Is it something you are interested in as an agnostic, a theist or an atheist?who are the best biblical scholars?, what are the most interesting and revelant topics of research within the field?I dont know how to navigate biblical scholarship on youtube, should i push through a set of fixed contents say the synoptic gospels, the hebrew bible, the historical jesus and the transition from the yahwist religion to judaism and eventually rabinnic judaism and later unsubscribe from biblical scholarship channels?I couldnt find a good video about the history of judaism, and i dont know if i should even dive deep into this subject, because its not my intention to try to gather information to deconvert people, myself being an agnostic, im really tolerant of believers and think some of them are really smart.Other social sciences are less polemical. You can discuss history with everyone or almost everyone, the same is not true for biblical scholarship. Though i find many aspects of biblical scholarship- source criticism, textual criticism- potentially useful in other areas of the social sciences, though i also think some of the tools of the field are only relevant or important enough in the field and i would at most want to know the basics, im not interested in every minor detail of the field or in becoming a bible scholar.
>>18694936Bart Ehrman is the reason I will always be an Atheist. Too many forgeries in the Bible.
>>18694940Thats cool but sometimes he seems like someone who primarily makes pop content and there might be more rigorous scholars who are less biased. I watched some of his videos and i was worried that i was only getting the skeptic perspective of the bible.
>>18694936I'm a bit of a theist, but mostly agnostic, and I adore biblical scholarship of any kind. Christianity has been an inspiration to me, though I can't really bring myself to believe in much of the premises. I've only ever watched Dan McClellan's videos though, and like you I also wish to learn how to navigate this field.>history of judaismI feel like its pretty relevant to understand the theological context of the Bible. I had put a bunch of ESOTERICA's videos on my watch later list as they seemed scholarly enough to know what they're talking about but I haven't watched enough to really gauge its quality of information. The channel seems more focused on mysticism anyway. Any anons have some thoughts on this channel?
>>18695078I also had put a bunch of videos from esoterica on my watch later playlist, though i deleted them because i mostly want to focus on history from now on.I had a problem where i felt like I had consumed a significant amount of time worth of videos of biblical scholarship and religion and like i had learned very little and had almost nothing to show for it. That is why i got demotivated and i realize that if i want to go back to it (my plan would be to start off with youtube and later back it up with literature) I should have a structure and a fixed number of hours or set of contents first.
>>18694961Ehrman is famous because he takes the most milquetoast least controversial academic consensus takes and turns them into a book for the layman audience. And then Christians act like he's actually pushing super critical views lol.
>>18694961>who primarily makes pop contentHe usually publishes an academic and accompanying pop history book at roughly the same time>more rigorous scholarsNone that I've ever heard of, secular universities, basically every mainline protestant and many catholic seminaries use his textbooks for a reason.>less biasedNot really. A lot of younger scholars disagree with the Q theory and david brakke has a more plausible reading of the gospel of judas imo, along with some other things, but for the most part his whole schtick is that he's fairly uncontroversial.
>>18694936I love it
>>18695078McClellan pretty frequently recommends books and papers that cover the topics he talks about in greater depth, those would probably be good places to start.
>>18694936>biblical "scholarship"Show me where the Snake is lying in Genesis
>>18695266what?
>>18695285The Snake. In Genesis. Where is the Snake lying?
>>18695314it was lying because it said you will not die, yet God revoked their immortality status by cutting them off from the tree of life, therefore they died
This is now Ehrman appreciation thread!
>>18695336God says they would die in the day they eat of the tree and Adam at least lived to be nearly 1000.They also weren't immortal prior to God punishing them, he kicks them out so they won't eat from the tree of life and become immortal.
>>18694936listing to what talmud jews think about anything is retarded
>>18695497The bible is jewish.
>>18694936its just another form of Wolf in Sheep's Clothing satanism. But i do believe that if you immerse yourself with the Christ and the Bible, even as atheist, the Holy Spirit is just constantly begging you to let you in.
>>18694936Inthink Biblical scholarship is very interesting. And warranted too given how the Bible is one of the most influential books ever written.
>>18694936As a non believer in anything I find theology endlessly fascinating especially Catholic theology.
