Josephus' Portrait of David

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DCHindley
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Re: Josephus' Portrait of David

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arnoldo wrote:
DCHindley wrote:If Biblical criticism was compared to, say, eating establishments that dish out knowledge, it would come closest to a "Self Service" establishment. :shh: IMHO, the very infrastructure which trains and educates tomorrow's sacred Ministers, Pastors, and Priests (who comprise at least 80% of the students by graduate level, I would think), will skew the analysis by placing certain historical norms out of bounds so as not to tip the apple cart. Biblical critics, in general, have a vested interest in preserving the status quo WRT the critic's own preferred tradition. "You don't," they say, "bite the hand that feeds you!"
I don't know what your saying since I dropped out of graduate school after gaining 15 credit hours. I did manage to take (and pass) Intro to Research so I vaguely remember some of the stuff the professors blathered about.[/u]
At least you were in graduate School for a while. I never went on to it. I was planning to become an Episcopal (Anglican) priest, and the seminary preferred undergraduate work in social sciences at that time ("It's all about praxis!" the Seminary ads in Christianity Today magazine would say). However, I lost my faith in senior year at college, which kind of nipped the Episcopal minister thingy in the bud, although financially I'd be better off than I am now. Here, protestant ministers & pastors and even Unitarian Universalist ministers receive, in salary and allowances (housing, travel, etc.), the equivalent of US $80,000-$100,000/year based on my experience auditing church payrolls for work.

At least I managed to graduate with an undergraduate degree in Psychology, but I wasn't motivated to go into that direction. In those heady days (1970s) businesses were doing relatively well and wanted to broaden their markets at home and overseas, so a newspaper article in the employment section of the local paper suggested that liberal arts was an acceptable background for entering the business world. Boy they must have been smoking something strange in their meerschaum pipes in the private golf club smoking room.

I was not very well impressed by most major companies I ended up working for (mostly insurance carriers, but also a couple finance companies in the early days. Funny thing is, I now work for a "monopoly" worker's compensation insurance carrier (in the US these state owned insurance carriers are the sole recourse for WC coverage in the states of Ohio, Wyoming, North Dakota and Washington, but because of Ohio being a "rust belt" state, we still have many corporate headquarters and many manufacturing businesses, making us have maybe the second largest book of business in the country) has been the exact opposite, being very positive. Go figure.

What are you doing now, arnoldo?
Personally, I learned more about research from reading books like Magnus Zetterholm's The Formation of Christianity in Antioch: A Social-Scientific Approach to the Separation Between Judaism and Christianity London and New York: Routledge, 2003


Damn, lost part of my last draft of this, so I'll have to give the abbreviated version.

The Social Science model for understanding ancient Mediterranean cultures: Bruce J. Malina & Richard L. Rohrbaugh (Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels) and Malina (The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology) present terrifying, brutal and uncaring Mediterranean societies that we would find intolerable today.

Personally, I detect an ideological implication that we should be soooo glad that we have reaped the benefits of the ethically superior Christian social-gospel, and do not have to live in that kind of dirty smelly and oppressive world. So, everyone go to your mainline church of your choice, inhale the aroma of abundantly applied perfume and after-shave, and make the world a better place thereby. They believe that Mediterranean societies have remained basically unchanged since Jesus' time, so they study modern Arabs, Greeks, Anatolians, and Sicilians to come up with this model. I can't help but think of Albert Deissmann, who did something similar about a century earlier based on a steamship tour of the region (E.T. Light from the Ancient East), and Kenneth Bailey did more recently (his theory of "informal controlled tradition") based on his anecdotal (not scientific) comparison of the retelling of stories about 19th century Egyptian missionary John Hogg around campfires by modern Egyptian Arab Christian villagers and those relayed by his wife (daughter?) in a book after his death. The ideological implication is towards theological Liberalism.

Then there is the theory of "Itinerant Radical" origins to the Christian message, which has spilled over into study of the Didache. The stand outs are represented by articles in the mid 1995 & 1996 publications The Didache in Context and The Didache in Modern Research), Jonathan Draper, Kurt Niederwimmer, Stephen J Patterson, and above all Gerd Theissen starting in his case about 1973. He published two monographs in 1977 & 1983, (1978 E.T.s being The First Followers of Jesus: a Sociological Analysis of Earliest Christianity, The Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity, aka The First Followers of Jesus, and 1987 E.T. of Psychological Aspects of Pauline Theology). This theory requires that there be extreme social stratification with the vast majority crushed to death by the super-duper heavy socio-economic impact of Roman colonialism.
It is indebted to the socio-economic models developed by Marx & Engels, with some Max Weber thrown in so as to ground it onto some "solid" (although severely dated) sociological (= cultural anthropological) theory. This rampant speculation somehow does not jibe with what I used to read in Psychology and Sociology courses in college, and I think I can identify ideological implications that are Radical.

