Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 03-19-2012, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Description: This unit critically evaluates suppositions in and underlying biblical scholarship, including how an explicitly non-religious approach differs from what is even now represented as historical-critical scholarship, especially when compared to other secular disciplines within the Humanities (history, classical studies) and the Social Sciences (e.g., anthropology, sociology).

Quote:

Session A: Frauds, Pious Frauds and Biblical Origins

Presiding, Stephanie Louise Fisher, University of Nottingham

Paper 1: Jim Linville, University of Lethbridge, “The Royal Scam: Josiah, Joseph Smith and Believing one’s own Pious Fraud.”

Paper 2: K. L. Noll, Brandon University, “A Portrait of the Deuteronomistic Historian at Work? How Theology Invents the History of the Bible”

Paper 3: Robert Price, Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, “Pious Fraud and Imposture in the New Testament”

Paper 4: Rene Salm, University of Oregon, “The Archaeology of Nazareth: A History of Pious Fraud?”

Respondent: Diana Edelman, University of Sheffield

The Royal Scam: Josiah, Joseph Smith and Believing One’s own Pious Fraud

As is well known the history of religions is replete with stories of the discovery of purportedly lost or miraculously appearing books with messages from deities. This includes instances from ancient Egypt and Rome to 19th century America with the claimed discovery and translation of the book of Mormon. Some of these discovery tales have been accorded legitimacy while others have been suppressed or denounced as forgeries. Joseph Smith found an accepting audience but also incurred the accusation of fraud from many others. The historicity of the story of Josiah’s law-book and reform (2 Kings 22-23) occupies a central position in debates about the composition of much of the Hebrew Bible and the work of so-called deuteronomists.

In a 2003 paper in Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, that revolves around the story of Josiah Arthur J. Droge finds it curious that the lexica of Religious Studies tends to exclude the term “fraud” despite it occurring frequently within religious discourse. He writes that a cynic may well regard fraud as the “modus operandi religiousus”. Droge refrains from asserting that fraud should be an analytical category for religious studies, preferring to call attention to the need for critical analysis of how religious communities—and academic disciplines—construct legitimacy and illegitimacy within the socio-political contexts in which their texts are produced. Yet, the question of fraud or forgery is not easily subsumed under this larger project. This paper takes a “cynical” approach to Josiah and Joseph Smith as a thought experiment to tease out some interpretative benefits of asking directly if a given religious text is the result of a deliberate fraud or forgery and relating this to legitimizing strategies that generate religious belief.

Session B: Histories of the Religion of Israel

Presiding, Willi Braun, University of Alberta

Paper 1: K. L. Noll, Brandon University, “Inventing Yahwism: The History of Israelite Religions and the Religion of a Historical Israel.”

Paper 2: Jim Linville, University of Lethbridge, “On the Religion of Bronze Age Goat-Herders. Ancient Israel as a secularist’s foil”

Paper 3: T.L. Thompson, University of Copenhagen, “A Biblical Critique of Religion and the Figure of Yahweh in the Pentateuch,”

Respondent: Mark Smith, New York University

More at the link, including lol cats and other beasts

Vorkosigan · 03-20-2012, 07:57 PM

Thanks, Toto. Fraud is understudied in business, and for roughly the same reasons....

DrJim · 03-21-2012, 06:24 AM

Toto,
Thanks for the plug! We are hoping that we get a good turnout and some feedback. There have been some discussions with representatives of 2 different publishers about books series on secular biblical studies and secularism and B. S.

The danger, of course, is ghettoizing what should be standard practice in an academic field. How best to avoid that still needs to be sorted out.

I also think the Chicago meeting needs a jolly good informal Secularist Scholars Reception and Pub Crawl. Then the SBL will be all the more academic.

mountainman · 03-21-2012, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrJim

The danger, of course, is ghettoizing what should be standard practice in an academic field. How best to avoid that still needs to be sorted out.

To start with it is possible that if you indentify the reasons that the subject of the use of fraud in Christian sources has been ghettoed in the past, you may understand why it continues to be so treated.

It appears to me anyway, that conceptual framework of Biblical Scholarship has not been traditionally equipped to detect and identify fraud in its criminal and rat-cunning raw state. At the basis of this (historically) are the canonical and the non canonical sources - the True Gospels and Acts and the False Gnostic or heretical Gospels and Acts. And the historical connections between these fundamental sources, along with any profane understanding of their political context has not been satisfactorily resolved with any real consensus of opinion.

My 2c's worth Dr.Jim.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

03-20-2012, 07:57 PM	#2
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	Thanks, Toto. Fraud is understudied in business, and for roughly the same reasons....

03-21-2012, 06:24 AM	#3
DrJim Regular Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Lethbridge AB Canada Posts: 445	Toto, Thanks for the plug! We are hoping that we get a good turnout and some feedback. There have been some discussions with representatives of 2 different publishers about books series on secular biblical studies and secularism and B. S. The danger, of course, is ghettoizing what should be standard practice in an academic field. How best to avoid that still needs to be sorted out. I also think the Chicago meeting needs a jolly good informal Secularist Scholars Reception and Pub Crawl. Then the SBL will be all the more academic.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.