alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

December 20, 2006

The Naked Hypothesis

by @ 9:48 pm. Filed under Uncategorized

I’m currently watching the Naked Archeologist, a series on the History Channel International. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a tongue in cheek look at archeology. At the same time, it’s a very serious look at history vis a vis religion. It’s completely in the spirit of this blog in that the host takes an alternative hypothesis to popular beliefs, in this case in the field of archeology, and then tries to prove it, or in the lack of proof, leaves you with a feeling of inquisitiveness.

This week he’s taking on the subjects of subjects: who wrote the bible. Pretty good question, yes?

And this is what I love about the show, he’s starting with the hypothesis that the Old Testament, or at least the first five books was actually written by Moses. As he points out, in the field of archeology, that’s an uncoventional view.

What we learn is that the conventional view, the “documentary hypothesis,” is that the books of Moses are written by a group of people, and truth be told, that’s where I’d put my money. We also learn that there are texts predating the Dead Sea Scrolls that have passages the same as the books of Moses. Interesting, but of course, not enough to verify the original hypothesis. The elan of the series is delightful, but not convincing.

Again, I’m not sure if the aim is to convince. I think it’s to elicit the question. And to make biblical history, well, fun.

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4 Responses to “The Naked Hypothesis”

  1. Roxanne Says:

    Did they go into whether or not it may have been passed along orally first for several generations? That seems like the most plausible scenario.

  2. AltHippo Says:

    I think what they called the “documentary hypothesis” would suggest a period of oral teachings, but they didn’t go into that explicitly.

    Also, the host tends to be very “hands on”, so comparing mythologies, say between the Greeks, Egyptians, and Hebrews, is different from what he likes to do.

  3. Roxanne Says:

    It took me a minute to figure out what you meant by “host.” Not to be confused with “Host.”

    Oy.

  4. AltHippo Says:

    Yes, changing the case to “Host” and “He” does really change the meaning, doesn’t it?

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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

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95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
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