Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I agree that Isaac is an odd bird, but surely Abraham's activity is also questionable. Other lies include Jacob tricking Isaac to give him Esau's blessing Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau, your first-born; I have done as you told me. Pray sit up and eat of my game, that you may give me your...

It's not clear Abraham was lying about Sarah being his sister. And besides, she is in truth my sister, my father's daughter though not my mother's; and she became my wife. (Gen 20:12 TNK) Their relationship was incestuous, where the argument is given that it was ok because the Torah wasn't given yet...

Ki_Teitzei which we just read in the synagogue, has a lot of odd laws such as the Beautiful Captive. There is also a remarkable amount of commentary about pubic hair which I wasn't aware of before last Saturday. It is impossible to talk intelligently about the Rebellious Son without discussing pubi...

Finkelstein notes the relative accuracy of the Kings chronology. I mentioned that also in the biblical figures in history thread and wondered if I was becoming too conservative in my old age or if I'd made a mistake (God forbid). The demographic issues are interesting and not easy to get a handle on...

Thanks for posting the link. That saves at least $20 from amazon. So far as I understand, the material is more or less from Finkelstein's previous books. I'm not clear on Stephen Huller's opinions but they call Israel forgotten because there is very little stuff from First Temple times - depending o...

Last week, we read Eikev in the synagogue. This includes and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab son of Reuben, when the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them, along with their households, their tents, and every living thing in their train, from amidst all Israel (Deu 11:6 TNK) Moses...

This is also an interesting article that will help you understand how biblically the age of creation is calaculated by ancient rabbi's http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html From The world may be young and old simultaneously. We can derive The explanation may be idiotic and absurd simultaneously....

While the ideas Bernard Muller and John Collins seem reasonable, I'm not sure what they are specifically based on. And I explained that on my website: http://historical-jesus.info/daniel.html Cordially, Bernard I've looked at your website several times. You refer to Notes on Some Problems in the Bo...

Aramaic is tricky to date. There is the well known case of Gershom_Scholem who famously dated the Zohar to the 13th century and authored by Moses_de_León I n the mid-20th century, the Jewish historian Gershom Scholem contended that de Leon himself was the most likely author of the Zohar. Among other...

Speaking of Daniel, I actually looked at part of it last night and Jews is mentioned twice 3:8 and 3:12 - needless to say I saw this immediately after my incorrect comment above. This section is written in Aramaic so the spelling is different - יְהוּדָיֵֽא . We also see the same spelling in the Aram...