Abimelech Rebuking Abraham by Wenceslaus Hollar. Dan Peterson, over at his blog, has a post on the falsehood that Mormons are encouraged to engage in what critics derisively call “lying for the Lord.” Dan’s post reminded me of an article published by Yael Shemesh of Bar-Ilan University titled “Lies by Prophets and Other Lies in the … Read more
You can see where this is going . . . David Bokovoy will soon be releasing the first volume of his three-volume series Authoring the Old Testament. In this series, Bokovoy will, among other things, present and argue for the Documentary Hypothesis (DH) to an LDS audience. He will not only discuss what the DH … Read more
Saul of Tarsus–––apostle, martyr, prophet, doctrinal expounder, defender of the faith, witness of Christ to the Gentiles, and not afraid to use some good old vulgarity now and then. Anyone who’s read Paul knows that he was not afraid to, at times, be not only rather snippy, but also rather blunt. One of my favorite … Read more
My new article with the Student Review was published today, just in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s on pages 12–13. Enjoy!
The Ancient of Days (1794) by William Blake. The Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft has an excellent edition of the Lutherbibel that includes an informative Sach– Und Worterklärungen section–––basically the equivalent of the “Bible Dictionary” in the LDS edition of the Bible. Besides the fact that Baal is correctly identified as a rain and fertility deity, and not a … Read more
The so-called Taylor Prism, or Sennacherib’s Annals (circa 690 BCE), describing, among other things, Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE. Introduction Any student of the Bible[1] must inevitably ask him or herself the question of how much credibility one can assign to the historical claims found therein. To many modern readers of the Bible, especially … Read more
One of the Lachish ostraca (7th century BCE), written in paleo-Hebrew script. Some time ago I posted a blog entry at Interpreter on the atheist polemicist Richard Dawkins’ argument that the Book of Mormon is a fraud because Joseph Smith rendered his translation into Jacobean English. Dawkins’ argument is (and I’m not making this up) … Read more