Toto

Mainly it influences them to deny the validity of the archeology.

The Hebrews as a nation did exist, and they invented the myth of the Exodus for the usual reasons (nation-building, political power struggles.)

If George Washington never chopped down that cherry tree, or the minute men took a minute to get ready, or Paul Bunyan never had a blue ox, there would still be a US.

Bede

Apikorus,

What do you make of Thompson? Michael praises him above.

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Apikorus

I think Thompson's early work on the historicity of the patriarchal narratives was outstanding and extremely influential. What he showed was that the Mesopotamian parallels do not demand a second millenium setting, but often fit well just as well in the first millenium. There was a time about 40 or 50 years ago when biblical scholarship was overly enamored of the Mesopotamian parallels (see e.g. Speiser's Anchor Bible commentary to Genesis, which is now being redone).

I wasn't so impressed by "The Mythic Past" though. I think Thompson has gone off the deep end a bit in downdating the entire Hebrew Bible to Persian (and even Hellenistic) times. It seems to require that one ignore (or dismiss) substantial elements of the material record. I think Dever, whose criticisms of the minimalists have become disturbingly shrill and insulting, does a good job defending the Iron Age Sitz im Leben of the Deuteronomistic History in his most recent book, "What did the biblical writers know and when did they know it?"

In addition, "The Mythic Past" is inadequately referenced. There is a 2.5 page "recommended reading" list at the beginning, which includes only books (no scholarly articles) and is quite unsatisfactory - there's no real bibliography. There are perhaps a dozen footnotes in the entire book, all of them brief and again they don't cite the literature. Then - and this is amusingly ironic - there is no general subject index, but rather only an index of cited texts (almost all biblical). This is a feature usually associated with biblical commentaries, rather than history books.

Let me raise two specific points here as examples of my problems with TMP. When I first bought the book I was interested in what he had to say about the Tel Dan stele. (So I tried to find "Tel Dan stele" in the subject index and got quite annoyed when I found there was none. Grrr!) If you want to read along, check out the discussion on pages 203-204. He criticizes the interpretation of the famous sequence "..k bytdwd", which many scholars read as [ml]k byt dwd = melekh bayit David = King of the House of David = ruler of Judahite dynasty. (The inscription is dated to the early 9th century BCE, so while David's name is invoked, it is not a direct reference to the legendary figure himself, but, at best, to the eponymous dynasty he founded. The Judahite king at the time was probably Yehoram.) Now I certainly agree that this reading is not a slam-dunk. But Thompson quotes only this line (line 9 on fragment A). Some context would be helpful (and more honest): line 8 clearly contains the words mlk ysr'l = melekh yisrael = king of Israel. Line 5 includes the words "and Hadad went before me"; line 6 "... of my reign. And I killed ..."; line 7 "... and two thousand cavalry ...". So the context here is clearly a military battle, and one in which the northern kingdom of Israel also is involved. In the end, though, Thompson allows that bytdwd might just refer to a contemporary (early 9th c. BCE) "House of David".

Example #2: Thompson's wild attempts to Hellenize the Hebrew Bible. He says flat out in the introduction that "It is only a Hellenistic Bible that we know...". What does he mean by this? If the earliest manuscripts of Josephus are from the 15th century, does this mean that Josephus was Renaissance author? And how can he say that the Hebrew Bible's Israel is "a literary fiction" when the Assyrian annals corroborate many royal names and battles mentioned in the Books of Kings?

[ August 01, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

rodahi

A: Example #2: Thompson's wild attempts to Hellenize the Hebrew Bible. He says flat out in the introduction that "It is only a Hellenistic Bible that we know...". What does he mean by this? If the earliest manuscripts of Josephus are from the 15th century, does this mean that Josephus was Renaissance author? And how can he say that the Hebrew Bible's Israel is "a literary fiction" when the Assyrian annals corroborate many royal names and battles mentioned in the Books of Kings?

