ANTH 9 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Environmental History, Israelites, Epigraphy
14 Aug 2020
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Document Summary
Traditional approaches to biblical archaeology in 20th century. Demonstrating that the bible is not a myth: reaction against text-critical approaches of 19th century. Resulted in efforts to prove historicity of biblical accounts, but often overlooked: genre, or purpose(s) of different biblical texts, historical context, setting that defined content, authorship, or composition history and redaction. Continues today among various jewish and christian traditions but considerably diminished from high point of 20th century. Veracity of events, people, and places: origins of traditions. Are they historical? (e. g. , exodus: why are stories told as they are? (e. g. , genesis) Identification of issues not raised by text but of paramount importance: groups present in historical periods but not at the center of the text (e. g. , egypt in. Societies are not homogenous: israelite communities included merchants and craftspeople from neighboring groups (e. g. , phoenicians, arameans, arabs, intermarriage occurred (e. g. , naming conventions) Cannot assume that we can look at most urban communities and assume they were homogenous populations.
