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    Be careful what you wish for.

    Elsewhere, I've been asked about my affinity for liberal Christianity.

    Originally posted by Juvenal
    After a long break, I'm back to doing Unitarian services ... not really that much difference with libxian, I figure.
    I'd be interested in knowing more about this -- perhaps another thread?
    I'm not sure I'm comfortable discussing these issues with the above poster. But I'm always up for a discussion with Adrift, and if anyone else would like to join in, they're welcome.

    Feel free to consider this an AMA thread for the former taoist, former lao tzu, and current Juvenal.



    Originally posted by Adrift
    Not sure why he's being cryptic about it ...
    Pretty sure I wasn't so much being cryptic, as terse.

    ... but Mark Smith is an Old Testament scholar who is part of the mainstream liberal view on the Old Testament.
    Mark Smith's theology is entirely irrelevant to me.

    And, as I've said before, I don't believe you can justify framing the debate as "liberal" vs. "conservative." Archaeology and linguistics are no more suitable to me for theological debate than cosmology or biology. While all of these discomfit a vocal segment of Christianity, their discomforts are not pursued via scholarly interactions.

    On the contrary, not only are the conservative positions bereft of interaction with these issues, they are best known for an unpardonable anti-academic ferver, exemplified by expulsions of even their most prominent scholars when they stray from orthodoxy.


    With respect to Smith, I am referencing The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel and The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts.

    Conservatives may find his linguistic analysis of the Ba'al cycle problematic to their theology, but that is, as they say, their problem, not mine.

    Smith's analysis, for instance, shows "elohim" is a cognate 'lm, the divine council of 'l, the principal deity of c. 16th century Ugarit, with 'l a cognate of the El attested theophorically in early Israelite place names like Beth-el; the prophets Samu-el, El-ijah, and El-isha; and Isra-el itself.

    An independent linguistic origin for these names would form a meaningful counter. I'm not familiar with any such alternative, and am having trouble seeing how the underlying theology of such a counter would be relevant.

    Archaeological evidence shows no evidence that Israelite monotheism existed prior to the Babylonian captivity. The discovery of a pre-Babylonian temple in Israel that did not incorporate multiple deities would similarly form a meaningful counter, and again, I am not familiar with any such temple, nor, again, what role conservative theology might add to any objective analysis.

    Stuff like the Documentary Hypothesis ...
    Which has no meaningful counter-theory. Indeed, the only opposition I'm familiar with is Mosaic authorship, which makes no pretense of interaction with the textual issues addressed by the original documentary hypothesis and its later amendments.

    ... the multiple Genesis and Noah narratives ...
    Both of which are self-evident in Genesis, and both of which have well-attested extra-biblical precursors that antedate not only Israel as a people, but the emergence of the Hebrew language itself. The flood narratives in particular have an exceptionally well-attested chain of precursors which antedate even the Ur of Abraham — as attested in the law code of Ur-Nammu which delineates inheritance laws associated in the Biblical texts with Abraham and Jacob that are nowhere to be found in the Mosaic law.

    ... God having a wife (Asherah) ...
    This is also not problematical, even after restricting the god to Yahweh, with multiple archaeological attestations from Edom to Samaria, and also likely referenced in Jeremiah as the "Queen of Heaven."

    ... the Israelites were originally polytheistic ...
    I'm fairly sure that's not disputed by conservatives, depending on what one means by "originally." It's certainly undisputed that polytheism was the most common religious practice during Israel's pre-Babylonian history.

    ... the Israelites were originally commanded by Yahweh to commit child sacrifice ...
    That's new to me, and surely not common, as far as I'm aware. In fact, the aborted sacrifice of Isaac reads best to me as a polemic against the practice. Its practice in Israel is certainly not promoted by Smith, or any other author I've read, which is admittedly a smaller list than yours.

    ... the Israelites never entered/left Egypt and are actually a lower class of Canaanites who went off and did their own thing ...
    After the late bronze age collapse of the Mediterranean empires in the 13th century, the few Canaanite survivors were all lower class. And it should be noted that west Canaan was previously part of Egypt. They didn't have to leave Egypt if Egypt left them.

    Yahweh was a lower god in Elohim's pantheon who rose through the ranks to displace him ...
    That's a misrepresentation. No one says Yahweh rose through the ranks. Like the Ba'als, he found a people willing to promote him above the rest, which was apparently the thing to do. In the process, they adopted his epithets, and priestly offices, and cultic practices, inter alia, a practice so amenable to pantheons, it was later adopted by both the Greeks and Romans.

    Yahweh was a god borrowed from Midian, etc.
    There is limited but very suggestive support for this theory.

    There is a Yhw attested among the Shasu in Midian. Abram and Sarai were renamed to include an added "h" by Yhwh. There is evidence of a special animosity toward the Midianites. Fraternal fights are always the most vicious.

    If I recall, Smith is a practicing Catholic, but still holds many of the views above.
    Smith has found evidence for many of those views. I make the distinction as it is also the distinction between faith and scholarship. Further evidence, and further thought, have modified his views as is apparent in his prefaces to later editions, something which may also be possible for one's faith, but with an associated risk that has no analogue.

    You might remember that showmeproof was thoroughly familiar with his work and other liberal Old Testament scholars who hold similar views like Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Israel Finkelstein, William Dever, Richard Elliott Friedman, and Jon Day. Leaning towards the conservative side you'd have scholars like Michael Heiser, John Walton, John Sailhamer, John Goldingay, Tremper Longman III, Richard Hess, David Garland, etc.
    As I've said, you're much better read than I am, in this field anyway, as is showmeproof. This is just barely a hobby for me.

    I know Finkelstein, Dever, Friedman and Walton from this list, and would add Peter Enns as a more approachable author for those who'd rather avoid Smith's morass of footnotes and endnotes.

    I'd also point out that while Walton could fairly be said to lean toward the more conservative side, he's similarly been regularly rebuked by them for not being conservative enough.

