Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Between 1400-1200 BC. My roommate brought me back the Green Stone of Eilat , two months ago. Not sure what the Green Stone of Eilat is, but if you are interested in the metallurgic theory referred to in that Haaretz article, here is the academia.edu page for Nissim Amzallag where a number of his es...

But the Jews and Samaritans had replica ten commandments. Had to have come from somewhere. It's like the Christians with their cross. No there's no Jesus on the crucifix necessarily. But the cross implies the crucifixion of Jesus the way the replica commandments imply Sinai. Hmmm. I'm not sure that...

1. light is created by an act of will, from the mind, of the creator in Genesis -- as per Greek scientific thought […] Speech is a literary device that is used to express something in the mind or nature or intent of the speaker. In the Iranian comparison there is nothing even closely comparable. It...

I agree that the good in Genesis has some sort of relationship to Plato's notion of the good... it's just that I'm not sure it is simply a direct derivative of it. And certainly, in a literary (not philosophical) sense it functions differently in Genesis: it is not applied to the creator but appear...

The Genesis creation account is the central topic of my 2022 book, Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts: Cosmic Monotheism and Terrestrial Polytheism in the Primordial History. I talk about the raqia or dome of the firmament in several passages I can’t agree with Gmirkin’s assertion t...

The problem with many discussions of "influence" or "parallels" or "borrowing" in culture (whether literature, crafts and arts, technologies, social systems) is that it is all too easy for one to fall into the trap of addressing only the differences and then spinning r...

I thought it was amazing. I love the Torah. It's so cool to have one centralized event as the focus of a religion. But here you see how efforts were made to "decentralize" the giving of the Law. Even when we read the text it's like we aren't allowed to get a clear picture. Doesn't the ide...

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 9:03 am But surely if it came second and the former was from God, it's by man and a poor imitation of divine authorship.

See what you make of this essay by David Frankel: The Covenant in Moab: Deuteronomy Without Horeb

Morton Smith characterized Deuteronomy as a forgery because of this. Native Hebrew speakers readily identify the differences. My Samaritan friend for instance, devoutly religious, admits Deuteronomy was not written by the same person. ... Our surviving copies of Deuteronomy deliberately "diale...

However, G consistently merges the Mesopotamians as "Babylonian and Assyrian educated elites" which isn't right as the Babylonians weren't elites, they were deportees. It was usually the elites who were deported. The "peasants" were usually left behind. The elites transported ba...