NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 54, Issue 1, 2000

Recently, the radical school from Copenhagen has argued for a Hellenistic date of the Hebrew Bible; it can therefore no longer be used as a source for reconstructing the history and religion of Ancient Israel. This view, however, is not convincing. (1) It is based on bibliophobia. (2) It ignores the possibility that texts contain elements from earlier traditions. (3) It blurs the distinction between possible contexts for interpreting texts and the actual context in which these texts were written. (4) It ignores the Yahwistic character of the Hebrew Bible. (5) It overlooks the linguistic argument that Classical Hebrew is already attested in epigraphic texts around 600 BCE. (6) Greek-hellenistic authors writing around 300 BCE already presuppose the existence of, parts of, the Hebrew Bible. (7) The argument that the historical narrative in the Hebrew Bible is patterned after Herodotus’ Historiae is not convincing since the similarities are of too general a character.

This essay looks at a remarkable initiative taken by the publisher A.C. Kruseman in the early 1860s to launch a series called ‘The Principal Religions’. The series is an important landmark of the early study of religion in the Netherlands outside academia. Various contributors showed a new methodological awareness in that they believed that the major religions, including Christianity, were to studied in the same (comparative) way. The making of the series also nicely illustrates the progressing ‘ acadernization’ of the field. Moreover, the project shows the growing interest of an educated public in the scholarly study of religions in the plural.

In this article six recent major monographs on a wide variety of aspects of messianic expectations and prayer practices in the community of Qumran are discussed. The reviewer emphasizes the importance of these publications for not only Judaic but also New Testament and liturgical studies.

In a survey of the World Wide Web, the authors critically discuss philosophy sites, e-journals, virtual libraries etc. that are relevant to philosophy of religion in the Netherlands. They conclude that the Internet is increasingly becoming a helpful and even indispensable source of information.