This idea has also energized folks interested in Q or Gospel tradition passing in general (like gas passing, I guess) such as Burton Mack, J D Crossan and even John Kloppenborg, who I admire greatly. In Birth of Christianity, Crossan tries to beef up this theory of widespread socio-economic pressure that crushes all in its way by yanking out of context statements from Gerhard Lenski (Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification, 1966) and John H Kautsky (Politics of Aristocratic Empires), which he very imaginatively fabricates into something he called the "Lenski-Kautsky" model. He also uses what he likes from G E M de Ste. Croix ("Karl Marx and the History of Classical Antiquity" in Arethusa 8), but leaves his more moderate work The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World without comment.

I went out of my way to read works by G. Lenski, J. H. Kautsky, his father (or grandfather) Karl Kautsky, Karl Marx (Capital), F. Engels, Albert Kalthoff, de. Ste. Croix, etc., to learn more about socio-economic theory, but I believe that I have learned more about "subsistence economies" from books by James C. Scott, especially The Moral Economy of the Peasant than the rest.

How this might relate to the OP (Josephus' portrait of David) is, like what happened to Steve Mason (or was it Shaye J. D. Cohen?), there are so many rhetorical variables to consider when evaluating what Josephus, or any historian ancient or modern for that matter, was "really saying", that we despair of ever learning if there is any truth behind the apologetic and defensive works of poor Josephus. If Josephus can be assigned a modern ideological perspective it might have to be a weird combination of anarchism and conservatism all at the same time.

DCH
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arnoldo
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Re: Josephus' Portrait of David

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neilgodfrey wrote:
arnoldo wrote: Do you also disagree that the stone was a symbol of the Messiah (see bold above)?
I do not see that Marcus provides any evidence in support of his assertion that "the Jewish interpretation of it current in his day took it as a symbol of the Messiah or Messianic kingdom which would make an end of the Roman empire." Marcus simply states that as a fact with no supporting citation.

I can point to other research that indicates that the stone was understood to be the Maccabean kingdom destroying the fourth kingdom which was in fact the Seleucid, not Roman.

Josephus does not shy away from permitting his audience to read and discuss the prophecy in Daniel and in fact invites his Roman audience to read Daniel for themselves. That does not sound as though he is fearful of them learning whatever Jewish interpretations were extant. ..
I suppose with a healthy dose of confirmation bias one can infer anything from what Josephus wrote. Here is Josephus' mention of "the stone" in context.
When Daniel was come in to the king, he excused himself first, that he did not pretend to be wiser than the other Chaldeans and magicians, when, upon their entire inability to discover his dream, he was undertaking to inform him of it; for this was not by his own skill, or on account of his having better cultivated his understanding than the rest; but he said, "God hath had pity upon us, when we were in danger of death, and when I prayed for the life of myself, and of those of my own nation, hath made manifest to me both the dream, and the interpretation thereof; for I was not less concerned for thy glory than for the sorrow that we were by thee condemned to die, while thou didst so unjustly command men, both good and excellent in themselves, to be put to death, when thou enjoinedst them to do what was entirely above the reach of human wisdom, and requiredst of them what was only the work of God. Wherefore, as thou in thy sleep wast solicitous concerning those that should succeed thee in the government of the whole world, God was desirous to show thee all those that should reign after thee, and to that end exhibited to thee the following dream: Thou seemedst to see a great image standing before thee, the head of which proved to be of gold, the shoulders and arms of silver, and the belly and the thighs of brass, but the legs and the feet of iron; after which thou sawest a stone broken off from a mountain, which fell upon the image, and threw it down, and brake it to pieces, and did not permit any part of it to remain whole; but the gold, the silver, the brass, and the iron, became smaller than meal, which, upon the blast of a violent wind, was by force carried away, and scattered abroad, but the stone did increase to such a degree, that the whole earth beneath it seemed to be filled therewith. This is the dream which thou sawest, and its interpretation is as follows: The head of gold denotes thee, and the kings of Babylon that have been before thee; but the two hands and arms signify this, that your government shall be dissolved by two kings; but another king that shall come from the west, armed with brass, shall destroy that government; and another government, that shall be like unto iron, shall put an end to the power of the former, and shall have dominion over all the earth, on account of the nature of iron, which is stronger than that of gold, of silver, and of brass." Daniel did also declare the meaning of the stone to the king but I do not think proper to relate it, since I have only undertaken to describe things past or things present, but not things that are future; yet if any one be so very desirous of knowing truth, as not to wave such points of curiosity, and cannot curb his inclination for understanding the uncertainties of futurity, and whether they will happen or not, let him be diligent in reading the book of Daniel, which he will find among the sacred writings. . .
. . . In the very same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government, and that our country should be made desolate by them. All these things did this man leave in writing, as God had showed them to him, insomuch that such as read his prophecies, and see how they have been fulfilled, would wonder at the honor wherewith God honored Daniel;
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text ... ANT_10.19a

