The current issue of Biblische Notizen (193, 2022) contains a series of articles about the confrontation in biblical scholarship between the biblical “minimalists” and the “maximalists.” The opening article by Lester Grabbe is entitled “How the Minimalists Won! A Discussion of Historical Method in Biblical Studies.” In it he claims not be a minimalist himself […]
Biblical Archaeology and Literature
The Mount Ebal Curse Inscription: Response to Scott Stripling
Mount Ebal is in the news. The site of a biblical altar built by Joshua and a physical altar discovered by Adam Zertal is now the site of a proposed 40-letter inscription of curses and the name Yahweh (Yhw). The announcement was made by Scott Stripling on March 24, 2022, at the Lanier Theological Seminary. […]
Egyptologists, Biblical Scholars, and The Exodus
Egyptologists and Biblical scholars treat the Exodus differently. They approach the idea of an historical Exodus from different assumptions and perspectives and they respond differently to new information about the Exodus. In this blog, I present a speculative case study on how the two disciplines will react differently to the same information drawing on my […]
Passover and Pharaoh Smites the Enemy
To understand historical Passover it must be placed in the context of Egyptian violence. Egyptologists who avoid the Exodus like the plague do not do this. Biblical scholars who know that there was no historical Passover do not do this either. They confine themselves to literary and/or ritual studies. However to understand historical Yahweh smites […]
What Do Egyptologists Think of the Exodus?
What do Egyptologists think of the Exodus? In The Exodus, An Egyptian Story, I examined leading (English) histories of Egypt from 1905 to 2010 to determine what these prominent Egyptologists thought about the Exodus. Later in the book, I repeated the process to see what these same people or co-authors if a multi-authored book, thought […]
The Egyptian Exploration Fund and the Exodus
When I was researching The Exodus: An Egyptian Story, I learned to my surprise that when the Egyptian Exploration Fund (EEF), now the Egyptian Exploration Society (EES) was founded in 1882, the Exodus was a foundational goal. The Fund sought to find the route of the Exodus. This interest in the Exodus can be traced […]
Political Texts of Terror in the Book of Judges
“I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.” Greta Thunberg, World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, […]
Rule of Law: George Washington, Nimrod, the Tower of Babel and Today
On April 10, 2019, Politico posted an article entitled “Trump’s ‘truly bizarre’ visit to Mt. Vernon.” The article recounted a visit on April 23, 2018, by the French and American Presidents to Mount Vernon, home of George Washington, the first President of the United States. According to Mount Vernon president and CEO Doug Bradburn, the […]
Cosmic ASOR: Suppose a Supernatural Event Occurs in Historical Time
This blog marks the final one [YAY!] on the ASOR and SBL conferences in 2018. Suppose a supernatural event occurs in historical time. By supernatural, I am referring to a natural but infrequent event that does not lend itself to daily, weekly, monthly, annual, or even Sothic cycles. These are events in historic time which […]
How Come Gath Is in the Hebrew Bible and Khirbet Qeiyafa Is Not?
This blog is part of a series of posts about the ASOR and SBL conferences in November, 2018. They can be accessed at the IHARE website and will be posted to academia.edu. One of the developments in the ASOR and SBL conferences was the increased archaeological data from the 11th and early 10th centuries BCE […]