  • #2
    This is the only thing I've seen of Trevor Longman III, and it only attracted my attention in re-reading the CT story (cached) after seeing him referenced by Adrift as a "leans conservative" counter-scholar.
    JR Daniel Kirk notes that another big OT name, Tremper Longman III, was disinvited from RTS for expressing doubt over the historicity of Adam in September 2009.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      Be careful what you wish for.

      Elsewhere, I've been asked about my affinity for liberal Christianity.





      I'm not sure I'm comfortable discussing these issues with the above poster. But I'm always up for a discussion with Adrift, and if anyone else would like to join in, they're welcome.

      Feel free to consider this an AMA thread for the former taoist, former lao tzu, and current Juvenal.





      Pretty sure I wasn't so much being cryptic, as terse.



      Mark Smith's theology is entirely irrelevant to me.

      And, as I've said before, I don't believe you can justify framing the debate as "liberal" vs. "conservative." Archaeology and linguistics are no more suitable to me for theological debate than cosmology or biology. While all of these discomfit a vocal segment of Christianity, their discomforts are not pursued via scholarly interactions.
      Parsing the archaeology and linguistics as it applies to the religions of ancient Israel is where the liberal/conservative divide usually comes into play. Various scholars, even within their divide, interpret the data differently. So, while you may find no justification for liberal/conservative framing, it's helpful to others. Certainly to lay readers.


      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      On the contrary, not only are the conservative positions bereft of interaction with these issues, they are best known for an unpardonable anti-academic ferver, exemplified by expulsions of even their most prominent scholars when they stray from orthodoxy.
      Perhaps a distinction without a difference, but technically Waltke resigned, not expelled https://www.christianitytoday.com/ne...y-updated.html

      And while I think RTS was in the wrong, pressure to align with a University's ideals resulting in expulsion/resignation isn't uncommon even at the secular level as we recently witnessed with the Weinstein's at Evergreen, and more justifiably with Stallman, Zuckerman and Ito at MIT.

      That aside, the conservative position is not bereft of interaction with these issues. Scholars like Heiser and Hess directly engage with them.

      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      With respect to Smith, I am referencing The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel and The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts.

      Conservatives may find his linguistic analysis of the Ba'al cycle problematic to their theology, but that is, as they say, their problem, not mine.

      Smith's analysis, for instance, shows "elohim" is a cognate 'lm, the divine council of 'l, the principal deity of c. 16th century Ugarit, with 'l a cognate of the El attested theophorically in early Israelite place names like Beth-el; the prophets Samu-el, El-ijah, and El-isha; and Isra-el itself.

      An independent linguistic origin for these names would form a meaningful counter. I'm not familiar with any such alternative, and am having trouble seeing how the underlying theology of such a counter would be relevant.

      Archaeological evidence shows no evidence that Israelite monotheism existed prior to the Babylonian captivity. The discovery of a pre-Babylonian temple in Israel that did not incorporate multiple deities would similarly form a meaningful counter, and again, I am not familiar with any such temple, nor, again, what role conservative theology might add to any objective analysis.
      Yes, none of this is unfamiliar to those with a passing understanding of mainstream Old Testament scholarship. It sounds to me that you've already written off more conservative leaning scholarship on the subject before even interacting with it. If you were at all inclined, you may want to check out Richard Hess' work Israelite Religions and Michael Heiser's papers like Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut. 32:8-9 and Psalm 82? and Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible.

      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      Which has no meaningful counter-theory. Indeed, the only opposition I'm familiar with is Mosaic authorship, which makes no pretense of interaction with the textual issues addressed by the original documentary hypothesis and its later amendments.


      Both of which are self-evident in Genesis, and both of which have well-attested extra-biblical precursors that antedate not only Israel as a people, but the emergence of the Hebrew language itself. The flood narratives in particular have an exceptionally well-attested chain of precursors which antedate even the Ur of Abraham — as attested in the law code of Ur-Nammu which delineates inheritance laws associated in the Biblical texts with Abraham and Jacob that are nowhere to be found in the Mosaic law.
      Mosaic authorship alone is not the only view more conservative leaning scholars hold. Some hold to some modification of JEDP, some take an approach between core early authorship and later editors. Heiser, summarizes his view here: https://drmsh.com/mosaic-authorship-...s-jedp-part-3/

      Also, the fact that I mention the dual narratives does not mean that I necessarily disagree that they can't be read from the text. Again, Hesier thinks that some scholars go too far looking for J,E,D and P strands, but that isn't to say that conservative leaning scholars reject the entire notion of an edited and altered Old Testament.


      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      This is also not problematical, even after restricting the god to Yahweh, with multiple archaeological attestations from Edom to Samaria, and also likely referenced in Jeremiah as the "Queen of Heaven."
      I suppose it depends on what you mean by problematic, and where one suggests the problem lie. So for instance, did some ancient Israelites believe that Yahweh had a consort? If so, was this considered heterodox pre-captivity? When/how did this view develop? Is Asherah (asheratah) a proper name to begin with? I don't think there's much debate that in some regions at some times in Ancient Israel a consort can be identified, but scholars are not completely unified on some of the other matters. Hess deals with this subject at length in Israelite Religions, but also see Steve Wiggins', A Reassessment of ‘Asherah’. A Study According to the Textual Sources of the First Two Millennia B.C.E.

      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      I'm fairly sure that's not disputed by conservatives, depending on what one means by "originally." It's certainly undisputed that polytheism was the most common religious practice during Israel's pre-Babylonian history.
      Again, it depends on what's being disputed. Was this a heterodox view? Is it more appropriate to label the ancient Israelites henotheists? Is our picture of the line of evolution from polytheist to monotheist completely accurate? (Again, see Heiser's paper “Does Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible Demonstrate an Evolution from Polytheism to Monotheism?")


      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      That's new to me, and surely not common, as far as I'm aware. In fact, the aborted sacrifice of Isaac reads best to me as a polemic against the practice. Its practice in Israel is certainly not promoted by Smith, or any other author I've read, which is admittedly a smaller list than yours.
      It's fairly common. Smith suggests it in The Early History of God. See the section starting around pg. 171.


      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      After the late bronze age collapse of the Mediterranean empires in the 13th century, the few Canaanite survivors were all lower class. And it should be noted that west Canaan was previously part of Egypt. They didn't have to leave Egypt if Egypt left them.
      Yes, that's the view I was referring to.

      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      That's a misrepresentation. No one says Yahweh rose through the ranks. Like the Ba'als, he found a people willing to promote him above the rest, which was apparently the thing to do. In the process, they adopted his epithets, and priestly offices, and cultic practices, inter alia, a practice so amenable to pantheons, it was later adopted by both the Greeks and Romans.
      I don't know how you imagine my sentence to be a misrepresentation unless you're misreading me somehow. It is argued that Yahweh was a lesser deity (compared to El), one of many sons of El Elyon, and a member of his court. As a warrior god, his cult status grew in Israel and eventually supplanted / was combined with that of El. Smith himself outlines the process,
      "El as a separate god disappeared, perhaps at different rates in different regions. This process may appear to involve Yahweh incorporating El's characteristics, for Yahweh is the eventual historical 'winner.' Yet in the pre-monarchic period, the process may be envisioned--at least initially-- in the opposite terms: Israelite highland cult sites of El assimilated the outsider, southerner Yahweh. In comparison, Yahweh in ancient Israel and Baal at Ugarit were both outsider warrior gods who stood second in rank to El, but they eventually overshadowed him in power. Yet Yahweh's development went further. He was identified with El: here the son replaced and became the father whose name only serves as a title for the son."

      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      There is limited but very suggestive support for this theory.
      I'm aware.

      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      Smith has found evidence for many of those views. I make the distinction as it is also the distinction between faith and scholarship. Further evidence, and further thought, have modified his views as is apparent in his prefaces to later editions, something which may also be possible for one's faith, but with an associated risk that has no analogue.
      Sure.

      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      I know Finkelstein, Dever, Friedman and Walton from this list, and would add Peter Enns as a more approachable author for those who'd rather avoid Smith's morass of footnotes and endnotes.

      I'd also point out that while Walton could fairly be said to lean toward the more conservative side, he's similarly been regularly rebuked by them for not being conservative enough.
      I don't think the divides between liberal and conservative Biblical academia are as rigid as you think. Sure at some university/seminary level it's important, and certainly among many lay people, but I think among scholars themselves, and at conferences like SBL, there's not as much fuss about who leans left or right. Both sides read and use each other's material, and there is plenty of crossing over the lines among individual scholars (Pete Enns is definitely an example of that).

      I think maybe when you wrote this reply you were thinking I was coming against liberal scholars like Mark Smith. I wasn't. While I don't agree with all of his conclusions, I think his work is interesting and important in helping us get some understanding of the ancient worldview. The point of the post you replied to was only to share a number of liberal scholarly views (many of which Mark Smith holds), and to identify the scholars who lean into either liberal or conservative camps.




      All that said, I'm not sure if any of the above addresses CP's interest in your going back to Unitarian services. I think maybe you misread him in that other post, and thought he was questioning your point that they're not much different than "libxianity," when I think he was merely interested in your going back to a service in the first place.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
        Which has no meaningful counter-theory. Indeed, the only opposition I'm familiar with is Mosaic authorship, which makes no pretense of interaction with the textual issues addressed by the original documentary hypothesis and its later amendments.
        What about the Supplementary Hypothesis as a counter-theory? Or do you count that as an "amendment" of the documentary hypothesis?

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Adrift View Post
          All that said, I'm not sure if any of the above addresses CP's interest in your going back to Unitarian services. I think maybe you misread him in that other post, and thought he was questioning your point that they're not much different than "libxianity," when I think he was merely interested in your going back to a service in the first place.
          That.
          The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

          Comment


          • #6
            I've rewritten this response a number of times. Pardon the delay, please.

            Originally posted by Adrift View Post
            Parsing the archaeology and linguistics as it applies to the religions of ancient Israel is where the liberal/conservative divide usually comes into play. Various scholars, even within their divide, interpret the data differently. So, while you may find no justification for liberal/conservative framing, it's helpful to others. Certainly to lay readers.
            These inquiries are barely a hobby for me in comparison to my own work, and when you speak of academics in the same terms lay people like myself use for politics, it's confusing. When I speak of conservative values, I'm talking about small government and personal responsibility.

            One of those responsibilities, especially when speaking with those with lesser familiarity, is to frame opposing positions fairly. This won't do ...

            Perhaps a distinction without a difference, but technically Waltke resigned, not expelled https://www.christianitytoday.com/ne...y-updated.html

            And while I think RTS was in the wrong, pressure to align with a University's ideals resulting in expulsion/resignation isn't uncommon even at the secular level as we recently witnessed with the Weinstein's at Evergreen, and more justifiably with Stallman, Zuckerman and Ito at MIT.
            There's no hiding behind "technically" on Waltke's expulsion, or even Enns' for that matter, though I left him out because he can't be compared with Waltke in terms of orthodoxy or gravitas. Their spineless presidents gave them no choice. While I'm loathe to defend Bridges, Evergreen's equally spineless president, he deserves some credit, I guess, for not bowing to the students' demands to fire the Weinsteins and the other faculty on their list.

            The academic fallout from the Epstein scandal is non sequitur.

            Scraping the barrel on that one.

            Nor is there a meaningful comparison between RTS, which is entirely mainstream for evangelicals, and Evergreen, "arguably the most radical college in the country," according to Weinstein himself.

            Respectively, you're comparing a round from a howitzer to the pop from a cap gun. Waltke's forced resignation was earth-shakingly unexpected, and entirely inexcusable, as evidenced by the fact no one in their own community defended it. Served RTS right when Knox snatched him up immediately.

            The Weinsteins knew what they were getting into when they took the job. Evergreen has always been an asylum.

            Comment


            • #7
              Again, please pardon the delay. This portion of my response was similarly begun last week, but has proven quite time consuming to flesh out. I'm somewhat mortified that my last post has gone without its supplement this long, leaving the impression I had deliberately neglected the portion of your post I found most valuable.


              Continuing with the more academic content ...

              Originally posted by Adrift View Post
              That aside, the conservative position is not bereft of interaction with these issues. Scholars like Heiser and Hess directly engage with them.
              And this is why I like speaking with you. I do want to know if there's a meaningful opposition, and I'm fairly sure that you'd be aware of it if it exists.

              Yes, none of this is unfamiliar to those with a passing understanding of mainstream Old Testament scholarship. It sounds to me that you've already written off more conservative leaning scholarship on the subject before even interacting with it. If you were at all inclined, you may want to check out Richard Hess' work Israelite Religions and Michael Heiser's papers like Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut. 32:8-9 and Psalm 82? and Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible.
              Hess' Israelite Religions has attracted notice from Smith.
              "Echoing the works of William Foxwell Albright and Cyrus Gordon, Richard Hess's new book on Israelite religion offers a survey of Israelite religion fundamentally based on the framework and claims of the Bible and informed by archaeological evidence and extrabiblical texts. The book provides a clear, conservative treatment of this material from the Middle and Late Bronze Age down through the demise of Judah in 586. To the scholarly discussion of these sources, Hess adds his own expertise, particularly in Bronze Age texts. The field now has a general treatment of Israelite religion produced by a scholar with a strong faith in the Bible's veracity. Even if readers do not share Hess's strong trust in either the Bible's historical claims or his high dating for many biblical texts and traditions, this volume nonetheless presents a good listing of research."--Mark S. Smith, Skirball Professor of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, New York University

              Your second Heiser link is a duplicate of the first, and should instead have linked to ... Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible. Both follow from similar treatments in his dissertation, The Divine Council in Late Canonical and Non-Canonical Second Temple Jewish Literature.

              I note first that neither of these works interact with the extra-Biblical, pre-Israelite origins of El. And the arguments themselves are less than convincing, e.g.:

              Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut. 32:8-9 and Psalm 82?
              If the prophetic voice now pleads for Yahweh to rise up and become king of the nations and
              their gods, the verb choice (מהָ֣קוּ” ;rise up”) means that, in the council context of the psalm’s
              imagery, Yahweh had heretofore been seated. It is actually Yahweh who is found in the
              posture of presiding, not El. El is in fact nowhere present in 82:8. If it is critical to pay close
              attention to posture in verse 1, then the same should be done in verse 8. Doing so leads to the
              opposite conclusion for which Parker argues.

              This is incoherent. Heiser has it that both sitting and rising up denote positions of superiority.

              As I've said, this is barely a hobby for me, but I can't help noting that both Smith's, "The field now has ..." in his review of Hess, and the provenance of the Heiser monographs, argue strongly that these are fringe positions in scholarship.

              You're aware, no doubt, that Heiser is writing for Liberty University's Faculty Publications and Presentations, not for peer review, and that Liberty's required doctrinal statement, including the affirmation that, "The universe was created in six historical days," would exclude even N. T. Wright due to his endorsement of Walton, and Walton himself, of course.



              Video 3:10 ff.

              Mosaic authorship alone is not the only view more conservative leaning scholars hold. Some hold to some modification of JEDP, some take an approach between core early authorship and later editors. Heiser, summarizes his view here: https://drmsh.com/mosaic-authorship-...s-jedp-part-3/
              Heiser's position is Mosaic authorship, as I suggested, with minor modifications he has not systematized.
              My take is that we don’t have four sources writers with competing agendas. Rather, there was a Mosaic core, patriarchal traditions that began as oral history, a national history, rules for priests and Levites, and a primeval history section. This sounds a bit like sources, but it’s not quite the same. By way of a simplistic summary (this is just a loose description; I haven’t systematized this, since I find so many other things more interesting):

              And again, this blog entry is part of a series never intended for peer review. More, it was written within the constraints of Liberty's doctrinal statement, which does not specifically require Mosaic authorship, but clearly implies it, a position which may reflect his own independently conceived conclusions. Still, his lack of academic freedom cannot help but cast this generous view into doubt.

              The works this entry interacts with are Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? — which was recommended to me by robrecht as a source you'd agree was worth examining — and Rendtorff 's Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 147).

              Translating a passage from somewhere inside this tome, Heiser cites Rendtorff:
              The positing of ‘sources’ in the sense of the documentary hypothesis can no longer make any contribution to understanding the development of the Pentateuch.

              Yes, I can handle the German, and I could even handle the expense, which is not trivial. But no, that's not an expense I'm willing to suffer in order to search out the original text to check the accuracy of his translation and the context of the commentary.

              On a side note, Rendtorff deceased in 2014, two years after Heiser's blog entry was posted, in 2012. Oddly enough, the publisher lists BZAW 147 with the date 2015, suggesting a revised edition published posthumously.


              I'd add that Heiser's commentary, including this citation, is aligned with much I've seen from creationist arguments, i.e., nitpicked criticisms of a theory with the implicit suggestion that its demise will somehow, miraculously perhaps, resuscitate and rethrone the previous paradigm previously abandoned due to its clear contradictions with fact.

              As I've noted about creationism with respect to the theory of evolution, the complete and utter demise of all forms and later amendments to JEDP would leave us with two failed hypotheses, mut. mut.


              On a related note, my first search for Rentdorff yielded a link to Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch, Hexateuch, and the Deuteronomistic History, also from 2012, but of clearly greater depth and authority. Searching for Rentdorff turned up three hits, all related to Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem,
              Hans Heinrich Schmid saw his “J” in close relationship to Deuteronomism (8) and in the wake of Rolf Rendtorff and Erhard Blum (9) the notion of a Deuteronomistic layer or composition in the Pentateuch became a common assumption in scholarship (at least in Europe). (10)

              This, at least, suggests that Heiser is overstating Rentdorff's dismissal.