>>18695497The talmud i suppose is one book about biblical interpretaion and particularly about orthopraxy, that is correct praxis about jewish law, and yes, i am retarded>>18695551yeah i think religion is good for people, but seeing some of the contradictions, failed prophecies and moral atrocities of the bible, its really hard to remain a christian. I suggest you read the age of reason by thomas paine. Its free on standard ebooks.com
>>18695642>religion is good for peopleyou can immediately tell someone is midwit satanist when they lie about all religions being the same>false prophetsPaul addresses these happening in real in the NT. If thats a deal breaker than you never even liked Christ at year 0>Thomas Painedid you seriously suggest one of the most entry level founding fathers writings possible like its some secret code that needs to be unearthed.
>>18695338>>18695342>>18695345Absolute cringe
>>18694936As an atheist, I find it boring and uninteresting.
>>18695464you are stupid, that's what I said
>>18695464That's quite literally the consensus view of critical scholarship and covered in every university 101 book to Genesis. It's the schizo fundievangicals who try to claim the snake lied and God sorta told the truth because every day is a big number of years or whatever in this verse of the Book of Apologetica
>>18695769You don't love Bart the way I do.
>>18695823It's pretty obvious God just lied if you read the book but Christians hate the bible and hate reading it so they wouldn't know
>>18695336>the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not die; your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'Genesis 3:4-5>the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.Genesis 3:22
>>18696397you are more stupid than I thought
>>18695823>It's the schizo fundievangicals who try to claim the snake liedCatholic teaching very much claims the Serpent lied.
>>18696397God lying happened in 2:17 btw>but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the very day dying you will dieLuckily, English has the same nuance when repeating words like the Hebrew infinitive absolute above does: "You'll *die* die", not just metaphorically die.NET Bible translation note:>Heb “dying you will die.” The imperfect verb form here has the nuance of the specific future because it is introduced with the temporal clause, “when you eat…you will die.” That certainty is underscored with the infinitive absolute, “you will surely die.”>The Hebrew text (“dying you will die”) does not refer to two aspects of death (“dying spiritually, you will then die physically”). The construction simply emphasizes the certainty of death, however it is defined. See also Eve flubbing the game of telephone in 3:3>The Hebrew construction is פֶּן (pen) with the imperfect tense, which conveys a negative purpose: “lest you die” = “in order that you not die.” By stating the warning in this way, the woman omits the emphatic infinitive used by God (“you shall surely die,” see 2:17).Now, while NET has lovely in-depth translation notes, it is an evangelical translation that upholds the standard fundie mix of divine omnibenevolence and biblical infallibility, and their giant list of copes to explain this difficulty also includes the possibility - the only one that does not contradict any of their translation notes, I might add - that God changed his mind.>(1) The following phrase “You will surely die” concerns mortality which ultimately results in death (a natural paraphrase would be, “You will become mortal”), or (2) God mercifully gave man a reprieve, allowing him to live longer than he deserved.Carefully worded to soothe the devout believer's mind!>>18696644In a seminary that priests attend, sure, but generally they don't bother arguing for the sillier but necessary bits of Catholic theology in academic journals of high repute.
>>18694936I read that book. It was ok, I learnt a lot about the evolution of the after-life. I actually started reading to settle a spat here. Some guy said Jewish apocalypticismw as stolen from Zoroastrianism and I wanted to see if that was true. I did not get a conclusive answer, the jury is still out on that. And probably will be forever unless something unexpected happens.
>>18696701Comparatively I am more bullish on a bunch of old books surviving the elements inside a cave in the Zagros Mtns than I am from finding a manuscript from India.
>>18696656>Now, while NET has lovely in-depth translation notes, it is an evangelical translation that upholds the standard fundie mix of divine omnibenevolence and biblical infallibility, and their giant list of copes to explain this difficulty also includes the possibility - the only one that does not contradict any of their translation notes, I might add - that God changed his mind.I do like NET translation notes, but some of them are clearly copes like this and are very funny. There's another funny one over in Genesis 6:1-4. But shouldn't "God changed his mind" be a problem too? How can an all knowing being change his mind?
>>18695562>Inthink Biblical scholarship is very interesting. And warranted too given how the Bible is one of the most influential books ever written.It helps that bible is one of the most interesting books ever compiled, ngl.Mind you, the OT rontloads a lot of the interesting stuff. The NT would still be interesting alone but not as much as the OT.
