tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376955256463224749.post8595792413053106665..comments2023-09-07T12:03:43.350-07:00Comments on Theological Sushi: Review: Lester L. Grabbe, Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? B. C. Hodgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02828477115799852133noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376955256463224749.post-41324759463877638642013-05-30T20:11:03.165-07:002013-05-30T20:11:03.165-07:00I think they have largely convinced themselves tha...I think they have largely convinced themselves that the general picture created by their naturalistic presuppositions is true, so that they are open to seeing smaller conclusions change between different scholars but not the larger picture. So they are dogmatic when it comes to that larger picture, even when they pretend to be open to changing their views about it. <br /><br />They're also largely ignorant of epistemic issues, even though they try to incorporate what they think are insights from it into their works. In the end, they suffer from the Modernist disease of thinking that they can get an accurate picture of reality from these methodologies and then critique the historical reports concerning these events with that supposed knowledge. <br /><br />I guess, in the end, they know that no one wants to read a book that is entitled, "Ancient Israel: If We're Not Going to Take the Historical Reports as Accurate, Your Guess Is as Good as Mine." ;-)B. C. Hodgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02828477115799852133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376955256463224749.post-449732147165005362013-05-30T03:25:56.585-07:002013-05-30T03:25:56.585-07:00After tussling with issues of biblical historicity...After tussling with issues of biblical historicity for a couple of years, I couldn't agree more with your critique of Grabbe's approach. Could it be that such scholars need to state their opinions with such certainty because otherwise their work could seem somewhat futile - i.e. just a probability to be shoved out of the way when someone interprets the data with different presuppositions?Ben Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13320578490724889835noreply@blogger.com