              Also, the fact that I mention the dual narratives does not mean that I necessarily disagree that they can't be read from the text. Again, Hesier thinks that some scholars go too far looking for J,E,D and P strands, but that isn't to say that conservative leaning scholars reject the entire notion of an edited and altered Old Testament.
              Every scholar thinks some scholars go too far, which should not be read as a criticism of their scholarship. They should go too far, because it's the interaction with those pushing the boundaries that illuminates where new hypotheses can and can't find support. As an outsider, I feel obligated to stay near the consensus, rejecting fringe positions outright until they've gathered some minimum of support. I hope you understand why monographs posted as faculty publications for Liberty U aren't likely to budge the needle.

              Frankly, I can't imagine the existence of dual, or even dueling, narratives, are not obvious once they've been pointed out. Peter Enns work, Inspiration and Incarnation — with a general content which had been used for years with his classes at Westminster Theological Seminary before it caused his summary dismissal by the board, despite his support from within his department — outlines a number of these in Chapter 3, The Old Testament and Theological Diversity.

              I suppose it depends on what you mean by problematic, and where one suggests the problem lie. So for instance, did some ancient Israelites believe that Yahweh had a consort? If so, was this considered heterodox pre-captivity? When/how did this view develop? Is Asherah (asheratah) a proper name to begin with? I don't think there's much debate that in some regions at some times in Ancient Israel a consort can be identified, but scholars are not completely unified on some of the other matters. Hess deals with this subject at length in Israelite Religions, but also see Steve Wiggins', A Reassessment of ‘Asherah’. A Study According to the Textual Sources of the First Two Millennia B.C.E.
              I'd include a link to Wiggins were it not for Amazon's notation: Out of Print--Limited Availability. That doesn't strike me as a work received to any great acclaim.

              Again, it depends on what's being disputed. Was this a heterodox view? Is it more appropriate to label the ancient Israelites henotheists? Is our picture of the line of evolution from polytheist to monotheist completely accurate? (Again, see Heiser's paper “Does Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible Demonstrate an Evolution from Polytheism to Monotheism?")
              Inadequacies in the accuracy of the line of evolution within the biblical texts themselves don't obscure the basic fact of evolution itself adequately evidenced inside them, and much more compellingly outside them, and if the best of the best criticism is a faculty publication from Liberty U, I can only conclude the alternatives no longer betray a pulse.

              It's fairly common. Smith suggests it in The Early History of God. See the section starting around pg. 171.
              Yes, the mlk sacrifice. I'd forgotten about that, and am duly impressed with a familiarity that allowed you to so quickly contradict me, and happy to find we're reading from the same edition. I can't copy and paste from Kindle, but I can transcribe well enough. Pardon any typos, please.
              To conclude this chapter's very brief consideration of Yahwistic cult practices, child sacrifice may not have been a common religious practice; the biblical and inscriptional records do not indicate how widespread the practice was. The religion of high places was generally Yahwistic in name and practice, allowing a wider variety of cultic activity than its critics in the second half of the monarchy. The religious practices of the high places were fundamentally conservative, preserving Israel's ancient religious heritage.

              That's certainly a promotion by Smith, but in opposition to "originally commanded by Yahweh", it's relegated to a carry-over from pre-Israelite religions.

              Yes, that's the view I was referring to.
              I've never actually seen an author suggest that Israelites leaving Egypt should be revisited as Egypt retreating from Israel. It was an idea that might well have scholarly support, but evolved for me independently in a discussion of the textual evidence of the tradition with former member technomage.

              I don't know how you imagine my sentence to be a misrepresentation unless you're misreading me somehow. It is argued that Yahweh was a lesser deity (compared to El), one of many sons of El Elyon, and a member of his court. As a warrior god, his cult status grew in Israel and eventually supplanted / was combined with that of El. Smith himself outlines the process,
              "El as a separate god disappeared, perhaps at different rates in different regions. This process may appear to involve Yahweh incorporating El's characteristics, for Yahweh is the eventual historical 'winner.' Yet in the pre-monarchic period, the process may be envisioned--at least initially-- in the opposite terms: Israelite highland cult sites of El assimilated the outsider, southerner Yahweh. In comparison, Yahweh in ancient Israel and Baal at Ugarit were both outsider warrior gods who stood second in rank to El, but they eventually overshadowed him in power. Yet Yahweh's development went further. He was identified with El: here the son replaced and became the father whose name only serves as a title for the son."
              It was the suggestion that he rose through the ranks that I found misleading, though certainly I could have been misreading you. I see no evidence of ranks beyond the duality of father and sons in the 'lhm, and less evidence of a fixed tradition that could be identified with Yahweh. On the contrary, as Smith suggests, the process as described is less displacement of a prior deity than assimilation of its attributes.

              I'm aware.
              I hope I haven't suggested that anything I'm likely to bring up isn't already well known to you.

              Sure.
              Okay.

              I don't think the divides between liberal and conservative Biblical academia are as rigid as you think. Sure at some university/seminary level it's important, and certainly among many lay people, but I think among scholars themselves, and at conferences like SBL, there's not as much fuss about who leans left or right. Both sides read and use each other's material, and there is plenty of crossing over the lines among individual scholars.
              Again, I don't think in those terms. At most, I think in terms of the academic freedom necessary to pursue one's studies to whatever conclusion they might lead.

              (Pete Enns is definitely an example of that).
              (And an example of the risks uniquely posed to scholars attached to conservative schools, such as WTS, ref. Enns and RTS, ref. Waltke.)