>>18696656Oh yes, many notes on verses related to polytheism have fun stuff in them.NET is a project by the Dallas Theological Seminary with Daniel B. Wallace as its chief editor, and they try to accommodate a broad range of evangelical views from conservative (~Southern Baptist) "God is an unchanging pillar of our objective morality who must by his very nature always follow his own word" to the more progressive (~mainline Protestant) "God can be persuaded to change his mind by Human prayers but only if the result makes me feel filled with the Holy Spirit, let's not think too much about the implications to omniscience". It's about 90% excellent information about translation choices and context, 5% hiding the real harshly worded translation in a footnote, and 5% hilarious apologetics, often simulatenously from all sides of the evangelical spectrum. Luckily they have NASB available as a translation on their website, you can always flip to that to get something more literal than NET.By far the funniest Olympics-level mental gymnastics I've encountered is their giant note (atteched) to explain 1 Cor 14:34-35, which bears all the hallmarks of a marginal note: it moves around in manuscript traditions, breaks the argument surrounding it, and is marked as added text by a corrector of Codex Vaticanus who obviously compared at least two very different manuscripts available to him. Because this is the only text that tells women to shut up in a Pauline epistle that everyone agrees is authentic, it makes a certain type of conservative sad if it were a forgery. The addition is often dated to somewhere in the 2nd century, because it seems to mirror the rising popularity of Christianity among rich women that the early 2nd century Pastorals also seem to abhor (shut up in Church, don't wear any jewellery, etc.)The tl;dr NET solution? Yes, while academics are correct that the verses are an addition, the margin note was authored by Paul himself before the letter was sent!
>>18696764Sorry, meant to quote >>18696718 of course
>>18696764I think this is the longest note I have seen, it's nearly as long as the chapter.
>>18696764Juvenal has an entire chapter in one of his satires complaining about Women falling for religious scams and bizarre cults like Judaism&Christianity. Judaism is mentioned by name but I don't remember if Christianity is.
>>18696883Christianity played on the marxist playbook.First convert the women, they will convert the children.
>>18694936>Is it something you are interested in as an agnostic, a theist or an atheist?I am interested in religions in general.The evolution of the Abrahamic faith is quite fascinating. It's basically a case study religious evolution spanning three thousand years.>Canaanite bronze age polytheism>Yahwist monolatrism>Jewish monotheismEarly Christianity is also quite fascinating. A sudden explosion of dualist and gnostic sects. Only for it all to get squeezed into a (quasi) monotheistic unified faith again over the course of centuries as the Roman state religion.The New Testament is fascinating too. You can basically see how Jesus gets turned from a guy claiming to be the Jewish Messiah into God-on-Earth over the course of only a few decades. I haven't gotten that deep into Islam yet. And I should look more at Eastern Orthodox churches I guess.
>>18697538>I haven't gotten that deep into Islam yet.My theory is that its creator, Muhammad or someone else wanted to solve the whole christian sectarianism problem. That's also why the quran so vehemently denies the trinity and Jesus being the son of God or God himself. Islam was useful to unite the people of the middle east under one banner against the romans and the persians. But the very next generation islam gained the sectarian violence problem through a succession crisis.
>>18697538I read the Quran, biographies of Muhammad, know very many Hadiths and watched countless YouTube videos on Islam. Not a Muslim but do you have any questions? I could share my takes.
>>18697781Not that anon but I don't like the quran. It's too much focused on kissing allah's ass and threatening the ones who don't believe the quran with eternal hellfire.
>>18697777I read in a book by Karen Armstrong that Muhamad thought Trinitarianism and the Hypostatic Union were local Arabian heresies and the normal Chrisiians didn't believe this in his view.His theology is just his best guess as to what is actually the case (based on many misconceptions as he wasn't that well educated).
>>18697795It's pretty much just that, promises of paradises and the stories of the prophets in a random order with tweaks. Also there are some social justice elements interestingly.I still love the religion but reading the Book wasn't the most pleasant thing.
>>18697812>Also there are some social justice elements interestingly.What do you mean with that? I haven't read much of the quran. I mostly glanced through it and read some passages and surahs.>I still love the religionWhy?
