Robert A Oden

Philo of Byblos in the early Roman imperial period claimed to have translated the work of an ancient author Sanchuniathon who recorded stories of the ancient Canaanite gods, stories that resemble the myths found in Ugaritic sources. This monograph provides an English translation of Philo's Greek text with an introduction and notes.

Philo of Byblos in the early Roman imperial period claimed to have translated the work of an ancient author Sanchuniathon who recorded stories of the ancient Canaanite gods, stories that resemble the myths found in Ugaritic sources. This monograph provides an English translation of Philo's Greek text with an introduction and notes.

In this thought-provoking volume, Robert A. Oden Jr. advocates stripping away the theological and historiographic biases that underlie modern biblical scholarship in order to arrive at a nontheological historical reading of the Bible. Oden calls into question a scholarly tradition that accepts biblical writers' views of themselves and their neighbors at face value and reproduces a view of Israelite religion as divinely guided and inherently superior. Using cross-cultural and interdisciplinary methodology, Oden investigates three biblical issues--the clothing of Adam and Eve, Jacob's name change to Israel, and ritual prostitution and Deuteronomy--in light of extra-biblical evidence. He also challenges scholars' assumptions of Scripture as monotheistic and proposes treating biblical narrative as myth rather than as historical fact.