Lessons from the ASOR Conference: Punctuated Equilibrium and the Writing of the Hebrew Bible

At the just concluded American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) conference, two sessions in the last two time slots were: Integrating Cultural Change – Punctuated Equilibria Models in Near Eastern Archaeology and Egyptology I and II. Neither session specifically mentioned the Hebrew Bible nor do I recall any questions from the audience addressing that topic […]

Parades (ASOR) and Enneateuch (SBL): The Creation of the Hebrew Bible

Note: This post is part of a series on the ASOR and SBL conferences in November 2018   Who doesn’t love a parade? Everybody loves a parade. As it turns out parades or processions provide an alternate approach to the creation of the Hebrew Bible from the Persian-period fixated ivory-tower scribal elite approach. The Israelite […]

Tribes and the State at the ASOR and SBL Conferences

Once upon a time not that long ago, tribes were very fashionable in biblical studies. From Julius Wellhausen in Arabia to Lawrence of Arabia to the amphictyony, tribes garnered a great deal of interest for the understanding of early Israelite history. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, visitors to the Holy Land […]

Nadav Na’aman and Israel Finkelstein at the SBL Conference (2018)

What would an SBL conference be without Nadav Na’aman and Israel Finkelstein? This year there was a special session dedicated to Na’aman: S18-324 Historiography and the Hebrew Bible Theme: Between Biblical Research, Archaeology, and History: A Session in Honour of Nadav Na’aman for his Eightieth Birthday Before turning to the presentations, it is necessary to […]

Where Is the Tenth Century BCE?: The ASOR and SBL Conferences

Where is the tenth century BCE? Not when is tenth century BCE but where is it in the scholarship presented at the recent ASOR and SBL conferences. I cannot claim to have attended every relevant session on this topic. In some instances I am forced to rely on the abstracts provided by the presenters for […]

The White House Ship of State (The Sequel)

The White House ship of state is not the Love Boat. Is it the Titanic? Perhaps a better metaphor than something crashing into an iceberg would be the meltdown of the ship where the motto is “ABANDON SHIP! ABANDON SHIP!” Let’s examine the different components of the ship of state and determine what if any […]