Bible Review

Hershel Shanks, “Magnificent Obsession: The Private World of an Antiquities Collector,” BAR 22:03.

André Lemaire, “Royal Signature: Name of Israel’s Last King Surfaces in a Private Collection,” BAR 21:06.

Mark is generally thought to be the earliest gospel. Most scholars believe that Matthew and Luke both knew Mark and used Mark’s gospel as their primary source for Jesus’ sayings and acts. Q, a hypothetical fifth gospel, consists of material common to Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark.

In Mark 1:2–3, John the Baptist quotes Isaiah’s prophesy as “I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; / the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” But Isaiah 40:3 does not explicitly identify the voice as that of God’s emissary: “A voice cries out: / ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, / Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’”

The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, was completed in Alexandria, Egypt, probably by the middle of the first century B.C.E.

Luke 1:1–4 reads, “Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us…I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.”

See Baruch Halpern, “Erasing History—The Minimalist Assault on Ancient Israel,” BR 11:06.

See Jacob Milgrom, “Shifting Borders: The Whole Land of Israel,” Moment, August 1996, p. 52.

Mainstream biblical historians and archaeologists have in fact produced remarkably unbiased histories of biblical peoples. The Philistines now come across as culturally elevated and not boorish at all. Other peoples who have emerged from the biblical shadows include the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites and the Phoenicians, to name just a few. Canaanite literary productions are now rated on a level with some biblical literature.