>>18697805There were christian sects who didn't think that Jesus was God or the son of God. I think islam was also heavily inspired by them and hat the founder of islam (Muhamma or someone else) thought that trinity and the claim that Jesus is God causes too much infighting.The quran has many gnostic and talmudic stories in them. With the gnostic stories I think it's a bit ironic, like the story with the clay birds. For gnostics it meant that Jesus was like God, he could create life out of dirt while the quran itself emphasizes that it's through the power of Allah and Jesus didn't do it himself. According to some writings that christians wrote about the ebionites, they believed that Mary was the holy spirit and was also the archangel Michael. It's not 100% confirmed that they really believed this because there are no surviving writings of them, it could be just some things that christian writters invented to attack them. But this claim fits with the quran claim that Mary is part of the trinity.The virgin birth in the quran is also a bit weird. I think it could be misread as the holy spirit or Allah impregnating Mary, the way it's described there. I also don't understand what the purpose is of Jesus being called al-masih the messiah in the quran. I think it would made the religion a bit more logical if they didn't adapt that part from christians.I'm neither a christian nor a muslim. For me it's superstition.
>>18697854>What do you mean with that?My favorite Surah is the al-Balad. It's short and it reads something like this if my memory serves well:>we are being persecuted>there are people who help others (the social justice element)>others will burn>Why?I'm mostly fascinated by the personal story of the Prophet and his Sahabah (friends, many of whom became caliphs later on). But I'm also drawn to the ideas. Like the Unitarian deity or destiny (Qadar). The eschatology reads like what Christians would like theirs to be. Actual Antichrist figure, epic battles, Jesus coming back as a total badass etc..The religion is pretty cool actually.
>>18697877There are a lot of good points in what you wrote. But for me superstition is a good thing. Abrahammics just happen to be the wrong kind of superstition (most likely).
>>18697885Maybe I'm a bit biased. I live in Europe and interacting with muslims made my opinion on islam very negative. To be fair interacting with e-christians changed my opinion of christianity into the negative.
>>18697781>do you have any questions? I could share my takes.Has the language of Quran been updated at some point? Is it still understandable by average Arabic speakers? Any push towards modernization/translations as we have had with the Christian bible?How important are the Haddiths exactly in the lives of Muslims? Do many Muslims know them by heart? Are some collections considered more trustworthy than others?
>>18697963Hadiths are extremely important. They are the source of much religious practice like the exact prayer instructions. The Muslims tend not to memorize them however (unlike with the Quran). Yes. There is a scrict hierarchy of the Hadiths:The Hadiths that are found in both Bukhari and Muslim > Bukhari > Muslim > other Sahih > Hasan (good enough as a helping guide but not the main thing) > Da'If (these are just fun to know but aren't considered reliable)I won't answer your questions about the Quran as I'm less familiar. I just know it remains basically intact since the third caliph (Uthman) standarized it. Also look up what a Hafiz is. Pretty interesting.
>>18697877>like the story with the clay birds. For gnostics it meant that Jesus was like God, he could create life out of dirtJust because the infancy gospel of Thomas was given the name Thomas in the middle ages doesn't make it gnostic. There's essentially nothing discernably Gnostic about it.
>>18697963>Has the language of Quran been updated at some point?The only updates have been made in the very earliest versions of the Quran, and it was only in regards to diacritical marks, changes in pronunciation. Every word in the Quran stayed the same and in the same order, otherwise.>Is it still understandable by average Arabic speakers?Not that much, but any Arab can pick up Quranic Arabic easily if they study. Though, understanding is often filtered through tradition and polemics. Things like if you think the Quran is compatible with evolution or a round Earth. Nowadays most (if not all) Muslims deny flat Earth, but historically some Medieval Muslims had believed that the Quran explicitly mentions a flat Earth. There are also a few words that secular academia have analyzed to mean something else than what most Islamic traditions have claimed, like the word "ummi." Some surahs also contain some letters that have no known meaning, which most Islamic traditions regard them as something miraculous.>Any push towards modernization/translations as we have had with the Christian bible?I honestly don't know about in Arabic, but because so many English translations of the Quran started emulating the style of the King James Bible, some Muslims have made it a point to make English translations more contemporary. I'll try to see if there's some Quranic Arabic to contemporary dialectical Arabic translations sometime, I wouldn't be surprised if they exist. Translations, by the way, don't really matter that much theology-wise. All non-Arabic editions of the Quran are seen as tasfir (explanations or exegeses) and not actual Qurans.>HadithGenerally very important to Muslims, with the only exceptions of Quranists, who deny all hadith, or soft-Quranists, who question most hadith. When it comes to the mainstream Sunni madhabs, hadiths are filtered through scholarly tradition. For Salafis, hadiths are interpreted by learned individuals. It gets more complicated for others.
