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January 19, 2007
Ideology Indeed
Jim West is reviewing a DVD based on Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman's The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, so Stephen Cook decided to post his review of the book itself. For the record, I have not read the book. It is on my reading list but still a ways down. I also haven't seen the DVD and at $490.00 a copy, unless someone with a lot of extra money invites me over for a showing, I'm not likely to.
From what I've read of Jim's and Stephen's reviews and a few things I've learned elsewhere, I think that I am likely to be more supportive of the Finlelstein-Silberman position than Stephen and less so than Jim. I just don't think Finkelstein has made a strong enough case for his low chronology. While I prefer Mazar's chronology, I'm not an archaeologist so I'll let the archaeologists fight this one out. On the other hand, I am inclined to think that the text of the Hebrew Bible came together rather late and I suspect that the earliest of these late efforts contained more than a modicum of fiction and were driven as much by politically motives as they were anything else.
Be that as it may. I was a little shocked to read Jim's perspective of Stephen's review. Here are the exact words that shocked me,
It’s a well written review and my only observation would be that Stephen’s ideology has brought him into disagreement with the authors. [emphasis added]
With the exception of those who are just dingbat crazy, Jim is perhaps the most ideologically driven blogger I know of. His claim concerning Stephen's ideology may well serve as a new working definition of חוצפה.
Posted by Duane Smith at January 19, 2007 9:40 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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Comments
Very perseptive; Thanks! Yes, politics and ideology are always at play, yet it's reductionistic, to my way of thinking, to reduce theological factors to nothing but these factors. After all the work that my mentor Brevard Childs has done spelling out the role of canonical shaping in the Bible-building process, it's disconcerting (and depressing) to see so much ignorance about what Childs has laid bare. All the best, ---SLC
Posted by: Stephen L. Cook at January 20, 2007 8:24 AM
Brevard who?
;-)
Posted by: Jim at January 20, 2007 9:35 AM
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