Study Disproves The Bible

[Adrift]

You, sir, have quite the vivid imagination.

Eh, that is pretty much the prevailing view in much of Old Testament scholarship. There are, of course, plenty of scholars who take a different approach like Hoffmeier in Israel in Egypt, and Ancient Israel in Sinai, Richard Hess in Israelite Religions, Micheal Heiser in The Unseen Realm, Kenneth Kitchen On the Reliability of the Old Testament, etc.. More to the point, nothing he said has much to do with the OP, or anything that was said about the OP.

[One Bad Pig]

Eh, that is pretty much the prevailing view in much of Old Testament scholarship.

Huh. That's rather disappointing.

[Cow Poke]

Hate to spoil all the fun but modern archaeology and study of the origins of Israelite religion have shown that the original Israelites were Canaanites and that Yahweh was just a minor polytheistic deity worshiped alongside others and subordinate to El the Canaanite deity. Only later did he become the "favorite" god of the Israelites and was promoted to "The only God" status after a long political and ideological process that culminated around the time of the Babylonian exile. Hate to break it to you.

You'll have an opportunity to explain your wacky theory to One True God in due time.

[Adrift]

Huh. That's rather disappointing.

Yeah it is. But these sorts of prevailing views tend to swing from period to period as new discoveries, and new researchers reassess the data. We see it happening all the time in New Testament studies.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

"The original god of Israel was El. This reconstruction may be inferred from two pieces of information. First, the name of Israel is not a Yahwistic name with the divine element of Yahweh, but an El name, with the element, *’ ēl. This fact would suggest that El was the original chief god of the group named Israel."

"Yet early on, Yahweh is understood as Israel’s god in distinction to El. Deuteronomy 32:8-9 casts Yahweh in the role of one of the sons of El, here called ‘elyôn...

This passage presents an order in which each deity received its own nation. Israel was the nation that Yahweh received. It also suggests that Yahweh, originally a warrior-god from Sinai/Paran/Edom/Teiman, was known separately from El at an early point in early Israel." - Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God, pg. 32.
https://books.google.com/books?id=1y...page&q&f=false

This guy teaches at Princeton and is representing the mainstream consensus view. Not so funny anymore is it?

[psstein]

Hate to spoil all the fun but modern archaeology and study of the origins of Israelite religion have shown that the original Israelites were Canaanites and that Yahweh was just a minor polytheistic deity worshiped alongside others and subordinate to El the Canaanite deity. Only later did he become the "favorite" god of the Israelites and was promoted to "The only God" status after a long political and ideological process that culminated around the time of the Babylonian exile. Hate to break it to you.

As much as it pains me to agree with you, that's largely the case. I wouldn't say all the original Israelites were Canaanites, but certainly a large number of them were. I think you can characterize pre-exilic Israelite religion as henotheistic, rather than polytheistic. It's clear that the J source believes that YHWH is the high god, though certainly not the only one.

I don't think it's so much a political struggle as much as it's an attempt to grapple with the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem.

[psstein]

Yeah it is. But these sorts of prevailing views tend to swing from period to period as new discoveries, and new researchers reassess the data. We see it happening all the time in New Testament studies.

NT is less susceptible to these kinds of shifts, because NT is in many ways a much easier field. There's less information and time frame to cover, you need to know fewer languages, etc. Right now, NT is shifting away from history and towards more pastoral tools, or simply re-writing the text as however one sees fit.

Don't believe me? There was a recent article about "queering John's Jesus," seeing the Jesus portrayed in the Gospel of John as a queer black woman.

[shunyadragon]

Study disproves the Bible's suggestion that the ancient Canaanites were wiped out



Except the bible makes clear that all Canaanites were not destroyed:



So the study actually confirms the bible.

I prefer more legitimate academic sources that local newspaper journalism based on selective references. There is no legitimate argument either way based on this.

[Bill the Cat]

As much as it pains me to agree with you, that's largely the case. I wouldn't say all the original Israelites were Canaanites, but certainly a large number of them were. I think you can characterize pre-exilic Israelite religion as henotheistic, rather than polytheistic. It's clear that the J source believes that YHWH is the high god, though certainly not the only one.

I don't think it's so much a political struggle as much as it's an attempt to grapple with the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem.

JEDP? Seriously??

[One Bad Pig]

JEDP? Seriously??

It seems that mainstream OT scholarship is still heavily dependent on it.

[psstein]

JEDP? Seriously??

The Documentary Hypothesis (or JEDP) is still the view of the majority of OT scholars. Other views, like the supplementary hypothesis (Van Seters, most notably) and the fragmentary hypothesis have become increasingly popular in recent years.

I hold to something like the fragmentary hypothesis.

My issue with the DH is that the division of sources seems arbitrary and I'm not convinced that there inexorably has to be an evolution of Israelite religion in the way that Wellhausen and later writers saw.

[Teallaura]

NT is less susceptible to these kinds of shifts, because NT is in many ways a much easier field. There's less information and time frame to cover, you need to know fewer languages, etc. Right now, NT is shifting away from history and towards more pastoral tools, or simply re-writing the text as however one sees fit.

Don't believe me? There was a recent article about "queering John's Jesus," seeing the Jesus portrayed in the Gospel of John as a queer black woman.

[Doug Shaver]

how do they know what Canaanite DNA is to compare it to?

They got DNA from ancient Canaanite burial sites.

[psstein]

If you want to punish yourself, I can provide the article.

[DesertBerean]

Evolutionists come to Bible's defense:

https://evolutionnews.org/2017/07/fo...-bible-around/