Thomas L. Thompson
Thomas L. Thompson (born January 7, 1939, in Detroit, Michigan) is an American-born Danish biblical scholar and theologian. He was professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1993 to 2009. He currently lives in Denmark.
Thompson is a part of the
Biography
Thompson was raised as a Catholic and obtained a
While teaching part-time at the
The controversy around his dissertation prevented him from obtaining a position at a North American university.[6] He continued as a private scholar while working as a high-school teacher, janitor, and house painter until he was awarded a guest professorship at the École Biblique in Jerusalem in 1984. This appointment proved controversial among Israelis, who, according to Thompson, objected to his earlier study casting doubt on the historicity of the Jewish origin narratives.[clarification needed] He then worked on a project on Palestinian place names for UNESCO, criticizing Israeli authorities for de-Arabicizing Palestinian place names. Accusations of antisemitism led to the project being closed.[4]
Thompson was named a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow in 1988. He taught as visiting associate professor at Lawrence University (1988–89) and as associate professor at Marquette University (1989–1993), but did not receive tenure. In 1990, he met Danish theologian Niels Peter Lemche at a conference, and in 1993, joined the faculty of the department of theology at the University of Copenhagen as professor in Old Testament exegesis. He retired and was granted emeritus status in 2009.
Thompson is general editor for the series Copenhagen International Seminar, associate editor of the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, and serves on the editorial boards of the journals Holy Land Studies and Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift.[7]
Old Testament writings
The focus of Thompson's writing has been the interface between the Bible (specifically the Old Testament) and archaeology. His
Thompson's arguments were criticized by many biblical scholars, prominent among them William G. Dever in his book What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?, which has been described as "a very polemic and partly vehement attack not least against Professor Thomas L. Thompson".[10] Thompson himself reviewed Dever's book and provided his own responses to Dever's critiques. The fact that Thompson, as a target of many of the critiques advanced in the book would have chosen to review it, was criticized by H. Hagelia.[10]
New Testament writings
Thompson presented a criticism of the historicity of the New Testament in his 2005 book, The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David,[11][12] He argues that the biblical accounts of both King David and Jesus of Nazareth are mythical in nature and based on Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek and Roman literature. For example, he argues that the resurrection of Jesus is taken directly from the myths about Dionysus, which he described as a "dying and rising god". Thompson did not draw a final conclusion on the historicity or ahistoricity of Jesus. He was a fellow of the short-lived Jesus Project from 2008 to 2009.[13]
The Messiah Myth was criticized by New Testament scholars such as
Thompson and Thomas Verenna coedited the 2012 book Is This Not the Carpenter?: The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus.[19][20] The introduction defined the purpose of the collected essays: "Neither establishing the historicity of an historical Jesus nor possessing an adequate warrant for dismissing it, our purpose is to clarify our engagement with critical historical and exegetical methods."[21] Thompson's views about the New Testament are rejected by mainstream scholarship.[22][23]
Criticism
Thompson's minimalist positions have generated a considerable controversy in the academic field and have received strong criticism from a number of scholars. Archaeologist and Old Testament scholar
Even harsher criticism has come from
Italian scholar Mario Liverani (Sapienza University of Rome) has also been critical of Thompson's views: in his book Israel's History and the History of Israel, Liverani accepts that the biblical sources are from the Persian period, but believes that the minimalists have not truly understood that context nor recognised the importance of the ancient sources used by the authors.[28]
Thompson's works on the New Testament have been met with even stronger criticism: in his book Did Jesus Exist?, Bart D. Ehrman (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) critiqued Thompson's arguments and criticized Thompson, as an Old Testament scholar, for lacking the sufficient background in New Testament studies to provide a useful analysis of the text.[29] Similar criticism came from Maurice Casey (University of Nottingham), who went even so far as to call Thompson "an incompetent" in the field of New Testament studies.[30][31] Dever dismissed Thompson's views about Jesus as "an ongoing campaign that isn't mainstream anywhere in biblical studies".[23]
Books
- Thompson, Thomas L. (1974). Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110040968. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
- Thompson, Thomas L. (2002). ISBN 978-1-56338-389-2. (Originally de Gruyter: Berlin, 1974)
- Thompson, Thomas L.; Maniragaba Balibutsa; Margaret M. Clarkson (1975). The Settlement of Sinai and the Negev in the Bronze Age. Reichert. ISBN 978-3-920153-44-5.
- Thompson, Thomas L. (1979). The settlement of Palestine in the Bronze Age. Reichert. ISBN 978-3-88226-069-4.
- Thompson, Thomas L. (1987). The Origin Tradition of Ancient Israel. JSOT Press. ISBN 978-1-85075-083-3.
- Thompson, Thomas L.; Francolino J. Gonçalves; Jean-Marie van Cangh (1988). Toponymie palestinienne: plaine de St Jean d'Acre et corridor de Jérusalem. Université catholique de Louvain, Institut orientaliste.
- Thompson, Thomas L. (1992). Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archeological Sources. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-09483-3.
