By Michael L Satlow
He describes how elite scribes within the 8th and 7th centuries B.C.E. begun the method that ended in the production of numerous of our biblical texts. It was once no longer till those have been translated into Greek in Egypt within the moment century B.C.E., even if, that a few Jews started to see them as culturally authoritative, equivalent to Homer’s works in modern Greek society. Then, within the first century B.C.E. in Israel, political machinations led to the Sadducees assigning criminal strength to the writings. We see how the realm Jesus was once born into used to be principally biblically illiterate and the way he knew little or no in regards to the texts upon which his apostles could base his non secular leadership.
Synthesizing an incredible physique of scholarly paintings, Satlow’s groundbreaking research bargains provocative new assertions approximately normally authorised interpretations of biblical heritage in addition to a distinct window into how of the world’s nice faiths got here into being.
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Additional resources for How the Bible Became Holy
Sample text
The truth is that the Bible is a very poor historical source, but for many of the questions that interest us about Israelite and early Christian history and religion it is also one of our only sources. The problem with using the Bible as a historical source is that it isn’t one; its writers and editors never set out to write an objective historical account of anything. My intent is not to disparage, but only to note, as scholars have for a very long time, that while the Bible might sometimes look like it is telling history, its shapers, like those of most ancient literature, had no interest in maintaining a critical distance from the stories they told.
It thus presents a challenge to the modern reader who seeks to penetrate its words in order to recover the historical contexts in which it was shaped. The second kind of literary evidence is quite similar to the Bible, texts that present themselves as authoritative (or “scripture”) but that were not included in either the Jewish or the Christian canon. These provide a window into different, often vibrant and important, Jewish and Christian communities and their approaches to the Bible. Some of these texts are found in the semicanonical Apocrypha (although all were originally Jewish works, this is part of the Catholic Bible); some in modern scholarly collections known as the Pseudepigrapha (for both the Old and New Testaments); some among the Dead Sea Scrolls; and others that popped up in peculiar manuscripts or inscribed on stone.
In Israel, legends of the prophets Elisha and Elijah, both described as having extraordinary powers and being willing to take on the official priests, were apparently popular. 13 Amos and Hosea too were Israelite prophets who were critical of the establishment. There were official cultic holidays that would have been particularly auspicious times for Israelites to visit their local temples and shrines. They also came to the temples and shrines to ask for health, prosperity, love, and fertility, and to give thanks when their requests and vows were fulfilled.