Neil Godfrey
@neilgodfrey.bsky.social
Plan for a Study of the Origins of the Hebrew Bible: Persian or Hellenistic period? vridar.org/2025/09/22/p...
Plan for a Study of the Origins of the Hebrew Bible: Persian or Hellenistic period?
Following is a recent assigmnment of mine -- a research plan for an essay -- that I think contains some information that will be of interest to some readers. . . . Russell Gmirkin gets a mention, by t...
vridar.org
September 22, 2025 at 3:19 AM
Plan for a Study of the Origins of the Hebrew Bible: Persian or Hellenistic period? vridar.org/2025/09/22/p...
Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 7 vridar.org/2025/08/04/d...
Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 7
To follow on from my Part 2a comment .....
The biblical works have traditionally been understood as the product of an evolution over centuries, usually said to be from the ninth or eighth to the third...
vridar.org
August 4, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 7 vridar.org/2025/08/04/d...
Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 5 vridar.org/2025/08/02/d...
Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 5
By the way, I have informed Stephen Goranson that he is welcome to respond here to my resposting of his criticisms of Russell Gmirkin -- despite my earlier prohibition on his posts to this blog. For t...
vridar.org
August 2, 2025 at 4:45 AM
Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 5 vridar.org/2025/08/02/d...
Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 2 vridar.org/2025/07/29/d...
Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 2
In response to the post that I copied here, one consistent critic of Russell Gmirkin's thesis in particular (and of the Hellenistic era hypothesis for the creation of the Hebrew Bible more generally) ...
vridar.org
July 29, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 2 vridar.org/2025/07/29/d...
Defending Russell Gmirkin's Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament - Part 1 vridar.org/2025/07/27/d...
Defending Russell Gmirkin's Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament - Part 1
Since I don't expect to have much time to write new posts again before the end of the year, I will from time to time copy what I once posted on another forum in defence of Russell Gmirkin's thesis dat...
vridar.org
July 27, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Defending Russell Gmirkin's Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament - Part 1 vridar.org/2025/07/27/d...
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 5A – ‘the placement of the Testimonium Flavianum’. vridar.org/2025/07/26/j...
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 5A – ‘the placement of the Testimonium Flavianum’.
Despite the hopes I expressed in my previous post I simply cannot complete even one more response to Tom Schmidt’s Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ. Instead, I will place her...
vridar.org
July 27, 2025 at 9:43 AM
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 5A – ‘the placement of the Testimonium Flavianum’. vridar.org/2025/07/26/j...
"You may as well deny the existence of pretty much everyone in the ancient world" vridar.org/2025/07/07/y...
"You may as well deny the existence of pretty much everyone in the ancient world"
I will continue writing posts in response to Thomas Schmidt's Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence so this post is a quick interjection before I have the time to write more fully about another Jesus hypot...
vridar.org
July 7, 2025 at 2:26 AM
"You may as well deny the existence of pretty much everyone in the ancient world" vridar.org/2025/07/07/y...
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 4 – ‘he led astray many’? vridar.org/2025/07/06/j...
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 4 – ‘he led astray many’?
Continued from Review 3 . . .
And when it is pointed out that, after all, we are talking about texts written in Koine Greek (and so the language ability is pretty important), and that . . . requires ...
vridar.org
July 6, 2025 at 10:07 AM
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 4 – ‘he led astray many’? vridar.org/2025/07/06/j...
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’ vridar.org/2025/06/23/j...
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’
Continuing from Review 1 . . .
Who am I to discuss the meaning of an ancient Greek word? This is something new for me so I must justify this foray. Up until this year I only had a self-taught level of...
vridar.org
June 26, 2025 at 10:51 AM
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’ vridar.org/2025/06/23/j...
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 3 – "received with pleasure" vridar.org/2025/06/25/j...
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 3 – "received with pleasure"
Continuing from Review 2 . . .
Thomas C. Schmidt asserts that Josephus portrayed the followers of Jesus in a negative light by writing that they “received truisms with pleasure” (according to Schm...
vridar.org
June 26, 2025 at 10:51 AM
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 3 – "received with pleasure" vridar.org/2025/06/25/j...
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms . . .’ vridar.org/2025/06/23/j...
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms . . .’
Continuing from Review 1 . . .
Who am I to discuss the meaning of an ancient Greek word? This is something new for me so I must justify this foray. Up until this year I only had a self-taught level of...
vridar.org
June 23, 2025 at 3:41 AM
“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms . . .’ vridar.org/2025/06/23/j...
"Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence" by Schmidt - Review 1 - ‘if indeed one ought to call him a man’ vridar.org/2025/06/21/j...
"Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence" by Schmidt - Review 1 - ‘if indeed one ought to call him a man’
Many readers by now will have heard of a new book, freely available, arguing that the first century Jewish historian Josephus really did write a passage about Jesus. The book has been discussed on pub...
vridar.org
June 21, 2025 at 7:08 AM
"Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence" by Schmidt - Review 1 - ‘if indeed one ought to call him a man’ vridar.org/2025/06/21/j...
With Permission of Silence vridar.org/2025/05/28/1...
With Permission of Silence
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vridar.org
May 28, 2025 at 11:03 PM
With Permission of Silence vridar.org/2025/05/28/1...
How Did We Get Here? (Part 3) Are Democracies "Vile"? vridar.org/2025/05/21/h...
How Did We Get Here? (Part 3) Are Democracies "Vile"?
The first eight words in the alleged quotation below by James Madison, below, are false.
Here's what Madison said about democracy:
Democracy is the most vile form of government . . . democracies have ...
vridar.org
May 22, 2025 at 10:46 PM
How Did We Get Here? (Part 3) Are Democracies "Vile"? vridar.org/2025/05/21/h...
Hard to post right now vridar.org/2025/04/07/h...
Hard to post right now
It is hard to bring oneself to blog about new things (in historical and biblical studies) that I am learning all the time when every day the news is recallibrating my identity as a citizen of the West...
vridar.org
April 7, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Hard to post right now vridar.org/2025/04/07/h...
Israel - Beacon of Western (White) Values in a (Dark) Middle East vridar.org/2025/03/26/i...
Israel - Beacon of Western (White) Values in a (Dark) Middle East
Western support for Israel, I have heard, is in large measure rooted in an identification with a state that represents our Judeo-Christian heritage, our values. But on to another topic....
From https...
vridar.org
March 26, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Israel - Beacon of Western (White) Values in a (Dark) Middle East vridar.org/2025/03/26/i...
A Beginning of Christianity -- An Objection; and the Role of Asceticism vridar.org/2025/02/21/a...
A Beginning of Christianity -- An Objection; and the Role of Asceticism
A possible objection
Traditional attempts to explain Christian origins have had to rely on hypotheses about oral traditions (and more recently memory theory), on hypothetical constructions of long los...
vridar.org
February 21, 2025 at 1:05 AM
A Beginning of Christianity -- An Objection; and the Role of Asceticism vridar.org/2025/02/21/a...