Comments on Life On Gold Plates: Old Testament narratives, historicity, and a new c...

Cinepro, a clarification. They actually discuss va...

2009-11-19T16:47:45.383-07:00

Cinepro, a clarification. They actually discuss various flood stories, including Gilgamesh's. This talks about different theories of dependence though, not the issue of the extent of the flood.

haha your favorite thing. They don't say global or...

2009-11-19T16:23:01.037-07:00

haha your favorite thing. They don't say global or local, but the impression is the traditional reading of global. This will be mentioned in the review. The entire Noah story only gets 2 paragraphs on page 28.

So, global or local flood?

2009-11-19T16:04:18.893-07:00

So, global or local flood?

LOL sorry Ben, I didn't see your signed name.

2009-11-19T11:41:54.354-07:00

LOL sorry Ben, I didn't see your signed name.

Anonymous: They don't "disavow the term commentary...

2009-11-19T11:41:32.156-07:00

Anonymous: They don't "disavow the term commentary," they note that their book is "not a traditional commentary or overview of Old Testament doctrines, although it does include comments on many biblical passages. Nor is it a survey of daily life in ancient Israel or a comprehensive history of the ancient Near East, although it contains information relating to both of these topics."

They state that the volume "introduces and helps illuminate the Old Testament in its ancient Israelite and broader ancient Near Eastern world."

They note they were highly selective due to length. Their description of the format also says: "This volume contains summary narrations of the biblical text interspersed with information from and explanations of the world of the Old Testament," (this is all on p. 2).

So they don't disavow the name "commentary," they describe the contents and structure of the book, and though don't say what else it might be called other than referring to it repeatedly as a "volume."

In other words, I think "commentary" is fine because they are, in fact, providing commentary on the Old Testament. And the structure will be discussed in my full review, which is not done yet since I haven't yet finished reading the book. :)

Also: don't forget to employ a name or pseudonym of some sort when commenting, because "anonymous" gets confusing. Thanks for dropping in.

Just a quick note on your title- the authors disav...

2009-11-19T11:14:57.614-07:00

Just a quick note on your title- the authors disavow the term "commentary" for this volume, as it doesn't do what a typical commentary does: comment on a bok-by-book and chapter-by-chapter basis.

Loyd- I can't recall if they talk textual criticism, but that's never been terribly controversial. Do you mean literary criticism or source criticism perhaps?

Ben

I'll talk about this more in the full review, but ...

2009-11-19T09:56:23.222-07:00

I'll talk about this more in the full review, but suffice it to say they do engage textual criticism. Though I world prefer more info than they give (length of the book had a to to do with that I gather), they directly engage textual criticism issues like the Documentary hypothesis, Deuteronomists, redaction, questions of provenance, and comparisons with other non-Biblical ANE texts that have similarities to the OT. This is a really neat thing to see from Deseret Book even though it isn;t as substantive as I would prefer. Check out Kevin Barney's take on it:

http://tinyurl.com/ylzxr9w

Do the authors engage textual criticism at all, or...

2009-11-19T09:44:28.924-07:00

Do the authors engage textual criticism at all, or do they, like the long history of LDS OT studies, remain completely oblivious to it?