Vridar
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Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from naturalist's perspective.
Vridar
4d ago
Recent posts have focussed on the case for the earliest books of the Bible being composed as late as the Hellenistic era, that is less than 300 years before Christ. The longstanding conventional wisdom has understood the first biblical narratives go back to the time of King David (around 1000 BCE) or at least to ..read more
Vridar
1w ago
Our quest is to test the thesis that the earliest books of the Bible were written or at least heavily redacted and supplemented in the Persian period. To that end we have trying to understand what Persian era candidate “biblical” societies were like. We’ve looked at Judeans in Persian times according to the evidence in ..read more
Vridar
1w ago
I am continuing here with my responses to criticisms raised on the earlywritings forum. The next objection raised was: I can’t help feeling that proponents of a Hellenistic origin of the Old Testament must postulate conditions in the early Hellenistic period for which (at least IMO) we have no direct evidence and which (at least IMO ..read more
Vridar
1w ago
Having surveyed what the archaeological evidence tells us about religious practices of the Judeans in Elephantine (see the previous post) let’s now compare the evidence for Judah and Samaria in the same period. This time I am quoting only two sources, a chapter by Reinhard G. Kratz in A Companion to the Achaemenid Empire and ..read more
Vridar
2w ago
I am continuing here with my responses to criticisms raised on the earlywritings forum against the proposal that the first biblical texts were composed as late as around 270 years before Christ. (I had looked forward to continuing the discussion on that forum until I lost confidence in the sub-forum’s promise to be an “academic ..read more
Vridar
2w ago
Several hundred, young and old, held a public rally and march today calling for federal, state and local governments to cut direct support for Israel and businesses doing business with Israel at this time. Not many by a long shot, and of course it was ignored even by the local TV news media. Among the ..read more
Vridar
2w ago
My title refers to the anonymous texts in both the Old and New Testaments and why among those anonymous works we encounter numerous contradictions, even within the same works. I came across one of the clearest explanations to this question in David’s Secret Demons by Baruch Halpern. Halpern explains why “Near Eastern” writing is so ..read more
Vridar
2w ago
In my previous post I wrote, I intend to follow up my last three posts with another that, not really to be contrary, notes evidence that there probably were “religious reforms” in Judah around the time of Josiah. I hope readers will see how they “fit with” but do not overturn the view that the biblical story ..read more
Vridar
3w ago
In my last three posts I explained why I believe we have sound reasons for thinking that the Old Testament story of King Josiah’s “book of the law”, generally understood by modern scholars as the book of Deuteronomy, is a “pious fiction.” I further proposed reasons for believing the story to have originated in Hellenistic ..read more