Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Russell Gmirkin did not argue that ALL of the books of the Jewish Bible originated in the Hellenistic era. When I began to post on the earlywritings forum that “Why the Hellenistic era for ALL “Old Testament” books should be taken seriously” I was attempting to set out why it is both possible and plausible … Continue reading “Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 8”
To follow on from my Part 2a comment ….. The biblical works have traditionally been understood as the product of an evolution over centuries, usually said to be from the ninth or eighth to the third centuries, under the influence of Mesopotamian, Hittite, Syrian, Ugaritic, Egyptian cultures. There is a serious problem with that view, … Continue reading “Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 7”
Why the Hellenistic era …. Part 2a In this post I will explain “my personal reason” for strongly suspecting a Hellenistic origin of the biblical literature — though I am sure I have come across the same ideas throughout different books and articles over the years. It follows on from #5 in the preceding post. … Continue reading “Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 6”
By the way, I have informed Stephen Goranson that he is welcome to respond here to my resposting of his criticisms of Russell Gmirkin — despite my earlier prohibition on his posts to this blog. For this series alone I have lifted my relegation of SG’s comments to spam. In Part 4 I pointed to … Continue reading “Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 5”
Stephen Goranson has been a regular critic of Russell Gmirkin. Stephen posted the following points (in the earlywritings forum) that he claimed gave reasonable grounds for dating the entire Hebrew Bible (he referred to the “TaNaK“) before Hellenistic era: There are reasons to consider some TaNaK texts to be older than third century, some of … Continue reading “Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 4”
I’ve addressed the Documentary Hypothesis several times before (see a list of post beginning here). The DH is the basis through which the Hebrew Bible is understood to have begun its development as early as the days of David and Solomon, and in the time of the Babylonian Captivity and through to the period of … Continue reading “Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 3”
In response to the post that I copied here, one consistent critic of Russell Gmirkin’s thesis in particular (and of the Hellenistic era hypothesis for the creation of the Hebrew Bible more generally) posted the following response: Elephantine is the site of a Persian era garrison settlement of Jews in Egypt. For an discussion of … Continue reading “Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 2”
Since I don’t expect to have much time to write new posts again before the end of the year, I will from time to time copy what I once posted on another forum in defence of Russell Gmirkin’s thesis dating the Old Testament books to the Hellenistic era. The orthodox view is that biblical books … Continue reading “Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 1”
By now many of you will have learned of Russell Gmirkin’s sudden passing. I am still trying to process the shock. I was privileged to have had frequent communications with him in the past few years and he was on my short list of people I had hoped to meet in person. His website: https://russellgmirkin.com/ … Continue reading “Russell Gmirkin”
Neils Peter Lemche (link is to my posts referencing NPL) has reviewed archaeologist Yonatan Adler’s The Origins of Judaism (link is to my post on Adler’s book) and related its evidence and argument to the work of Russell Gmirkin’s Plato and the Hebrew Bible. — on which I have posted in depth here. Lemche’s review … Continue reading “Archaeological Support for Gmirkin’s Thesis on Plato and the Hebrew Bible”
Bryn Mawr Classical Review has published a review by Nicholas Banner of Russell Gmirkin’s Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts in addition to giving space for Gmirkin to post a reply. Last year and early this year I posted a series on the same work: Plato and the Biblical Creation Accounts (Gmirkin). Banner’s judgment … Continue reading “BMCR Review of Russell Gmirkin’s Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts”
1. Biblical Creation Accounts and Plato – 1 2022-09-25 In his opening chapter RG explains how he will go about identifying the sources behind the Primordial History gives an overview of the history of the scholarly views of Genesis 1-11 and where his own research fits(hint: it all started with the Copenhagen school of biblical … Continue reading “Plato and the Biblical Creation Accounts (Gmirkin)“
. . . with Russell Gmirkin’s book, Plato and the Hebrew Bible These three Vridar posts have been translated into Polish and posted on the Testimonia blog: 1. Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible 2. The Pentateuch’s Debt to Greek Laws and Constitutions — A New Look 3. David, an Ideal Greek Hero — … Continue reading “Vridar Goes to Poland with Russell Gmirkin, Plato and the Hebrew Bible”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9znMWH3LC9E Vridar posts on Russell Gmirkin’s books discussed in the podcast: Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible .