Monday, March 13, 2006

Were Israelite Prophets analogous to Greek Orators?

This is from a post of Christopher Heard on his blog.
He blogs on the Western Commission for the Study of Religion (WECSOR) meeting at Claremont Graduate University.
In one of the sessions, Brad Kelle proposes "that the Greek political orators of the fourth century BCE—Brad drew most of his examples from Demosthenes—function in ways analogous to the socio-rhetorical functions of the "classical" Israelite prophets."

Brad did not convince Chris, but the comparison and possible analogy is certainly interesting.


Buddhist scrolls found dated to 1st and 5th centuries AD

Thanks to a post by Jim Davila on his PaleoJudaica blog.

These scrolls are rare manuscripts written on birch bark and were found in Afghanistan during the Taliban days. They were written in a language derived from Sanskrit. Mark Allon, a University of Sydney research fellow is in charge of translating the texts. According to Allon, "the Senior collection had been particularly important in correcting some chronological errors in Indian history."
(original news article is here)