>>18696639>words dont mean what they really mean in thus instance no listen they actually mean that jesus….etc etc etc
>>18695083>I should have a structureHa, same here. A lot of my learning revolves around whatever fixation I happened to have for that time. Like right now I have a fixation for Yemen and Zaydism, so it'll be a while till I go read more about Biblical scholarship. Doesn't help that I'm also busy with my masters in engineering. I should add that any decent book naturally has a good structure for learning the topic, so I would suggest literature first and youtube videos to back it up so that you follow a structure that has been layed out before you.>>18695264True, thanks for reminding me.
>>18694936>Is it something you are interested in as an agnostic, a theist or an atheist?As a Bible-believing Christian, I have no interest in biblical scholarship.
>>18694940>I will always be BURSTING with pride.The burn pit awaits. Tick tock.
>>18694936religionforbreakfast has pretty good videos that actually leave you more educated on a topic.
>>18698633This. Religion for breakfast also is quite respectful of the religions he makes videos on, takes the time to research ancient/prehistoric/isolated religions, on the sociological effects of religion on atheists/agnostics/irreligious, and doesn’t start denouncing a particular religion. He even has religions on games, notably Zelda.Bart Ehrman, with all due respect, seems like someone bitter about being a Christian for most of his life and who now wants to take the most scholarly dry interpretation of Christian scripture that he can take while covering his ass under “it’s still an academically valid interpretation”. I may not be a Christian, hell I’m an atheist, but I’m sick of seeing this guy get peddled everywhere as the scion of religious scholarship and opinion just because he knows how to have good outreach and blog well. See OP for an example, who chose Bart’s book and face the pic.
>>18698679There are two things which could be understood of Ehrman: 1. He acts with desire to justify his own apostasy, 2. He serves to make atheists feel confident in their unbelief (gives them an excuse) He should be thought of more as a polemicist or apologist for atheism than a scholar. His actual scholarly work is not very noteworthy or distinct, but most secular scholars do not spend their time actively picking fights with Christian theologians over who has the correct worldview.
>>18698679>seems like someone bitter about being a ChristianIt's extremely funny to see this opinion when plenty of people here say the opposite. His coauthors are usually evangelical christians, his books are used widely in seminaries, and he accepts the existence of jesus. He's simultaneously a cryptochristian and a bitter atheist here apparently
I think big picture the biblical scholars probably have the right ideas but they get up their own ass about and think they can tell the veracity or meaning of each sentence.
>>18699040>veracity or meaning of each sentenceIn other words they are no different from theologians?
>>18699265Pretty much yeah. When you derive social standing based on on how well you can convince people of your personal interpretation of a fixed text, these things tend to happen.
>>18698679>>18698633The one thing about bart ehrman is that he has a podcast, so his channel is unscripted and as a consequence his videos are really long. Andrew from religion for breakfast makes brief, well researched videos, that are scripted and he talks about many religion, unlike bart, who focuses on christianity and the new testament in particular.
>>18698776It’s also “extremely funny” to see someone mistake coauthorship for peddling to Christianity, or to mistake his acceptance of the existence of Jesus (which is the majority view btw among scholars) for being friendly to the religion. An atheist physicist collaborating with a religious physicist doesn’t mean the atheist is now friendly to religion; they merely collaborated on a work. Ehrman himself argues for the treating of biblical scholarship as a science like physics in his debates. His books are used in seminaries, sure, alongside other books from other scholars to more accurately reflect academic interpretations.What you find outside of seminaries and academia is Bart Ehrman as the face of biblical scholarship, all thanks to his good PR techniques. It matters, as his interpretation, one of many scholarly interpretations of biblical events, often gets passed as consensus amongst his lay audience. Again, see OP for an example. Whether he’s a bitter atheist or not matters little to me, what matters more is the plastering of one single scholar’s views an entire academic discipline as emblematic of said discipline amongst lay viewers, and said scholar taking full advantage of it. This means it is exceedingly difficult to talk to a layperson about other interpretations, like Jesus’ corpse being buried or put in a tomb. Such things matter, for threads like these.