Last edited by arnoldo on Thu Feb 09, 2017 3:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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arnoldo
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Re: Josephus' Portrait of David

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DCHindley wrote:
How this might relate to the OP (Josephus' portrait of David) is, like what happened to Steve Mason (or was it Shaye J. D. Cohen?), there are so many rhetorical variables to consider when evaluating what Josephus, or any historian ancient or modern for that matter, was "really saying", that we despair of ever learning if there is any truth behind the apologetic and defensive works of poor Josephus. If Josephus can be assigned a modern ideological perspective it might have to be a weird combination of anarchism and conservatism all at the same time.

DCH
Funny you mentioned anarchism since I'm currently reading (or attempting to read) Christian Anarchy: Jesus' Primacy Over the Powers by Vernard Eller. Highly recommended. Regarding what I'm doing I've been considering going back to complete my masters degree however the rigors of working in the education field is time (and energy) consuming. Some of my coworkers have pursued masters degrees online so I guess that's an option.
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Re: Josephus' Portrait of David

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arnoldo wrote: I suppose with a healthy dose of confirmation bias one can infer anything from what Josephus wrote. Here is Josephus' mention of "the stone" in context.
We are both familiar with what Josephus wrote and we have different interpretations of it so just quoting the passage won't lead to any breakthroughs.

Feldman interprets the passage through what he believes Josephus was thinking and what motivated him at the time. He is interpreting the words of Josephus through his imaginary, clairvoyant, psychic recreation of the mind and thoughts of Josephus.

I don't think that sort of reading is valid unless one can provide evidence from the text itself about the thoughts of the author.

I attempted to present an interpretation based on the actual text of Josephus and that contradicted Feldman's psychic conclusions.
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andrewcriddle
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Re: Josephus' Portrait of David

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DCHindley wrote: .......................................................................................................

Damn, lost part of my last draft of this, so I'll have to give the abbreviated version.

The Social Science model for understanding ancient Mediterranean cultures: Bruce J. Malina & Richard L. Rohrbaugh (Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels) and Malina (The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology) present terrifying, brutal and uncaring Mediterranean societies that we would find intolerable today.

Personally, I detect an ideological implication that we should be soooo glad that we have reaped the benefits of the ethically superior Christian social-gospel, and do not have to live in that kind of dirty smelly and oppressive world. So, everyone go to your mainline church of your choice, inhale the aroma of abundantly applied perfume and after-shave, and make the world a better place thereby. They believe that Mediterranean societies have remained basically unchanged since Jesus' time, so they study modern Arabs, Greeks, Anatolians, and Sicilians to come up with this model. I can't help but think of Albert Deissmann, who did something similar about a century earlier based on a steamship tour of the region (E.T. Light from the Ancient East), and Kenneth Bailey did more recently (his theory of "informal controlled tradition") based on his anecdotal (not scientific) comparison of the retelling of stories about 19th century Egyptian missionary John Hogg around campfires by modern Egyptian Arab Christian villagers and those relayed by his wife (daughter?) in a book after his death. The ideological implication is towards theological Liberalism.
This is drifting off topic; but this is a very odd description of Adolf Deissmann Light from the Ancient East (which is about the use of ancient papyri in the interpretation of the New Testament). Are you thinking about another work with a similar name ?

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Re: Josephus' Portrait of David

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arnoldo wrote: Daniel did also declare the meaning of the stone to the king but I do not think proper to relate it, since I have only undertaken to describe things past or things present, but not things that are future; yet if any one be so very desirous of knowing truth, as not to wave such points of curiosity, and cannot curb his inclination for understanding the uncertainties of futurity, and whether they will happen or not, let him be diligent in reading the book of Daniel, which he will find among the sacred writings. . .
. . . In the very same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government, and that our country should be made desolate by them. All these things did this man leave in writing, as God had showed them to him, insomuch that such as read his prophecies, and see how they have been fulfilled, would wonder at the honor wherewith God honored Daniel;
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text ... ANT_10.19a[/box]
I thought it worth adding a bit of blue to the section you left without any special attention.

