Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
This post looks at the rise of the dominant scholarly hypothesis that the Old Testament came together through the efforts of various editors over time collating and editing a range of earlier sources. The structure and bulk of the contents of the post is taken from Philippe Wajdenbaum’s discussion of the Documentary Hypothesis. The complete … Continue reading “Who wrote the Bible? Rise of the Documentary Hypothesis”
In recent posts on Dr Philippe Wajdenbaum’s thesis I shared a few passages from the opening pages of his introductory chapter. One reader responded with a series of points with which I suspect many other readers concur. To sum up the tone and reduce it to its most concentrated essence the criticism appears to be … Continue reading “Argonauts of the Desert: a defence of an anthropologist’s interpretation of the Bible”
In my previous post presenting a few comments by social anthropologist Philippe Wajdenbaum from his thesis Argonauts of the Desert I quoted his summary conclusion of a Claude Lévi-Straussian structural analysis of the Bible: The Bible is a Hebrew narrative tainted with theological and political philosophy and inspired by the writings of Plato, one that is embellished with … Continue reading “Anthropologist’s analysis of the Bible and of Biblical Studies as a variant of the Bible’s myth”
Updated with additional statement of PW’s conclusion about 40 minutes after original posting. Dr Philippe Wajdenbaum has written the thesis I would have loved to have written and it perhaps could only have been written at this time by an anthropologist — a field I was once advised to enter. How sometimes our lives could … Continue reading “Anthropologist spotlights the Bible and Biblical Studies”
6th August: expanded “the trial” comparison into “The face to face confrontation of secular and religious leaders“ Comparing other rabbinic midrash with the Gospels In my previous post I covered Galit Hasan-Rokem’s comparisons of some early Christian and rabbinic midrash. In this post I comment on Hasan-Rokem’s discussions of other tales in the midrash of … Continue reading “Messiahs, Midrash and Mythemes — more comparisons with the Gospels”
There can be little doubt that when we read the Gospels and the books of Revelation and Acts we encounter many stories that sound remarkably like myths. Prison doors opening by themselves to release heroes, dragons descending from heavens to pursue comely women upon earth, finding coins in caught fish, raising the dead and walking … Continue reading “Explaining (the Gospel) Myths”
The classical Greek myths related to the founding of the colony of Cyrene in North Africa (Libya) are worth knowing about alongside the biblical narrative of the founding of Israel. This post is a presentation of my understanding of some of the ideas of Philippe Wajdenbaum found in a recent article in the Scandinavian Journal … Continue reading “Greek Myths Related to Tales of Abraham, Isaac, Moses and the Promised Land”
When I wrote a series of posts on resonances between the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes and several features of Old Testament narratives, I confessed I did not know how to understand or interpret the data. But someone else does. Philippe Wajdenbaum in 2008 defended his anthropology doctoral thesis, “Argonauts of the Desert: Structural Analysis … Continue reading “The Bible’s roots in Greek mythology and classical authors: Isaac and Phrixus”