I read the book OP posted and it was very good, the most surprising thing was that Jews (before their contact with Hellenism/Greeks) had no concept of the soul. So, for them, you were your body, and you ceased to exist when your body ceased to exist and (per Ezekiel) if God wanted to resurrect you He would have to reconstruct your body in order to do so.The Greeks were the ones who split body and soul, and there is a lot of philosophical tension between the Greek and Jewish views on resurrection on display in Luke/Acts and Paul's letters. Basically Paul takes the bodily resurrection route while Luke/Acts is more Greek in its outlook.>>18696701I remember reading his blog, and he (Bart) said that he was skeptical because there's so little evidence about early Zoroastrianism and that only 'kicks the can down the road' in that someone else now came up with the idea, and we have no hard evidence that it was the Zoroastrians anymore than it was the Jews.https://ehrmanblog.org/was-resurrection-a-zoroastrian-idea/
>>18700744This is one of the more questionable ideas Bart repeats. The Witch of Endor story is at least one indication of a separable body and soul in the OT, and, although Ecclesiastes says some things that sound very much like modern materialism, there are also statements that come across as at least agnostic about some variety of body-soul dualism, such as Ecclesiastes 3:21, "Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth?" Further, elsewhere there are places where the idea of an underworld like the Greek Hades with discarnate souls is definitely implied if only poetically, like Isaiah 14:9, "Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations."Regarding Paul, that's also controversial. 2 Corinthians 5 is one place where he really looks to me like he believes in body soul dualism, and 1 Corinthians 15 can be translated/interpreted (and imo is correctly translated/interpreted) in a way where the resurrection body is distinct from the body that dies, made of a separate substance called spirit, while the flesh and blood body is left behind.
>>18700744My personal superstition is that it sort of developed in tandem.>>18700766I think a mistake a lot of people in fields as contentious as these make is state things with a lot more certainty than is warranted.
>>18700766I'm going through my notes on the book, and it looks like his reading of the Endor episode is that Samuel was divinized in some way that made him a special case. Not saying he's right, I don't know that much about the topic.>But when her potential client swears an oath that no harm will come to her, she obeys his request and holds a kind of séance, bringing Samuel up “out of the ground.” Or rather, the text says that it was an “Elohim” that came up. The term “Elohim” is the Hebrew word for God—used typically for the God of Israel himself, but also applicable to other divine beings. Either this text imagines that as God’s prophet, Samuel, is semi-divine, or it wants us to think that the dead, or just dead prophets, have somehow become divinized. It is his divine being that appears.I might be wrong, but wasn't Ecclesiastes written in response to wisdom literature, especially that influenced by the Greeks (e.g. Ben Sirah)? It constantly emphasizes that wisdom can only take you so far, and if it was written post-contact with Hellenism then the timelines still works. Ehrman's claim as I understand it is that Jews only got the idea of mind-body dualism from the Greeks, but it influenced them greatly thereafter. So only the early writings (Pentateuch, early prophetic layers) were heavily focused on the body.As for Sheol, he gives an interestingly literalistic interpretation, that is almost always meant "grave" in the very real sense of the place your body is buried. So not an underworld, literally just your patch of dirt. Again, I'm a bit of a novice here - just reading up on ancient religion bc I'm working my way up through history from Mesopotamia to the present - but this Sheol reading seemed persuasive because of how literal it is, and literalness seems common with the Bible's earliest materials (like God walking in Eden).I'd quote Ehrman on Sheol but don't have enough characters, its in ch 5 subsection "locations of death"
>>18700784>I think a mistake a lot of people in fields as contentious as these make is state things with a lot more certainty than is warranted.It's something you kind of have to do in academia in order to defend your ideas. If you are wishy-washy about it then nobody takes it seriously. You have to convince your fellow academics for the idea to become consensus.This often clashes with education though. Students won't be able to tell apart the educators pet theories from wider consensus. Kind of a flaw of the double role we expect from university professors and researchers.
>>18700787>wasn't Ecclesiastes written in response to wisdom literature, especially that influenced by the Greeks (e.g. Ben Sirah)?From a quick google, Eccelsiastes is dated between 450 and 180 BC, while Ben Sira wrote around 180 BC, so I guess it's possible, but maybe not too likely. On the other hand, there's at least one guy who argues that even the Torah is actually quite late and Greek-influenced.>So not an underworld, literally just your patch of dirt.The trouble is that as I understand if, underworld/afterlife beliefs are nearly universal. The Sumerians were the first literate civilization and they believed in an underworld with disembodied spirits, right? So it would be more strange than not if the Jews had to wait around for the Greeks to let them in on the idea.
