gnosis92

I guess one question is which academic is a good source for answering this question?

Finkelstein is more of a minimalist, Shanks/Bible Archaelogy Review is more towards bible maximalism.

Diogenes the Cynic

BAR isn't really a scholarly journal so much as a religionist/apologetic outlet in the guise of a scholarly journal. Shanks/BAR still touts the authenticy of the James ossuary, for instance.

gnosis92

some of the authors seem to have respected academic degrees

as for james ossuary Professor Wolfgang E. Krumbein says James Ossuary may not be a forgery.

obviously some might argue that those who argue for bible minimalism have an axe to grind.

Diogenes the Cynic

Nontheless, it is an editorially biased journal.
Krumbein is a paid expert for Golan's defense team. He offers no positive evidence for authenticity and has no expertise in forgeries. See this thread for more on Krumbein.
And what axe would that be?

gnosis92

even if it is editorially biased journal, when i read their articles, and the authors with respected degrees reference facts and findings and archeology, i'm unsure to discount it for simply being a biased journal.

bible maximalist may have a pro-judeo christian agenda

bible minimalist may have a pro-atheist agenda

:huh:

when it comes to the old testament i am unsure what are good sources since finkelstein has been argued against by kisch.

Diogenes the Cynic

There's no such thing as a "pro-atheist agenda" in ANE scholarship. That's a motivation which exists only in the imagination of religionists. It would be absurd for anyone to believe that the existence of God could be disproven by archeology anyway.

Finkelstein represents the mainstream of ANE archaeology. Pretty much nobody believes in the patriarchal histories, the Exodus or the conquest of Canaan any more.

Who is Kisch? Do you mean Kitchen?

Jobar

Ditto. I'm not going to call any of them but Adam through Job definitely mythical, though.

Chris Weimer

Thinking about it, I bet a good case could be made for both Noah and Samson. Noah appears in many ANE legends, which some posit a person X number of years ago who survived a flood, but the chances of tradition going back to real history are slim. As for Samson, perhaps there was a great warrior once who was immortalized by the Israelis? The same may be said of Herakles/Hercule/Hercle. However, the farther back we go, the more likely it becomes for a legend to be more and more legendary and less and less historical to the point where there's no historical core at all.

Edit: I'm really confused why no one counts Jeconiah as historical, especially since Jeremiah attests to him...? Have I missed something?

Dean Anderson

Again, we get to the issue of just how far the original person who inspired the story can get from the story itself before the character in the story can no longer be considered to be "historical".

Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry for Samson contains four paragraphs linking his story with that of Shamash (the Akkadian name of the Babylonian sun god).

The entry also suggests that the Herakles story may also be based on Shamash.

Given that this is Wikipedia, I wouldn't take that as the Gospel truth (pun intended), but I would be interested if anyone knows anything more about the parallels in the stories.

Anat

Are all those legends about the same flood, or do we have many stories originating in many different instances of flooding, each with its own survivors?