Similarities Between John H. Walton's Ancient Near Eastern Thought And The Old Testament

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John H. Walton's Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament

PART 1 – COMPARATIVE STUDIES
Chapter One – History and Methods
At the time when many of the writings and tablets were found, the studies seem to coincide with the Bible. It wasn’t until Delitzsch’s lectures that the Assyriologists were being highly criticized for their findings, as they were people of faith defending the Bible. Over time the Assyriologists become more of a secular group as well as the scholars and became less concerned with the Bible and embraced critical scholarship.
There are many factors that make for a comparative study of historical text. Comparative studies constitutes a branch of cultural studies in that it attempts to draw data from different segments of the broader culture in time and or space, into juxtaposition with one another in …show more content…

What we take for meaning today, is not what was taken for meaning 2000 years ago or even 50 years ago.
A method of choice in helping to determine reliably in ancient text, is to compare not only the similarities, but the remarkable uniqueness. Where there are differences it is important to understand the ancient Near Eastern genres because significant points in the biblical text may be made by means of contrast. One other aspect of importance is to note the distinctiveness in the religious aspect of the iconology. Although the Bible itself is aniconic, one must understand the iconology of a previous text. This all plays a role in the deeper understanding and evaluation of ancient text.
The main focus of comparative studies was founded on the interest of individual features or details of an event. Scholars are now interested in the interpretation as well as the cultural aspects, which give more of a cultural dynamic of the

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