>>18700810I mentioned Ben Sirah because its the (semi-)Biblical book with the clearest Hellenistic influence, but wisdom literature is older than that.Ecclesiastes 3:21 that you quoted seems to take an agnostic approach, and implies that no one can really know what happens after death, so don't worry about it.>underworld/afterlife beliefs are nearly universalI think Ehrman makes a good case that the Jews didn't have any such conception. I realize it sounds really weird to us, because most religions and civilizations have some conception of it, but there's very little evidence for it. The central focus of ancient Israelite religion was the ethical code laid out in Deuteronomy. I know of zero afterlife punishments or penalties mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. God threatens the disobedient with disease, famine, invasion, slavery, etc but never anything like Hell. What mattered to Jews was keeping God's laws in this world, because that's all there was. God didn't wait for the Sodomites to die and then send them to hell, he just destroyed them.A lot of afterlife conceptions are about how the wicked will be punished and the righteous rewarded - the Egyptian weighing of the heart, Minos judging the souls, Heaven and Hell in modern Christianity - but there really doesn't seem to be anything like that in the Hebrew Bible. It is entirely concerned with how Jews conduct themselves on earth, and not about any posthumous rewards or punishments.We also know, from Josephus, that some Jews, the Sadducees, specifically denied any form of afterlife:>Josephus is quite clear that this focus on present worship was accompanied by a denial of any life to come: “As for the persistence of the soul after death, penalties in the underworld, and rewards, they will have none of them.” The soul for them, evidently, does not live on and there was to be no resurrection. This life is what matters, a view resonant with Ecclesiastes and other texts we have examined.
On the subject of Hebrew afterlife, even as late as Daniel 12 only *many*, not even most of the dead will awaken to everlasting life or contempt. The majority of the the dead appear to stay dead in this first mention of a general resurrection. The Sadducees naturally rejected this book and believed wealth in this life was proof of God's blessing.>>18700766We should not assume the soul and body are separate things in the Witch of Endor episode. No body is said to be left behind in this or any other early Hebrew concept of the afterlife. The shade of Samuel, which might just be his body wrapped in a robe, simply rises upwards and complains of having his peace disturbed. Paul's resurrected bodies are pneumatic, ie. made of a material substance called pneuma ("air, wind, breath"). He's super Greek in his Middle Platonistic theology and dualism of bodies, not Zoroastrian. His resurrected bodies are not immaterial, but made in the transformation of the physical, imperfect, perishable body into an airlike, perfected and divine substance that can probably be touched. Think "aether" or "ectoplasm" rather than "ghost" or "image".>>18700787The woman exclaims that she can see "elohim coming up from the ground" with the Hebrew participle in the masculine plural, but Saul interprets elohim in the singular in his response when he asks what he looks like. If Ehrman is arguing this makes Samuel in any way special, he's skipping this important bit of grammar. There's no indication of the author having any intention other than to show the witch claiming she can see multiple elohim, and a prophet is not said to be different from them.Elohim in the polytheistic Judahite society ranged from mundane to magnificent. There were idols of lowly household elohim protecing most homes, and groves and temples of elohim (and patriarchs!) in high places. Asherah and Baal-Hadad were worshipped in Jerusalem, and Deber and Resheph march to war alongside Yahweh in Habakkuk 3:5.
>>18701008>The shade of Samuel, which might just be his body wrapped in a robe,Unlikely given that only the Medium can see Samuel, as implied by Saul needing to rely on her for a visual description of him.>Think "aether" or "ectoplasm" rather than "ghost" or "image".Ghosts and ectoplasm are closely associated concepts, not opposed concepts. This text feels AI generated desu. And to me a ghost doesn't have to be envisioned as entirely abstract, made out of straight nothing, to be dualistic.>the transformation of the physical, imperfect, perishable body into an airlike, perfectedIn 2 Corinthians 5, it's more obvious that Paul is referring to an exchange of bodies than to a transmutation of one body into another, especially if you accept the textual variant that talks about taking off one "tent" (body) as more authentic. And this fits better with 1 Corinthians 15 saying "flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God." (Despite claims to the contrary, I do not find that "flesh" is regularly used in a clearly metaphorical way in Paul. Right in Romans 1, he says Jesus was "of the seed of David according to the flesh." Did he mean Jesus was of the seed of David according to his abstracted sinful nature?I don't think the exchange-of-bodies-like-clothes view is the unanimous view of the new testament, though. I think Mark's gospel agrees with it, but only under layers of symbolism a small amount of editing (adding "false" to Mark 14:57), while Matthew's gospel strongly disagrees with it, hence his introduction of the saying "Surely life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing." (Matthew 6:25)Christian apologists have naturally wanted to insist that the new testament is unanimous in arguing for a transformed current body to prevent Mark's empty tomb from being understood as symbolic, but secular historians like Bart who believe Jesus' body didn't mysteriously disappear and that the disciples only saw visions shouldn't be influenced by that.
