I saw the quote on your page from Thomas L. Thompson. I had never heard of Mr. Thompson or the book you’ve quoted from. However I went to the reviews and found this…
….To begin with, the entire book sounds like a 400-page opinion piece. There is virtually no citation of fact in the entire book. If Thompson wants to argue that there was no pre-exilic concept of Israel, he should refute the evidence and points of those who have gone before him.
From what I’ve read of your blog, you value citation, context, reference, and scholarship. I wondered how you would reply the review above?
Thompson’s book is a monumental, well-respected work, and Thompson is one of several scholars who have completely reshaped Old Testament studies in our lifetime. The review (Amazon?) sounds like sour grapes.
You are right, I also read that book but didn’t find what Paul was quoting from one of the pages about the Joseph story. It’s odd since Paul is very scholarly in his approach but it could be that he made a simple mistake when recording the page number.
Also, Thomas is a known minimalist so why would Paul quote a book by a known minimalist when that book has zero citations and the author doesn’t bother proving anything stated in that book?
Seems biased imho. In general, I think Paul YouTube channel is one of the best ones out there but Paul is a bit redaction-happy so it makes sense to quote a minimalist who doesn’t cite anything.
I am a doctoral student studying Hebrew Bible and Semitic philology. Thomas L. Thompson is one of four primary members (along with N.P Lemche, Prhilip Davies, and Keith Whitelam) of the so-called “Copenhagen School” of biblical scholarship. They take a “minimalist” approach to biblical history and believe that the historical narratives that the biblical texts portray not only have no basis in fact but were only invented in the Persian or Hellenistic Period (depending on which scholar one is speaking about).
But it must be said that the Copenhagen School is by no means the mainstream of biblical scholarship. The overwhelming majority of biblical scholars do not accept the broad conclusions of this school any more than they accept the claims of the “maximlaists”: those (largely evangelical) scholars who understand the biblical narratives to be straightforward and historical in the modern sense, to be implicitly true unless specifically shown to be otherwise. And the maximalists are not in the habit of admitting than any particular narrative is in fact unreliable/ahistorical.
While the Minimalists have thrown down a gauntlet that has been taken up in the history of scholarship since the early 90s, their broad conclusions of the nearly complete ahistorical nature of the biblical narratives is not a position that has been embraced by the majority of scholars.
Is That in the Bible? 
I saw the quote on your page from Thomas L. Thompson. I had never heard of Mr. Thompson or the book you’ve quoted from. However I went to the reviews and found this…
….To begin with, the entire book sounds like a 400-page opinion piece. There is virtually no citation of fact in the entire book. If Thompson wants to argue that there was no pre-exilic concept of Israel, he should refute the evidence and points of those who have gone before him.
From what I’ve read of your blog, you value citation, context, reference, and scholarship. I wondered how you would reply the review above?
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Thompson’s book is a monumental, well-respected work, and Thompson is one of several scholars who have completely reshaped Old Testament studies in our lifetime. The review (Amazon?) sounds like sour grapes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are right, I also read that book but didn’t find what Paul was quoting from one of the pages about the Joseph story. It’s odd since Paul is very scholarly in his approach but it could be that he made a simple mistake when recording the page number.
Also, Thomas is a known minimalist so why would Paul quote a book by a known minimalist when that book has zero citations and the author doesn’t bother proving anything stated in that book?
Seems biased imho. In general, I think Paul YouTube channel is one of the best ones out there but Paul is a bit redaction-happy so it makes sense to quote a minimalist who doesn’t cite anything.
LikeLike
I am a doctoral student studying Hebrew Bible and Semitic philology. Thomas L. Thompson is one of four primary members (along with N.P Lemche, Prhilip Davies, and Keith Whitelam) of the so-called “Copenhagen School” of biblical scholarship. They take a “minimalist” approach to biblical history and believe that the historical narratives that the biblical texts portray not only have no basis in fact but were only invented in the Persian or Hellenistic Period (depending on which scholar one is speaking about).
But it must be said that the Copenhagen School is by no means the mainstream of biblical scholarship. The overwhelming majority of biblical scholars do not accept the broad conclusions of this school any more than they accept the claims of the “maximlaists”: those (largely evangelical) scholars who understand the biblical narratives to be straightforward and historical in the modern sense, to be implicitly true unless specifically shown to be otherwise. And the maximalists are not in the habit of admitting than any particular narrative is in fact unreliable/ahistorical.
While the Minimalists have thrown down a gauntlet that has been taken up in the history of scholarship since the early 90s, their broad conclusions of the nearly complete ahistorical nature of the biblical narratives is not a position that has been embraced by the majority of scholars.
LikeLiked by 1 person