              I think maybe when you wrote this reply you were thinking I was coming against liberal scholars like Mark Smith. I wasn't. While I don't agree with all of his conclusions, I think his work is interesting and important in helping us get some understanding of the ancient worldview. The point of the post you replied to was only to share a number of liberal scholarly views (many of which Mark Smith holds), and to identify the scholars who lean into either liberal or conservative camps.
              I know you "lean conservative." I don't really know what that means, and it doesn't much affect my consideration of your sources. The reason I expanded on your list was to elicit commentary, especially from you, and especially critical commentary that pushed back against these common understandings.

              And also, obviously, to answer the charge that I was being cryptic.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                All that said, I'm not sure if any of the above addresses CP's interest in your going back to Unitarian services. I think maybe you misread him in that other post, and thought he was questioning your point that they're not much different than "libxianity," when I think he was merely interested in your going back to a service in the first place.
                Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                That.
                That's just a geography thing.

                I'm living down in the boonies south of Homestead, with the nearest Unitarian service about 30 miles away, north, in Miami. But with my recent purchase of a property in the East Everglades, the distance is cut in half on the weekends when I'm working the land. So why not?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Terraceth View Post
                  What about the Supplementary Hypothesis as a counter-theory? Or do you count that as an "amendment" of the documentary hypothesis?
                  Please feel free to expand on this. I'm not familiar with this alternative, or how it differs from Wellhausen.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                    Hess' Israelite Religions has attracted notice from Smith.
                    Yes, I'm aware.

                    Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                    Your second Heiser link is a duplicate of the first, and should instead have linked to ... Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible.
                    Sorry about that.

                    Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                    I note first that neither of these works interact with the extra-Biblical, pre-Israelite origins of El. And the arguments themselves are less than convincing, e.g.:

                    Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut. 32:8-9 and Psalm 82?
                    If the prophetic voice now pleads for Yahweh to rise up and become king of the nations and
                    their gods, the verb choice (מהָ֣קוּ” ;rise up”) means that, in the council context of the psalm’s
                    imagery, Yahweh had heretofore been seated. It is actually Yahweh who is found in the
                    posture of presiding, not El. El is in fact nowhere present in 82:8. If it is critical to pay close
                    attention to posture in verse 1, then the same should be done in verse 8. Doing so leads to the
                    opposite conclusion for which Parker argues.

                    This is incoherent. Heiser has it that both sitting and rising up denote positions of superiority.
                    No, I don't think he's asserting that rising denotes superiority, rather he's rebuffing the view that one's posture in the court necessarily has to do with position of authority, and thus forces the reader to see two separate deities in the passage (El Elyon and Yahweh). Those who assert that a separate/higher deity, El Elyon, is presiding rather than Yahweh, do so by asserting that the posture is important for denoting who is presiding (sitting) and who is merely prosecuting (standing). Heiser is saying that that doesn't make sense if it's agreed that Yahweh is seen rising from a seated position in verse 8. Rising doesn't necessarily denote the position of authority to Heiser, rather "the psalmist wants Yahweh to rise and act as the only one who can fix the mess described in the psalm." And this is perfectly in line with passages like Isaiah 3:13, and Amos 7:7-9.

                    Scripture Verse: Isaiah 3:13

                    The Lord takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people.

                    © Copyright Original Source



                    Scripture Verse: Amos 7:7

                    This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,

                    “Behold, I am setting a plumb line
                    in the midst of my people Israel;
                    I will never again pass by them;
                    9 the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
                    and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
                    and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

                    © Copyright Original Source




                    Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                    I can't help noting that both Smith's, "The field now has ..." in his review of Hess, and the provenance of the Heiser monographs, argue strongly that these are fringe positions in scholarship.

                    That's correct. Somewhat unlike New Testament studies, the mainstream position in Old Testament studies leans largely to the left. Heiser's views appear to be gaining some momentum among his peers lately though.


                    Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                    You're aware, no doubt, that Heiser is writing for Liberty University's Faculty Publications and Presentations, not for peer review, and that Liberty's required doctrinal statement, including the affirmation that, "The universe was created in six historical days," would exclude even N. T. Wright due to his endorsement of Walton, and Walton himself, of course.
                    I believe those papers are just archived at Liberty. Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities was published in the peer-reviewed HIPHIL (Hebrew Bible Theology, Interpretation, Poetics, History, Interactivity, and Linguistics) Volume 3, 2006, and Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality was published in the peer-reviewed JESOT (Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament) 1.1 (2012).

                    Dr. Heiser was only an adjunct for Liberty in their distance learning program, and he is not a literal six day creationist.

                    Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                    More, it was written within the constraints of Liberty's doctrinal statement
                    It wasn't. Till this year, Dr. Heiser's main employment was as Scholar in Residence at Faithlife Corporation for Logos Bible Software, where he enjoyed plenty of academic freedom. He recently left that position for a role as Executive Director of Celebration Church's (currently non-accredited) Awakening School of Theology.
                    Last edited by Adrift; 10-05-2019, 06:41 PM.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                      That's just a geography thing.

                      I'm living down in the boonies south of Homestead, with the nearest Unitarian service about 30 miles away, north, in Miami. But with my recent purchase of a property in the East Everglades, the distance is cut in half on the weekends when I'm working the land. So why not?

                      Again, not certain what was in CPs head at the time, but I'm assuming he was curious about your attending a church at all (Unitarian or otherwise), and thought it might be nice to have a friendly conversation with you about what draws you to church services, and what that particular service is like. That sort of thing. That sound about right CP?

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                        Again, not certain what was in CPs head at the time, but I'm assuming he was curious about your attending a church at all (Unitarian or otherwise), and thought it might be nice to have a friendly conversation with you about what draws you to church services, and what that particular service is like. That sort of thing. That sound about right CP?
                        Not just "about right", but dead on.
                        The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                          Yes, I'm aware.
                          Thank you.

                          Sorry about that.
                          No worries.