>>18701245>to be dualistic*I guess my understanding of Paul is more appropriately described as triadic than dualistic, as is necessary for there to be an exchange of bodies made of different substances. Because there has to be the first body, made of flesh, the second body, made of spirit, and then the entity doing the exchanging (which, if it had not received a new body, would be "naked" as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5). And that third entity could be called the soul. This might sound overcomplicated, but I believe it's exactly the view of the early "heretic" Valentinus, who was said to have been taught by a guy who was taught by Paul, so it isn't unprecedented.
>>18701245>Saul needing to rely on her for a visual description of him.The scene is quite ambiguous, but I think it's more likely that Saul sees Samuel as well.>(NASB) He said to her, "What is his form?" And she said, "An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped with a robe." And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did homage. Then Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?"Saul knows the direction to bow to without Samuel ever speaking, it would be a bit silly of him to choose a random direction to do so. Plus I assume quite a lot of recently dead people would look like old men wearing robes, so there's pretty much no way to identify the man just from the woman's words. The other solution where the woman perhaps gestures towards the location she sees the elohim in and Saul recognizes the presence of Samuel just from vibes, divine inspiration or by guessing I see as less likely and is nowhere alluded to in the text.>MarkGary Habermas, famous for the conservative Minimal Facts argument has never personally dared to include the empty tomb as one. According to his informal survey (that he started compiling half a century ago by first interviewing priests and theologians before adding hundreds of non-devotional scholars to the list) only about two-thirds to three-quarters of biblical scholars believe Jesus was buried in a tomb. I don't recommend his recent On the Resurrection, but it's noteworthy for finally putting the survey in writing that can be examined by peers. His old practice was to vaguely refer to the unpublished list in debates and podcasts to score rhetorical points.Also, technically Mark's tomb isn't empty. The young man is there when the women enter, and he's still there when they run away in terror!I'm honored to have my prose be legible and coherent enough to be mistaken for a machine's, my autism and dyslexia took quite a while to rewrite the previous comment over and over.
>>18694936M. David Litwa is the most revolutionary modern scholar.This doesn't mean that he is the most correct, but he's pushing the field forwards for sure.
>>18701464>I think it's more likely that Saul sees Samuel as wellIf Saul has to ask the medium what she's seeing when Samuel is coming up and how Samuel appears, to me that's basically definitive that Saul isn't seeing him. Presumably he could tell what direction to bow based on what direction the medium is looking. And what do you think Saul would've expected going into this, coming to a medium? Did mediums normally bring up dead people that were visible to everyone else but could still pass through solid ground? (Unless you think Samuel dug his way out of the ground like a mole). It's a classic mediumship/ghost story.>there's pretty much no way to identify the man just from the woman's wordsHe would've had the additional clue that, upon seeing Samuel, the medium somehow realized that her client was Saul.>I'm honored to have my prose be legible and coherent enough to be mistaken for a machine'sSorry, it wasn't the legibility and the coherency so much as the specific structure "Think 'a' or 'b' rather than 'x' or 'y'" and the variables being substituted in a way that doesn't actually make a suitable contrast to me. Ghosts and images don't obviously go together, while ghosts and ectoplasm do go together.
>>18701513 (cont.)On second thought, I can see the contrast making sense if the idea is specifically that ectoplasm is a substance that can be touched, while ghosts are made of a substance that can't be touched (though the lore has it that ghosts can emit or make use of ectoplasm as an intermediary substance to interact with the physical world, and IIRC more recent popular media has modeled it so that ghosts are made out of ectoplasm whether or not they can be touched, which is what I was thinking of. But if pneuma can always be touched, then you'd think the Holy Spirit would be a little consistently tangible.