I really don't know why you made a particular section large font and red. What is it you are wanting us to infer from that section?

Josephus is telling the Romans about the prophetic character and reliability of the Jewish sacred scriptures. That's all part of his agenda. I don't see any reason to assume he somehow knew of things that he was too fearful to relate? What exactly was he frightened to explain here -- and why -- if that is what you are suggesting? And what evidence do you have for this particular state of mind of his and particular interpretations of things he does not express -- if that's what you are suggesting?
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Re: Josephus' Portrait of David

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andrewcriddle wrote:
DCHindley wrote: .......................................................................................................

Damn, lost part of my last draft of this, so I'll have to give the abbreviated version.

The Social Science model for understanding ancient Mediterranean cultures: Bruce J. Malina & Richard L. Rohrbaugh (Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels) and Malina (The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology) present terrifying, brutal and uncaring Mediterranean societies that we would find intolerable today.

Personally, I detect an ideological implication that we should be soooo glad that we have reaped the benefits of the ethically superior Christian social-gospel, and do not have to live in that kind of dirty smelly and oppressive world. So, everyone go to your mainline church of your choice, inhale the aroma of abundantly applied perfume and after-shave, and make the world a better place thereby. They believe that Mediterranean societies have remained basically unchanged since Jesus' time, so they study modern Arabs, Greeks, Anatolians, and Sicilians to come up with this model. I can't help but think of Albert Deissmann, who did something similar about a century earlier based on a steamship tour of the region (E.T. Light from the Ancient East), and Kenneth Bailey did more recently (his theory of "informal controlled tradition") based on his anecdotal (not scientific) comparison of the retelling of stories about 19th century Egyptian missionary John Hogg around campfires by modern Egyptian Arab Christian villagers and those relayed by his wife (daughter?) in a book after his death. The ideological implication is towards theological Liberalism.
This is drifting off topic; but this is a very odd description of Adolf Deissmann Light from the Ancient East (which is about the use of ancient papyri in the interpretation of the New Testament). Are you thinking about another work with a similar name ?

Andrew Criddle
No, that is the name (in English translation). The subtitle is "The New Testament Illustrated by recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World." There are some inscriptions involved, so he is using "texts" in the wider sense than just manuscript remains. The key word is "Illustrated." They are meant to give cultural background.
Deissmann.png
Deissmann.png (262.7 KiB) Viewed 6248 times
I read this to mean Deissmann had selected from the relics available in conformity with his impressions during the 1907 tour of Europe and the ANE.

He wasn't the only one to do that sort of thing. Think of Robert Eisler's belief that the Arab "slebb" Bedouins of his day, who make a living as itinerant tinkers much like European Gypsies, were basically descendants of the ancient order of Rechabite priests. He included photos of some of these sleb, one with a cross like mark on his forehead, riding camels and all. He felt that this model was the best one to use to interpret the portrait of James the Just in Hegesippus.

DCH
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Re: Josephus' Portrait of David

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neilgodfrey wrote:
arnoldo wrote: Daniel did also declare the meaning of the stone to the king but I do not think proper to relate it, since I have only undertaken to describe things past or things present, but not things that are future; yet if any one be so very desirous of knowing truth, as not to wave such points of curiosity, and cannot curb his inclination for understanding the uncertainties of futurity, and whether they will happen or not, let him be diligent in reading the book of Daniel, which he will find among the sacred writings. . .
. . .In the very same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government, and that our country should be made desolate by them. All these things did this man leave in writing, as God had showed them to him, insomuch that such as read his prophecies, and see how they have been fulfilled, would wonder at the honor wherewith God honored Daniel;
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text ... ANT_10.19a[/box]
I thought it worth adding a bit of blue to the section you left without any special attention.

I really don't know why you made a particular section large font and red. What is it you are wanting us to infer from that section?

Josephus is telling the Romans about the prophetic character and reliability of the Jewish sacred scriptures. That's all part of his agenda. I don't see any reason to assume he somehow knew of things that he was too fearful to relate? What exactly was he frightened to explain here -- and why -- if that is what you are suggesting? And what evidence do you have for this particular state of mind of his and particular interpretations of things he does not express -- if that's what you are suggesting?
I guess my confirmation bias/cognitive dissonance discounted the following statement you made earlier.
neilgodfrey wrote: I can point to other research that indicates that the stone was understood to be the Maccabean kingdom destroying the fourth kingdom which was in fact the Seleucid, not Roman.
And when placed in context, Josephus' statement that the stone referred to a future event further backs up your claim.
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Re: Josephus' Portrait of David

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DCHindley wrote:
andrewcriddle wrote:
DCHindley wrote: .......................................................................................................

