Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I can't see how the Hasmonean usurping of the Zadok priesthood had anything to do with the authorship of Daniel. If the book had been written after 167 BC, everyone would have known it was a recent publication irrespective of whether they were 'hellenised' Jews or 'old style' Jews.

Thanks Jayson for the article. It raises the following question which the late authorship proponents need to answer. If the Book of Daniel was written around 165 B.C., and if the script of two of these fragments is similar to that of the Isaiah scroll, which is dated about 125 BC., then we are less ...

I suspect a lot of people here are not big fans of this type history but I have been following another forum that is about this exact stuff. So what I was wanting to do was throw out an alternative history of the jesus saga if you will. I stop short of calling it a myth as you can see. Let's suppos...

Thanks. It sounds like one of those "tack ons" from the post-captivity era.

When did the “fast of Tammuz” (17th) begin to be observed? Anyone know? :?: I thought that it related to the destruction of the 2nd temple, but Josephus speaks about the "solemnity of the fast" on the 3rd month at the start of Herod's reign. (Antq. 14. ch16. 4) However, I don't recall it b...

Kris wrote:-- it takes me back to my fundy days --

Its called, 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater.'

... I ended up on a weird Christian website that talked about the heifer giving birth to a lamb ... Just a brief note to remind readers here that most such websites are not considered orthodox by mainstream Christianity. From what Ive noticed, they stem from modern 'Hebraic Root' groups which, in t...

... Two major systems were in use: the Babylonian, which counted year 1 SE as beginning with Nisan (spring) 311 BCE; and the Syro-Macedonian, which began year 1 SE with Tishri (autumn) 312 BCE. A major question is which system was used in 1 and 2 Maccabees. Grabbe concludes I argue that a system da...

It's hard to see the wood for the trees sometimes, so I find it quite useful putting events on to a timeline. Here is the 'Maccabean revolt' decade. The greek years are on the top and julian in the middle. The Hebrew years are on the bottom measured from nisan to nisan. (except the Sabbath year whic...

Perhaps you should deal with a little more of the evidence: 1 Macc 4:26-35. Here we have the battle of Beth-Zur prior to the rededication, which was prior to the 9th month of the 148th year (4:52) = Dec 164. Judas later fortified the place (4:61) which was eventually besieged. So the battle of Beth...