I am a retired professor, having taken my doctorate in Hebrew Bible from Vanderbilt University. My specialty is the literary criticism.
Greetings!
My sister went to Vanderbilt; Nashville's a great town. I hold a graduate degree from UF in literary theory (with a focus on the history/philosophy of science), so I suppose we may have something in common. Actually, one of my mentors at Florida taught at Vanderbilt for a stint, so there's that, too.
I look forward to reading your contributions.
Welcome! I'm also looking foward to what you have to say on the bible.
Are you an atheist? ???
Welcome!
A question: What posessed you to take a doctorate in that particular book..? It's a personal thing, I suppose, but I think I would find a doctorate in Star Wars more meaningful (Although, I guess, equally useless).
EDIT: I should probably specify to avoid future misunderstandings.
By wording, it appears your doctorate is in the book's contents, as opposed to its history, its creators or the like, yes..?
How much is there to say, when it comes to a book of poorly made ancient stories..? I guess I just find it surprising that something like the bible is enough for a doctorate, no matter its language.
Quote from: Asmodean on December 04, 2011, 02:13:50 AM
It's a personal thing, I suppose, but I think I would find a doctorate in Star Wars more meaningful (Although, I guess, equally useless).
There's actually a lot of things you can learn about the Bible, really. The laws concerning god-sanctioned rape, child-killing and bear-mauling... to name a few. :)
Biblical literary criticism is a fairly large topic.
Welcome. I look forward to reading your post.
Quote from: unholy1971 on December 19, 2011, 04:44:36 AM
Welcome. I look forward to reading your post.
I hope he does more than one!
What are your thoughts on Yahweh actually being El from the Canaanite pantheon? As you can actually understand Hebrew (well I assume so due to your doctorate) I would be really interested in your take on this theory. I understand that El can generally mean god in Hebrew but rather there are references to Yahweh referring directly as being named El in exodus, i.e. "I am Yahweh I reveled myself to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob as El of the wilderness but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself know".
I think that El and Yahweh were originally separate deities. El is a northwest Semitic god, venerated by the Canaanites, the Arameans and the Israelites. This essay discusses the differences between El and Yahweh:
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/God/el-goi.htm
Texts that distinguish El from Yahweh are found in Deut 32:8ff and Psalm 29. In Exodus 6, the Priestly writer claims that "El" was an alias that Yahweh used when dealing with the patriarchs! This attempt to syncretized Elism with Yahwism ends up showing that El and Yahweh were two distinct gods that the Priestly writer sought to identify as the same deity.
My brand of literary criticism might be called "diachronic," tracing the growth of traditions through the application of standard, exegetical methods:
Textual criticism
Linguistic analysis
Composition criticism
Form criticism
Rhetorical criticism
Redaction criticism
Tradition history
Hi lmbarre Welcome to Happy Atheist Forum.
I'm interested in reading future posts about literary criticism of the bible, though I don't know nearly enough to contribute. :)
What do you think of Bart Ehrman?