- Hyldahl, Niels; Thomas L. Thompson (1996). Dødehavsteksterne og Bibelen. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 978-87-7289-390-7. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
- Cryser, Frederick H.; Thomas L. Thompson, eds. (1998). Qumran Between the Old and New Testament. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-567-18135-0.
- Thompson, Thomas L. (1999). ISBN 978-0-224-03977-2.
- Thompson, Thomas L. (1999). The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology And The Myth Of Israel. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01052-3.
- Thompson, Thomas L., ed. (2003). Jerusalem in ancient history and tradition. T & T Clark International. ISBN 978-0-8264-6664-8.
- (With Z. Mouna et alii), What is New in Biblical Archaeology (in Arabic: Cadmus: Damascus, 2004)
- Tronier, Henrik; Thomas L. Thompson, eds. (2004). Frelsens biografisering. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 978-87-635-0214-6.
- Mogens, Müller; Thomas L. Thompson, eds. (2005). Historie og konstruktion: festskrift til Nils Peter Lemche i anledning af 60 års fødselsdagen den 6. september 2005. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 978-87-635-0377-8.
- Thompson, Thomas L. (2007). The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-7867-3911-0.
- Thompson, Thomas L.; Thomas S. Verenna, eds. (2012). 'Is This Not the Carpenter?': The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus. Isd. ISBN 978-1-84553-986-3.
- Thompson, Thomas L. (2013). Biblical Narrative and Palestine's History: Changing Perspectives 2. Equinox Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-908049-95-7.
References
- ^ Maurice Casey Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? T&T Clark 2014 THOMAS L. THOMPSON p.24
- ^ a b Philip R Davies.'Introduction' to Thomas L. Thompson, Biblical Narrative and Palestine's History: Changing Perspectives 2, Routledge 2014 p.1.
- ^ P.R.F. Moorey, "A Century of Biblical Archaeology", p.114.
- ^ a b Thompson, Thomas L. 2011. On the Problem of Critical Scholarship: A Memoire [1]
- ^ "Thompson, Thomas L. 1939– - Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2016-08-04.
- ^ Thomas Thompson.The Mythic Past (Basic Books: New York, 1999), p. xiii
- ^ "Curricumul vitae for T. L. Thompson". Journal of Biblical Studies. Archived from the original on November 1, 2010.
- ^ a b Marc Brettler. "The Copenhagen School: The Historiographical Issues The Copenhagen School: The Historiographical Issues", AJS Review, Vol. 27, No. 1 (April 2003), p. 1-21
- ^ A book review by Danny Yee
- ^ a b H. Hagelia. (2002). "Review or response? A critical evaluation of Thomas L. Thompson's review of William G. Dever." Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 16(2), 314-318.
- ISBN 978-0-7867-3911-0.
- ^ [www.randomhouse.com.au], Random House Books Australia. "The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David by Thomas L Thompson - Books - Random House Books Australia". Random House Australia. Archived from the original on 9 Apr 2016. Retrieved 2016-08-04.
- ^ "Some Thoughts on the Demise of The Jesus Project". The Jesus Puzzle. Earl Doherty. Archived from the original on 4 July 2017. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
- ^ Lataster, Raphael (2015). "Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories — A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources". The Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies. 6 (1): 63.
- ^ Ehrman, Bart D. (2013-03-20). "Did Jesus Exist?". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
- Bart Ehrman. Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperOne, 2012.
- ^ Thompson, Thomas L. (July 2012). "Is This Not the Carpenter's Son? A Response to Bart Ehrman". The Bible and Interpretation. Mark Elliott, Patricia Landy. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
- ^ "Is Not This an Incompetent New Testament Scholar? A Response to Thomas L. Thompson | Bible Interp". bibleinterp.arizona.edu. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
- ^ Table of Contents
- ISBN 978-1-84553-986-3.
- ^ Thomas L. Thompson; Thomas S. Verenna. "'Is This Not the Carpenter?' — Introduction". The Bible and Interpretation. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
- ^ McGrath, James F. (2013). "Review of 'Is This Not the Carpenter?': The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus". Review of Biblical Literature.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-88414-217-1.
Lately, even the New Testament narratives and the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth have been called into question by Hjelm, Thompson and others, again at the Copenhagen International Symposium and other publications. None of this ongoing campaign is mainstream in biblical studies anywhere [...]
- ISBN 978-0-8028-2126-3.
- ISBN 978-0-8028-0396-2.
- ISBN 9780802862600.
- ISBN 9788876536298.
- ^ Moore & Kelle 2011, p. 39.
- Bart Ehrman. Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperOne, 2012.
- ^ "Is Not This an Incompetent New Testament Scholar? A Response to Thomas L. Thompson | Bible Interp". bibleinterp.arizona.edu. Retrieved 2021-12-12.
- ISBN 978-0-567-01505-1.
External links
- Online Curriculum Vitae at the Wayback Machine (archived November 1, 2010) Thomas L. Thompson, professor. IBE, University of Copenhagen
- Creating Biblical Figures By Thomas L. Thompson, Professor of Old Testament, University of Copenhagen, May 2005
- The Divine Plan of Creation: 1 Cor 11:7 and Gen 2:18-24 by Thomas L. Thompson