Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I have a copy of Kenneth W Harl's Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 BC to AD 700 (Johns Hopkins, 1996). See especially chapter three, "The Denarius and Overseas Expansion," and chapter five, "Currencies of the Roman East." This suggests that Romans did not attempt to convert regi...

Revelation is profoundly Roman Catholic from the front to the back; it just happens to use intertestamental Jewish literature such as Henochian parables and the Testamentd of the Patriarchs; but this does not make it a slightly Christianized anything. Tabor is, at the least, a specialist in apocaly...

Hmmm, Well, the early translator Wm Whiston was of the opinion that Josephus was at the very least a closet Christian. W flourished in the 18th century, when critical scholarship was in its infancy, but seems to not have practiced it himself. There is a long (and boring) introduction and several len...

I have to agree that it is speculative to assert that the Narrative of Zosimus' description of the "Rechabites" can be traced to the Therapeutae of Egypt. On the Contemplative Life has a complicated history. Hard to say whether it was known by this name even in the time of Clement of Alexa...

For those who are interested there is a detailed comparison of the DH as it was popularly taught in 1913 by S R Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (who basically followed Carpenter, who in turn had followed Wellhausen). Also and in 2003 by Richard E. Friedman, The Bible Wit...

Hi DCH, I don't doubt changes over time, and some adopted Greek names. But there was paleo-Hebrew writing before Hellenistic times And there was a Jerusalem temple, before Babylonians destroyed it, that had priests and --I bet--texts. Hi Stephen, Yes, I agree. There was probably something. Of cours...

Hi Stephen, I've often wondered whether Judaism as we know it around the turn of the common era was not a product of the Maccabean revolution and Simon's "popular election" as king. I lump Ezra-Nehemiah-Esdras along with Daniel as products of this era. The Judaism that preceded Antiochus' ...

Have you tried the ORBIS database? It covers land, sea & river travel and estimates travel time by season and by direction, etc. I think the travel times are based on ancient accounts, and geophysical info from a modern meteorological study of wind patterns and travel conditions from 2002. There...

ihaB8AFOhZo In a Psychology class, I was to write a paper on a psychological subject of my choosing. Of course, the subject I chose was one that NOBODY was dealing with in Psychology (can't remember it now, as it would seem silly to me as I see things now), so I cited BR for his philosophical musin...

billd89, Was once reading a geological survey of the Nile delta region, especially as it pertains to the Mareotis lake of early Roman time. I thought I had taken notes, but I am not locating them. It looked like there was an artificial harbor to the Mediterranean, but the lake water was fresh, fed b...