Apikorus

Yes, Who Wrote the Bible? is an outstanding introduction to Hebrew Bible source criticism. It deals primarily with the Pentateuch and with parts of the Deuteronomistic History. Friedmann is a bit conservative in his Kaufmannian approach to dating the P strand. In a later book, The Hidden Book in the Bible, Friedman goes even further, insisting that the J narrative extends throughout the DH to the beginning of 1 Kings. He hasn't received much support for that within the scholarly community.

Plebe, a few months ago, I tilted with Mike, the administrator and author of the <a href="http://www.askwhy.co.uk" target="_blank">www.askwhy.co.uk</a> site. Our exchange began with me making a suggestion for how he could improve his essay on Psalm 110. (I made a case for literalizing malki-tsedeq to "my righteous king" in Psa 110:4b and eliminating the character of Melchizedek from the psalm entirely. The character of Melchizedek is familiar from Genesis 14, which is of famously uncertain provenance.) Mike wrote back, saying that he would add my suggestions to his essay (I don't think he's gotten around to revising it yet). He also said that at the time he had originally written that piece, he "did not dispute the historicity of David, but now I am sure that the biblical stories are a fiction largely composed in Maccabean times...". I then responded that he was making negative progress in his understanding of the Hebrew Bible. This provoked a series of exchanges.

I first asked the question which I asked above: if the DH is a Hellenistic fabrication, then why is its Sitz im Leben the Iron Age? Where are the Graecisms in the text? The knowledge of Hellenistic cultural institutions, philosophy, multiethnicity, the poleis, Graecisms in the text, etc.? Dever, in his trenchant attack on the minimalists (in What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know it?), makes the same point. (Dever's book is outstanding - even better than that of Finkelstein and Silbermann.) Mike had no answer to this, save to baldly assert that various scholars within the Sheffield and Copenhagen schools have sufficient evidence to back up a Hellenistic dating.

We then got into a little argument over the significance of orthographic (i.e. spelling) variations. One of Mike's problems here is that he doesn't read Hebrew (!) and all his claims are based on what he finds in secondary and tertiary sources.

I made some detailed criticisms of Thompson's The Mythic Past, arguing that Thompson was being less-than-scholarly in his discussion of the Tel Dan stele. He didn't respond to my points (perhaps because they dealt with the text of the TDS itself) but rather shifted the discussion, implying that the whole thing was a forgery, as Garbini (a bona fide Aramaic scholar) insists. But Garbini is way out on a limb with this wild claim. Virtually everyone accepts the TDS as legitimate, even if they challenge the reading of the famous bytdwd (= bayit dawid?). Garbini has quite a story to sell, claiming that the TDS derives typologically from Mesha and epigraphically from Zakkur. The elements he adduces in establishing his Mesha typology are laughably flimsy. (I can go into detail, if you like.)

Mike also invoked Finkelstein's point that there are 7th century BCE towns in the conquest lists in Joshua. Apparently he (and Finkelstein) think this is some sort of smoking gun, but really this is quite misguided. Bible scholars have for decades recognized that Joshua underwent a Deuteronomistic redaction. (Indeed, I think Finkelstein's book would have been better had he chosen a competent bible scholar as coauthor, rather than Silbermann, who is a (very educated) journalist.)

Mike also seemed to be a bit confused about the significance of certain finds from Qumran; his arguments were easily unraveled.

What I found most curious was his intense bitterness and suspicion toward religion. When I first challenged his Maccabean dating scenario, he made some wise crack about how I must be moved by the Holy Spirit to have such knowledge. When I explained that I am an atheist, he backed off a bit, but went on the attack again when he later found out I am Jewish, suggesting that I have some emotional investment in proving the Hebrew Bible is historical.

The problem for the minimalists is that there is just too much material evidence for them to argue away. In order to maintain their extreme positions, they've got to insist that the Merneptah stele, Mesha stele, Tel Dan stele, Siloam inscription, ketef hinnom scrolls, etc. are all fakes. They must believe that Hellenistic period scribes sat around (in Palestine? in Babylon?) fabricating Israelite history, using 500 year old Assyrian documents, with perfect knowledge of Iron I temple architecture, concocting archaizing conventions in orthography and vocabulary, etc. (Even their darling pet archaeologist Finkelstein ultimately affirms the authentic Iron Age provenance of the famous gates of Hazor, Gezer, and Megiddo - he downdates them from Solomonic to Omride - 9th rather than 10th c. BCE. And he doesn't have many takers for that one, either.)

At any rate, internet "scholars" such as Mike are very much hit-and-miss. I've read almost every essay on Mike's site, and some of them are quite good (Though given his admission that many of his essays were written at a time when he was much less skeptical of the historicity of parts of the Bible, I wonder how much of his own stuff he agrees with today.) He's an educated enthusiast, but he seems quite ideologically committed to "exposing" the Bible as some sort of "fraud", which is a childish agenda.

[ September 24, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

Plebe

At any rate, internet "scholars" such as Mike are very much hit-and-miss. I've read almost every essay on Mike's site, and some of them are quite good (Though given his admission that many of his essays were written at a time when he was much less skeptical of the historicity of parts of the Bible, I wonder how much of his own stuff he agrees with today.) He's an educated enthusiast, but he seems quite ideologically committed to "exposing" the Bible as some sort of "fraud", which is a childish agenda.
Apikorus, I agree with your sentiments with regard to Mike's site. I would be interested in which parts you saw as being "right on" and any website links you or Peter Kirby think are better for dating, authenticating and debunking. I think much of the information here at infidels.org is pretty thorough-ie:Richard Carrier, Joseph Wheless et al.
Thanks in advance.

Autonemesis

But I don't even like the Old Testament. Why would I date it? &lt;rimshot&gt;

Apikorus

Plebe, the II web site really has very meager offerings on the Hebrew Bible. In general, I find the organization of material in the Library section to be inadequate. (Though certain authors, such as Carrier, I find quite scholarly and useful.) I'd think "text criticism" or "text criticism and archaeology" deserves its own section, although there isn't much local material to put there at the moment. For example, right now, if you want to get to Larue's book, which is pretty much the only document on-site which discusses the Hebrew Bible from a broad perspective, you have to link through "modern documents", then "theism" (!), then "Christianity" (!!), then "biblical criticism".

Generally I do my reading from books and journals rather than from the web, so unless you are interested in some specific subject matter (e.g. Dead Sea Scrolls, where I could cite about a dozen very useful web sites), I don't think I can be of much help.

The problem with the II Library, as I see it, is that serious scholarly treatments, such as Carrier's "Date of the Nativity in Luke", are placed alongside (and implicitly put on a par) with rants like Barker's "Bible Contradictions". Essays which seek to identify contradictions in the Bible just for the sake of saying that contradictions exist are only useful in providing a gotcha! in training neophytes how to argue with bibliolaters. Other than that, they are pretty worthless - about a millimeter in depth. I'd suggest they be placed in their own "anti-fundie" section.

The one section of the Library which I do find to have a very high density of impressive material is "Science and Religion" in the Modern Library.

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>