Give evidence that the "Assyrian annals corroborate" parts of the Hebrew Scriptures.

rodahi

Apikorus

What I said was that Assyrian (and other) inscriptions corroborate names and events in the Deuteronomistic History. Some examples (not a complete list):

1) Mesha stele (Moabite) refers to "Omri king of Israel" and "his son" (Ahav).

2) Marble slab of Shalmaneser III refers to tribute paid by "Jehu son of Omri" (sic).

3) Black obelisk of Shalmaneser III also refers to tribute paid by "Jehu son of Omri" (sic).

4) Tell al-Rimah stele of Adad-Nirari III refers to tribute of "Yoash of Samaria".

5) Iran stele of Tiglath-Pileser III refers to "Menahem of Samaria".

6) Summary inscription of Tiglath-Pileser III refers to "the land of Israel", "Pekah, their king", and "Hoshea" (whom TP3 claims to have installed).

7) Clay tablet inscription of Tiglath-Pileser III refers to "Jehoahaz of Judah".

8) Babylonian chronicle series for Shalmaneser V refers to the destruction of Samaria.

9) Prism inscription of Sargon II refers to restoration and resettlement of Samaria.

10) Assyrian annals of Sargon II refer to resettlement of Samaria.

11) Rassam prism inscription of Sennacherib refers extensively to "Hezekiah the Judaean" and the siege of Jerusalem.

12) Prism A of Esarhaddon refers to "Manasseh king of Judah".

Each one of these texts refers to individuals or events described in II Kings. There are still others I could cite.

[ August 01, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

rodahi

Surely you have a source. The above does not fall under the category of "common knowledge."

rodahi

Apikorus

Surely! See e.g. Pritchard's ANET ("Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament"). Another very good reference is the Anchor Bible Commentary to II Kings by Cogan and Tadmor (published by Doubleday). I collected these examples above from the Appendix to Cogan and Tadmor, which provides excerpts from all these documents as well as references to the scholarly literature. (Not all of these are in ANET, incidentally, since ANET hasn't been revised since 1969.)

Many of these, though are discussed in any decent book on the archaeology of the period.
See e.g. Stern's companion to Mazar's "Archaeology of the Land of the Bible" in the Anchor Bible Reference Library series.

Another very nice (and compact) book which discusses Iron Age inscriptions from Palestine is Klaas Smelik's "Writings from Ancient Israel". Smelik doesn't include Assyrian inscriptions, but the local ones provide some nice context as well (e.g. Lachish letters, Siloam inscription, etc.).

[ August 01, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

hezekiah jones

Hey, I love my Anchor Bible Genesis. Any idea when this is being published? I can't find any information at centuryone.com or doubleday.com.

By the way, are you the "tupper" that wrote the reviews of various Anchor Bible volumes at amazon.com?

Apikorus

Hezekiah, no I am not tupper.

Don't hold your breath for the new AB Genesis. The good news is that it is being done by an excellent scholar - Ronald Hendel of UC Berkeley. The bad news is that it will probably take ten years for him to finish it.

I think Speiser does a very good job of explaining the classical documentary hypothesis. But, while the core of this analysis still very much underlies the beliefs of most bible scholars (i.e. that the Pentateuch is a redacted composite with a significantly diachronic texture), many of the classical arguments forwarded by Wellhausen have since been strongly challenged if not completely demolished. Also Speiser was an Assyriologist and perhaps as a result he dwelt almost exclusively on the various Mesopotamian parallels, which (prior to the work of Thompson and van Seters) he presents in a uniquely second millenium BCE context.

[ August 01, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

hezekiah jones

Okay, thanks. In the meantime I plan to check out your other references.

I think the Anchor Bible is fabulous. Seems not very many people have even heard of it. Pretty expensive, but I've picked up a few volumes on ebay cheap, in perfect shape, as if they've never been opened. They must have been ex libris D. James Kennedy or John Hagee.