                          No, I don't think he's asserting that rising denotes superiority, rather he's rebuffing the view that one's posture in the court necessarily has to do with position of authority, and thus forces the reader to see two separate deities in the passage (El Elyon and Yahweh). Those who assert that a separate/higher deity, El Elyon, is presiding rather than Yahweh, do so by asserting that the posture is important for denoting who is presiding (sitting) and who is merely prosecuting (standing). Heiser is saying that that doesn't make sense if it's agreed that Yahweh is seen rising from a seated position in verse 8. Rising doesn't necessarily denote the position of authority to Heiser, rather "the psalmist wants Yahweh to rise and act as the only one who can fix the mess described in the psalm." And this is perfectly in line with passages like Isaiah 3:13, and Amos 7:7-9.
                          I can't follow the Hebrew arguments, and I can't find an open text for the Parker reference, but if Parker has Yahweh prosecuting rather than judging, hence presiding, in v. 1, that's surely a contradiction to the standard translation, which supports Heiser.

                          In any case, this is not an interaction with Smith, as cited here from p. 48 of Origins, who holds that:
                          Verse 6 addresses the gods as "the sons of Elyon," probably a title of El at an early point in biblical tradition (cf. El Elyon mentioned three times in Genesis 14:18-20). If this supposition is correct, Psalm 82 preserves a tradition that casts the god of Israel in the role not of the presiding god of the pantheon but as one his sons.

                          Smith is not suggesting El is present here, rather that a shadow of his presence has been preserved after redaction.

                          In the footnotes, also on p. 48, relating to his treatment of v. 1, Smith clarifies:
                          Psalm 82 belongs to the "elohistic Psalter," thought by many scholars to have undergone a replacement of the name of Yahweh with the title "God" ('akelohďm). I have reservations about this theory although it would point more clearly to Yahweh understood as the subject of this sentence.

                          In any case, a plain reading of the text shows Yahweh being commanded, albeit in the prophetic voice, to rise and take command over the gods, implicitly claiming a position that was not previously his, and hence a position previously held by someone other than Yahweh.

                          That's correct. Somewhat unlike New Testament studies, the mainstream position in Old Testament studies leans largely to the left. Heiser's views appear to be gaining some momentum among his peers lately though.
                          I'd like to preface with my position that this isn't so much a debate for me as a conversation with a viewpoint I've mostly forgotten over the decades. Still, I'm going to point out rhetoric I find misleading or unhelpful. This mixing of political and theological terms is simply confusing to me. Left, or leaning left, cannot be a valid characterization of an overwhelmingly mainstream position, and creates an unjustifiable impression that the mainstream should be defined by its opposition to a fringe, where the converse is clearly more defensible.

                          This is reminiscent of claims that biological evolution is somehow defined by its opposition to creationism, where the truth is that biologists investigating the emergence and diversification of species simply ignore the theological repercussions.

                          Similarly, my examination of your sacred texts and religious tradition is purely humanistic, differing little from my examinations of the Qur'an and Ahadith of Islam, the Avesta of Zorastrianism, the Bardo Thodol of Tibetan Buddhism, the Vedas of Hinduism, and other, more obscure texts. In the process, I've found the Hebrew Bible to be vastly more illuminating once freed of a priori assumptions of divine inspiration. Focusing instead on the humanity of its authors yields, for me, a far more robust understanding of our cousins across the millennia.

                          There's value in seeking out the adherent's perspective as well, including that of evangelicals. Enns' Inspiration and Incarnation, written from this perspective, (or so a majority of his department agreed), made a profound impact on me, literally changing the way I read the Bible to this day.

                          I believe those papers are just archived at Liberty. Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities was published in the peer-reviewed HIPHIL (Hebrew Bible Theology, Interpretation, Poetics, History, Interactivity, and Linguistics) Volume 3, 2006, and Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality was published in the peer-reviewed JESOT (Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament) 1.1 (2012).
                          To be clear, both of these are strictly evangelical journals, though I'm embarrassed to note the former reference is actually listed in the header in Heiser's Yahweh and El. After noting the "Recommended Citation" on the cover page, I simply didn't think to look further, and just missed it in my focus on the text. Toward an Assessment's relation to JESOT is more obscure, and if I'd managed to notice its header, I'd have instead been looking at the Bulletin for Biblical Research, which is also an evangelical publication.

                          Dr. Heiser was only an adjunct for Liberty in their distance learning program, and he is not a literal six day creationist.
                          That may be, but the citation doesn't support it. It's a statement rejecting ANE flat earth cosmology, and while it leaves room for something other than six-day creationism, it doesn't declare it.

                          It wasn't. Till this year, Dr. Heiser's main employment was as Scholar in Residence at Faithlife Corporation for Logos Bible Software, where he saw plenty of academic freedom. He recently left that position for a role as Executive Director of Celebration Church's (currently non-accredited) Awakening School of Theology.
                          From their HR docs, linked earlier, online adjuncts are required to sign the same doctrinal statement as their full-time, bricks and mortar colleagues. Moreover, both are listed as Liberty faculty publications, with the implication that deviation from the doctrinal statement would be suitable cause for dismissal. Similarly, his choice to publish in strictly evangelical journals constrains both his positions and those of his peer reviewers, as does his assorted positions attached to religious institutions.

                          Again, even in the absence of what I consider the scholar's ultimate coin, academic freedom, to the extent his scholarship reflects the views of a significant slice of humanity, they interest me.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                            Again, not certain what was in CPs head at the time, but I'm assuming he was curious about your attending a church at all (Unitarian or otherwise), and thought it might be nice to have a friendly conversation with you about what draws you to church services, and what that particular service is like. That sort of thing. That sound about right CP?
                            Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                            Not just "about right", but dead on.
                            Well, my brother would take issue with anyone calling a Unitarian Church a "church," preferring to cast them as "social clubs." To which I've always replied, "That's the point!"

                            Unitarian services are famously open to atheists and theists alike, and typically draw moral lessons from any and all religious traditions, or even from secular humanism. I have no problem sharing a pew with any theist who doesn't have a problem sharing a pew with me in mutual tolerance of our sectarian disagreements.



