Timeline Conservative vs Critical

[Gedalya]

I noticed among other things that the Critical view on the Timeline does not include Elijah and Elisha. Why is this?

[Ιακοβ]

Assumedly the "scholarly view" is that they think the story is fictional 

 

http://jot.sagepub.com/content/27/4/487.abstract

Edited November 28, 2016 by Ιακοβ

[Gedalya]

I think that this may represent the extreme view in the critical approach or that of the "minimalists".  But are there not also "maximalists' within the so called critical school?  Perhaps the Timeline has ascribed the "minimalist" approach to  the critical point of view unfairly without taking into consideration the range of different points of view within the critical school.  Take for example the issue of the existence of the Davidic kingdom.  There is more than one opinion in the critical school on this issue. I would venture to say that this would apply to the Prophets Elijah and Elisha as well.

[Daniel Francis]

I would think the omissions are an error. One I hope can be corrected soon.

 

Dan

[David Lang]

Be careful not to read too much into items which are included in the Conservative dating scheme and omitted in the Critical. It usually just came down to the fact that our source for the Conservative dates (Eugene Merrill's Kingdom of Priests for the OT Period) was willing to specify a date for those individuals while our source for the Critical dates was not. I'll try to look again at our Critical source (Finegan's Handbook of Biblical Chronology) and see if it ascribes some kind of date to Elijah and Elisha (even if it's just a circa or "between" date).

 

In terms of minimalist vs. maximalist, our Critical sources would probably lean more toward the maximalist end of the critical spectrum. The minimalists tend to be so unwilling to ascribe dates to Biblical events that using them would have resulted in a very sparse timeline.

 

Hope this helps.

[Daniel Francis]

Since they were around during specie rulers I would have thought at least a circa would have been possible... I do know how many conservative resources love giving dates.... heck if memory serves creation in some circles is places it October 23 4004 BC... Now I will not try to start a debate here... but even among young earth people I do not know many who would be so precise. That said if it was in Merrill's work it could be said look why don't we have a date for creation in critical, when the fact is most scholars from a critical nature realize that assigning an exact date is for them a fool's errand. That said a date of creation by critical people is usually still believed to exist. 

 

-Dan

[Timothy Jenney]

Well, there is conservative, then there is really, really, really conservative.

[Daniel Francis]

Oh I know I was reading a study Bible I thought was fairly conservative over all... and I was told by one woman I like it but could never use it in my church it far too liberal...

 

-dan

Edited November 28, 2016 by Daniel Francis

[Alistair]

 if memory serves creation in some circles is places it October 23 4004 BC... 

 

 Funny, I just recently read:

 

"…by the early nineteenth century there were more than 120 dates for Creation, spanning the interval 3616 BC to 6984 BC. Their one point of agreement was that the remote past really wasn’t very remote."

 

Paul J. Nahin, Holy Sci-Fi! Where Science Fiction and Religion Intersect

Springer, New York NY USA (2014) p.34

 

Sadly Nahin does not provide the source for this nugget of information.

This book is well worth a read of you are interested in science fiction and (mostly Christian) theology. Nahin deals with SF literature, not TV or films.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Alistair

[Helen Brown]

This reminds me that we considered offending everyone by using Fundamentalist/Liberal isntead of Conservative/Critical, but thought better of it. :-)

[Joe Weaks]

Maybe offer two new options, one further out on both ends of the spectrum?  The minimalist hyper-critical could be just an empty line with one spot for Cyrus, king of persia.

[Gedalya]

David. I'm glad to hear that the critical view would lean to the maximalist point of view. Perhaps a review and update of the critical view is in order?