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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1056 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 17, 2026

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Retrying Joel Baden's The Historical David from the start.

I started to rewatch Kings to torture myself about that what-if, and thought it'd make a good companion (since the show basically plays the legend straight).

I read that a couple years ago. It’s a great book that applies the historicist logic. I tend to be a maximalist and give the benefit of the doubt to tradition, accepting the historical-critical method; but that isn’t the dominant position in Biblical studies as I understand it; it’s considered “conservative.” To me it shouldn’t be beyond the perch to presume historicity for at least some of the figures, even if you think they’re highly mythologized; but built off a core of tradition. Not a lot of people know we have zero direct historical evidence for King Josiah in the OT, despite historians confidently concluding he existed. Anyway, JB’s multiple interviews on Mythvision is always interesting.

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