The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

Post by neilgodfrey »

austendw wrote: Wed May 03, 2023 8:26 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Tue May 02, 2023 10:39 pmIt is built on the same methodological flaw as is study of gospel origins: the presumption that the narrative contains some historical core. That is, as Philip Davies pointed out, circularity.
But an idea can become so entrenched that not even Philip Davies could bring himself to place it later than the Persian period. We had to wait for Lemche to come out and say what no-one had dared till then to say.
I think you are mistaken to dis Davies in this way. As far as I remember, he was not so rash as to jettison all diachronic analysis of biblical texts. Unlike Lemche who penned these words:
The conclusion that historical-critical scholarship is based on a false methodology and leads to false conclusions simply means that we can disregard 200 years of bible scholarship and commit it to the dustbin. It is hardly worth the paper on which it is printed. (N.P. Lemche, “On the Problems of Reconstructing Pre-Hellenistic Israelite (Palestinian) History”, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 3 (2000) 1–12).
Junking 200 years of scholarship because you believe the scholars came at the problem from the wrong angle is not only pretty arrogant, but an expression what I can't help but think of as a sort of scholarly Stalinism. This has encouraged scholarship in which serious examination of the language, form and context of biblical writings, is rarely employed to any significant degree, which I think is regressive and really a bit sad.

(Forgive the hyperbole, but this is the internet, after all... though I've edited it to tone it down a smidgin.)
I took your comment out of context in my previous reply, I see. ....

Neither Davies nor Gmirkin nor Lemche discounts the textual inconsistencies and breaks and oddities that are noticed in the biblical writings. It is not as though the questions raised by the Documentary Hypothesis are thrown out. But the interpretations, explanations for those textual questions are different when approached through different models. If those models are not based on circular reasoning then they have to be more valid than those that are.

It also cannot be ignored that the dominant ideas in biblical studies really are the preserve of ideologically committed scholars. Biblical studies really is not as "pure" as, say, physics or genetics. The responses to Davies' book In Search of Ancient Israel in which he exposed the circularity of the orthodox paradigms is evidence enough of that.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

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StephenGoranson wrote: Wed May 03, 2023 2:03 pm neilgodfrey wrote, above, in part:
"....Gmirkin is not a "minimalist"...."
Is that true?
A side issue raised by the emergence of the Hellenistic research paradigm that caused controversy at the time was the relative weight to be assigned to the terminus a quo and terminus ad quern, the earliest and latest possible dates, in seeking out the likeliest date of composition for a biblical text. According to Lemche (1993), although a biblical text might draw on earlier sources (cf. Lemche 2011), the proper starting point for assigning a date to a biblical text was its latest possible date, when there was definite knowledge v that the text in question existed, rather than seeking hypothetical contexts in biblical times, under a Solomon, a Josiah, or an Ezra, when our only source of information is that of biblical historiography. This approach led to the labeling of the Copenhagen school of biblical criticism as “Minimalist,” in contrast to the “Maximalist” approach that routinely assigned biblical texts significantly earlier dates. The relative merits of the arguments of the Minimalist versus Maximalist debate need not concern us here, since the methodology adopted in the present study gives preferential weight to neither the earliest nor latest possible date, collecting critical comparative and source critical evidence across the whole allowable date range before drawing inferences.
--- Gmirkin, Russell E. Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts: Cosmic Monotheism and Terrestrial Polytheism in the Primordial History. Abingdon, Oxon New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. pp. 15f
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Re: The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

Post by StephenGoranson »

pretends not to be a minimalist?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

Post by neilgodfrey »

StephenGoranson wrote: Wed May 03, 2023 2:35 pm pretends not to be a minimalist?
of course. he is a very bad man.
austendw
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Re: The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

Post by austendw »

John2 wrote: Wed May 03, 2023 1:18 pm Austen's like having a new Ben.
Is that an insult or a compliment?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

Post by neilgodfrey »

On the question of "junking" an older set of work......

The "junking" is not the initial response -- that would be arrogance, as has been noted here. But "junking" old computer books from the 1990s, let's say for comparison, is valid if since then their "use by" dates have long since expired. As mentioned above, the junking, insofar as that term is to be understood in Lemche's original context (I believe), happens after there has been serious engagement with what is to be junked -- and its flaw and foundations thoroughly dealt with.

Gmirkin wrote elsewhere:
Minimalism, which arose in the early 1990s and allowed for biblical texts to have been authored in the Hellenistic Era using Greek texts, is an entirely distinct competing research paradigm. It is not a debate or “trend” within an existing paradigm, but fundamentally incompatible with the naked assumptions of the former paradigm.
That is Davies' point in In Search of Ancient Israel. It is not "arrogance" but insight to see that the "old paradigm" is in effect an attempt to build on the stories in the Bible as if they are grounded in history. The assumption has been that the bible stories are based on historical traditions.

But that has always been assumption. Archaeologists went to the field looking for Solomon's temple and the walls of Jericho etc.

What attracted me to the methods of the Thompsons and Davies and Lemches and Whitelams was their alignment with the methods of other (non-biblical) historians of ancient times. The two approaches are, unfortunately, incompatible.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

Post by Peter Kirby »

austendw wrote: Wed May 03, 2023 2:55 pm
John2 wrote: Wed May 03, 2023 1:18 pm Austen's like having a new Ben.
Is that an insult or a compliment?
It's the highest compliment you can receive here.
austendw
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Re: The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

Post by austendw »

Peter Kirby wrote: Wed May 03, 2023 3:00 pm
austendw wrote: Wed May 03, 2023 2:55 pm
John2 wrote: Wed May 03, 2023 1:18 pm Austen's like having a new Ben.
Is that an insult or a compliment?
It's the highest compliment you can receive here.
Is that an insult or a compliment?
John2
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Re: The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

Post by John2 »

Oh, my. It's a compliment, Austen. :)
John2
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Re: The Old Testament - A Hellenistic Book?

Post by John2 »

I never imagined it could be taken in any other way. Ben was great.
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