Damn, lost part of my last draft of this, so I'll have to give the abbreviated version.

The Social Science model for understanding ancient Mediterranean cultures: Bruce J. Malina & Richard L. Rohrbaugh (Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels) and Malina (The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology) present terrifying, brutal and uncaring Mediterranean societies that we would find intolerable today.

Personally, I detect an ideological implication that we should be soooo glad that we have reaped the benefits of the ethically superior Christian social-gospel, and do not have to live in that kind of dirty smelly and oppressive world. So, everyone go to your mainline church of your choice, inhale the aroma of abundantly applied perfume and after-shave, and make the world a better place thereby. They believe that Mediterranean societies have remained basically unchanged since Jesus' time, so they study modern Arabs, Greeks, Anatolians, and Sicilians to come up with this model. I can't help but think of Albert Deissmann, who did something similar about a century earlier based on a steamship tour of the region (E.T. Light from the Ancient East), and Kenneth Bailey did more recently (his theory of "informal controlled tradition") based on his anecdotal (not scientific) comparison of the retelling of stories about 19th century Egyptian missionary John Hogg around campfires by modern Egyptian Arab Christian villagers and those relayed by his wife (daughter?) in a book after his death. The ideological implication is towards theological Liberalism.
This is drifting off topic; but this is a very odd description of Adolf Deissmann Light from the Ancient East (which is about the use of ancient papyri in the interpretation of the New Testament). Are you thinking about another work with a similar name ?

Andrew Criddle
No, that is the name (in English translation). The subtitle is "The New Testament Illustrated by recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World." There are some inscriptions involved, so he is using "texts" in the wider sense than just manuscript remains. The key word is "Illustrated." They are meant to give cultural background.
Deissmann.png
I read this to mean Deissmann had selected from the relics available in conformity with his impressions during the 1907 tour of Europe and the ANE.

He wasn't the only one to do that sort of thing. Think of Robert Eisler's belief that the Arab "slebb" Bedouins of his day, who make a living as itinerant tinkers much like European Gypsies, were basically descendants of the ancient order of Rechabite priests. He included photos of some of these sleb, one with a cross like mark on his forehead, riding camels and all. He felt that this model was the best one to use to interpret the portrait of James the Just in Hegesippus.
I am reading the quotation you gave from Deissmann, and it still seems so very different in purpose and method from what Bailey did (a tour of archaeological sites versus a survey of modern cultures used as analogues for ancient), or from what you are ascribing to Eisler, that I am not sure why Deissmann's name should have arisen in this context in the first place. What is the connection?
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Re: Josephus' Portrait of David

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Ben C. Smith wrote:
DCHindley wrote:The subtitle is "The New Testament Illustrated by recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World." There are some inscriptions involved, so he is using "texts" in the wider sense than just manuscript remains. The key word is "Illustrated." They are meant to give cultural background.
Deissmann.png
I read this to mean Deissmann had selected from the relics available in conformity with his impressions during the 1907 tour of Europe and the ANE.

He wasn't the only one to do that sort of thing. Think of Robert Eisler's belief that the Arab "slebb" Bedouins of his day, who make a living as itinerant tinkers much like European Gypsies, were basically descendants of the ancient order of Rechabite priests. He included photos of some of these sleb, one with a cross like mark on his forehead, riding camels and all. He felt that this model was the best one to use to interpret the portrait of James the Just in Hegesippus.
I am reading the quotation you gave from Deissmann, and it still seems so very different in purpose and method from what Bailey did (a tour of archaeological sites versus a survey of modern cultures used as analogues for ancient), or from what you are ascribing to Eisler, that I am not sure why Deissmann's name should have arisen in this context in the first place. What is the connection?
I took things in the sense that all of these somehow visited strange and foreign lands (I'm not sure Eisler actually visited these regions personally, but he at least kept up with reports of the latest adventures in the region, nor did the Context Group professors, who relied on modern scholarship examining modern Mediterranean societies) and their imaginations became overly invigorated.

The gist of it, IMHO, is that they all believed that what they saw was almost identical to what happened in "biblical" times, and constructed historical explanations that reflected that. This happens in the construction of all narratives: facts from the past are interpreted in the context of the present. But it seems that is a hard assumption to swallow. Unchanged culture after 1,900-2,000 years? I just don't buy it.

Was Deissmann doing his comparative portrayals in a haphazard or even unhelpful way? Not necessarily. It is very helpful, but is not much different in presentation than your typical 19th or early 20th century Bible dictionary (pick any of them), which can be very imaginative in their presentation of detail.

DCH
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