                            But that's pretty much exactly why I'd say it's not a comfy space for evangelicals. They don't like us much, or if they do, it's for other reasons, like for instance, because I and my LC/MS preacher are brothers. I'm sure he's deluded in thinking I'm headed for hell, but we love each other just the same.

                            His family is awesome. One of the niecelets, my buddy John's kid and an inveterate backseater on my bike, described them as "The Waltons." I shared that with them after a visit, and my brother Bob's wife, Nancy, just beamed!

                            It's not a requirement, but as it turns out, every Unitarian Church I've visited was headed by an LGBT pastor, often enough assisted by their partners, which, perhaps not so coincidentally, also figures in my assessment they're close kin to libxians.

                            I also attend services at his church when I'm visiting, leaving him and Nancy to find their own explanations back when the kids were young, and would ask why I didn't take communion. They were raised far too polite to demand further explanation from me, and were understandably unsatisfied with my ... yes, cryptic but true ... claim, "I'm not a Lutheran." Lutherans have a closed communion, so the reasoning was valid, if misleading.

                            Anything else you'd like to ask, CP, feel free.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                              In any case, this is not an interaction with Smith, as cited here from p. 48 of Origins, who holds that:
                              Verse 6 addresses the gods as "the sons of Elyon," probably a title of El at an early point in biblical tradition (cf. El Elyon mentioned three times in Genesis 14:18-20). If this supposition is correct, Psalm 82 preserves a tradition that casts the god of Israel in the role not of the presiding god of the pantheon but as one his sons.

                              Smith is not suggesting El is present here, rather that a shadow of his presence has been preserved after redaction.

                              In the footnotes, also on p. 48, relating to his treatment of v. 1, Smith clarifies:
                              Psalm 82 belongs to the "elohistic Psalter," thought by many scholars to have undergone a replacement of the name of Yahweh with the title "God" ('akelohďm). I have reservations about this theory although it would point more clearly to Yahweh understood as the subject of this sentence.
                              Right. Heiser addresses this earlier in the paper,
                              This position is in part based on the idea that these passages presume Yahweh and El are separate, in concert with an “older” polytheistic or henotheistic Israelite religion, and that this older theology collapsed in the wake of a monotheistic innovation. The reasoning is that, since it is presumed that such a religious evolution took place, these texts evince some sort of transition to monotheism. The alleged transition is then used in defense of the exegesis. As such, the security of the evolutionary presupposition is where this analysis begins.

                              Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                              In any case, a plain reading of the text shows Yahweh being commanded, albeit in the prophetic voice, to rise and take command over the gods, implicitly claiming a position that was not previously his, and hence a position previously held by someone other than Yahweh.
                              Plain readings of ancient Hebrew texts translated into English can be tricky (which is why there's considerable discussion regarding Psalm 82). As Heiser suggests, it may not be a command. Rather the prophetic voice pleads for God to act on those he has judged. We see similar language in passages like Psalm 68.

                              Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                              This mixing of political and theological terms is simply confusing to me. Left, or leaning left, cannot be a valid characterization of an overwhelmingly mainstream position, and creates an unjustifiable impression that the mainstream should be defined by its opposition to a fringe, where the converse is clearly more defensible.
                              There's nothing inherently political in the terminology. There are, I'm certain, liberal Biblical scholars who are politically conservative, and vice versa. If you find the terminology confusing, then your issue may be with Bible scholars themselves. I've read scholars on both divides (and those who straddle the middle) who use the terminology in their work (Bart Ehrman, for instance, identifies himself as a left leaning scholar, and John Dominic Crossan also makes liberal/conservative distinctions). I've also read scholars who'd like to forego such terminology altogether (Christian bible scholar Ben Witherington III and Jewish bible scholar Amy-Jill Levine encourage this in their shared commentary on the Gospel of Luke, for instance).


                              Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                              I've found the Hebrew Bible to be vastly more illuminating once freed of a priori assumptions of divine inspiration. Focusing instead on the humanity of its authors yields, for me, a far more robust understanding of our cousins across the millennia.
                              From my readings, most of the scholars whose names come up again and again in both Old and New Testament studies do just that. They attempt academic objectivity as best they can, especially in their more professional work. As John Sailhamer has said (paraphrasing), when we study the Old Testament on it's own terms, when we attempt to see what the original authors intended and what the original audience understood, only then will the full richness of the text be revealed. That said, if divine inspiration exists (however it may take shape), then one might argue that it does a disservice to the text to ignore it. I think this is something Nick discussed in a Deeper Waters thread some while back.


                              Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                              That may be, but the citation doesn't support it. It's a statement rejecting ANE flat earth cosmology, and while it leaves room for something other than six-day creationism, it doesn't declare it.
                              It's not a rejection of ANE flat earth cosmology, as such. I mean, it is, but that's not the point of the post. His point is that he's not a literal six-day creationist, and that those who claim to be "'literal creationists' are actually only selective literalists." Heiser would regard himself as an accommodationist. He's very much the opposite of a literalist creationist.

                              Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                              From their HR docs, linked earlier, online adjuncts are required to sign the same doctrinal statement as their full-time, bricks and mortar colleagues. Moreover, both are listed as Liberty faculty publications, with the implication that deviation from the doctrinal statement would be suitable cause for dismissal.
                              Don't know what to tell you. He's definitely not a literalist. Maybe his contract had an exception clause.

                              Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                              Similarly, his choice to publish in strictly evangelical journals constrains both his positions and those of his peer reviewers, as does his assorted positions attached to religious institutions.
                              I have no idea why Dr. Heiser chose to publish in those evangelical journals, but I doubt it's because he thought they would constrain his positions or those of his peers. Perhaps he published in them because they share his ideals. You can contact him here and maybe find out for yourself. He's an incredibly busy guy, but I've been able to touch base with him a couple times over email.
                              Last edited by Adrift; 10-06-2019, 01:25 AM.

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