Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
#. From Adapa to Jesus (2019-02-07) This post is not part of the main series but a standalone on but one detail, addressing one mythical trope and its apparent recycling and refashioning through changing circumstances and experiences: the myth of Adapa and the South Wind is discussed against the story of Jesus stilling the … Continue reading “From Adapa to Enoch (Sanders)“
We have two models for the origin of the biblical and its ancillary literature. According to Seth Sanders in From Adapa to Enoch we have a progression from the late Iron Age to the Seleucid era. The early period (during the time of the kingdom of Judah before its exile) we have “public genres of … Continue reading “More Thoughts on Origins of Biblical and Pseudepigraphical Literature”
I have been posting on points of interest in Seth Sanders’ From Adapa to Enoch: Scribal Culture and Religious Vision in Judea and Babylon and have reached a point where I cannot help but bring in certain contrary and additional perspectives from another work I posted on earlier, Russell Gmirkin’s Plato and the Creation of … Continue reading “Who Influenced Biblical and Second Temple Jewish Literature?”
Questioning the historical existence of Jesus attracts something other than mere curiosity or intellectual debate among many biblical scholars and some of the public who don’t even have any personal interest in religion. I can understand people with a personal faith in Jesus either simply ignoring the question with disdain or amusement or responding with … Continue reading “Understanding the Hostility to the Christ Myth Theory”
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”
Chaim Milikowsky gives his answer to the question in the title, or at least he answers the question with respect to rabbinical literature. I have added the connection to our canonical four gospels, and I could with equal justice add Acts of the Apostles. I read CM’s answer in Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early … Continue reading “Why the Rabbis (and Gospel Authors, too) Wrote Fiction as “True History””
I have posted many times on the works of scholars who have argued that none or very little of the Hebrew Bible can be dated before the Persian or Hellenistic periods: Thompson, Lemche, Davies, Whitelam, Gmirkin, Wajdenbaum, Wisselius, Mandell & Freedman(?) and possibly others whom memory fails at this moment. So what does the “other side” … Continue reading “The Age of the Hebrew Bible — the other view”
The question of parallels has been raised in different posts and comments lately on Vridar. Firstly, I questioned Joseph Atwill’s claim that there was a parallel between Jesus calling disciples to become “fishers of men” beside the “sea of Galilee” and a scene in Josephus’ War where Romans kill drowning Judeans in a battle that … Continue reading “When is a parallel a real parallel and not parallelomania?”
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”
Were the first books of the “Old Testament” composed by “redactors” piecing together stories from different sources (that has long been the predominant view) or is it possible that they were composed by a single author or “school of authors”? The former is the documentary hypothesis. For a background on the documentary hypothesis refer to … Continue reading “Another look at the Documentary Hypothesis. An alternative proposal.”
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”
Here are all the posts I have completed so far on Russell Gmirkin’s book, Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible. You can also read an extended abstract or chapter by chapter outline by Gmirkin himself on his academia.edu page. As you can see I have not yet begun to post anything on the … Continue reading “Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible – Post #32”