
After reviewing the efforts of Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey to present their respective cases for the historicity of Jesus we now come to chapter 4, Inadequate Methods. By way of summing up the previous discussion Raphael Lataster writes The recent defences of Jesus’ historicity by Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey lack lucid and competent … Continue reading “Review part 4: Questioning the Historicity of Jesus / Lataster (Case for Agnosticism – I, Methods)”
In the right hand column I have added links to three new blog pages. They are under the Archives by Topic (Annotated) heading. Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son (Levenson)| From Adapa to Enoch (Sanders) Plato and the Hebrew Bible (Gmirkin)