Scruffy
February 19th 2007, 11:55 AM
I found a very interesting on-line book called The Psychology of Prophetism. It's short, with only four chapters. Here is the link.
http://www.bharatvani.org/books/pp/
Lots of good info about the Prophets, prophetism, and the Bible. In case you need a little taste to get you started, here is an excerpt.
1. the search in the text for certain symptoms should precede any other consideration;
2. if a well-known syndrome can be identified, all other elements should be coherent with this syndrome (if no syndrome can be identified, then psycho-pathology considers its job finished. it is nobody’s intention to force a psycho-pathological explanation where there is no solid ground for one);
3. the fact that the witness is unaware of the scientific significance of the elements he mentions, will be considered as decisive.
Therefore, this psychopathological control of old texts can decide the questions about the historicity of the facts almost with certainty. As the syndrome described is culture-neutral and independent, all textual and philological criticism has to take this fact into account. Some methods of judicial expertise can subsidiarily be applied (such as the criteria of U. Undeutsch)5 in order to decide about the truthfulness of a testimony according to internal criteria.
The first Old Testament character who deserves a closer psychological investigation, is Abraham. His story is that of a man who has no children, but hears a voice promising him a numerous progeny.
Dr. Somers takes the trouble of demonstrating that everything in the story of Abraham regarding marriage customs is authentic: the fact that children born by a slave girl were legitimate, that the official wife could adopt such a child (e.g. if she was sterile, as Sarah is said to be), that the nomads lent out or sold their sisters and daughters to visitors or in exchange for food supplies, and so on. Some of these customs were not in vogue anymore in the time the Bible was committed to writing, so if they figure in this story, this indicates its historical authenticity. The report of Abraham’s visit of Egypt completely fits the social facts that we know from Egyptian historiography. Modernist theologians are mistaken if they say that the patriarch’s story is just an edifying narrative concocted by priests in order to express the Israelites’ faith in their God.
The theological dimension of the story seems to be more recent, but the skeleton of actual events related is no doubt about real people, living in the 16th and 15th century BC. The personal data about Abraham also bear the stamp of authenticity. Dr. Somers lists the following remarkable data which the Bible narrative gives us about Abraham: "
http://www.bharatvani.org/books/pp/
Lots of good info about the Prophets, prophetism, and the Bible. In case you need a little taste to get you started, here is an excerpt.
1. the search in the text for certain symptoms should precede any other consideration;
2. if a well-known syndrome can be identified, all other elements should be coherent with this syndrome (if no syndrome can be identified, then psycho-pathology considers its job finished. it is nobody’s intention to force a psycho-pathological explanation where there is no solid ground for one);
3. the fact that the witness is unaware of the scientific significance of the elements he mentions, will be considered as decisive.
Therefore, this psychopathological control of old texts can decide the questions about the historicity of the facts almost with certainty. As the syndrome described is culture-neutral and independent, all textual and philological criticism has to take this fact into account. Some methods of judicial expertise can subsidiarily be applied (such as the criteria of U. Undeutsch)5 in order to decide about the truthfulness of a testimony according to internal criteria.
The first Old Testament character who deserves a closer psychological investigation, is Abraham. His story is that of a man who has no children, but hears a voice promising him a numerous progeny.
Dr. Somers takes the trouble of demonstrating that everything in the story of Abraham regarding marriage customs is authentic: the fact that children born by a slave girl were legitimate, that the official wife could adopt such a child (e.g. if she was sterile, as Sarah is said to be), that the nomads lent out or sold their sisters and daughters to visitors or in exchange for food supplies, and so on. Some of these customs were not in vogue anymore in the time the Bible was committed to writing, so if they figure in this story, this indicates its historical authenticity. The report of Abraham’s visit of Egypt completely fits the social facts that we know from Egyptian historiography. Modernist theologians are mistaken if they say that the patriarch’s story is just an edifying narrative concocted by priests in order to express the Israelites’ faith in their God.
The theological dimension of the story seems to be more recent, but the skeleton of actual events related is no doubt about real people, living in the 16th and 15th century BC. The personal data about Abraham also bear the stamp of authenticity. Dr. Somers lists the following remarkable data which the Bible narrative gives us about Abraham: "