Book discussion

[naghammadi]

I wanted to recommend several books. I have just finished
reading "Israelite Religions" by Richard Hess, "Did God Have a Wife"
by William Dever, and "The Sage from Galilee" by David Flusser. These
books were absolutely wonderful reads.

Hess' book is a survey of the Bronze and Iron ages and a
vast array of archaeological and textual "evidences" that come from
those periods. Dever's book argues for Asherah worship within the
Israelite folk religions. This book is more on the liberal side, by no
means a revisionist, but still more liberal than Hess. Flusser was a
Jewish New Testament scholar. This book is a somewhat of a revision or
follow-up of his well known book "Jesus." Flusser utilizes a massive
amount of classical texts as well as the non-biblical texts from the
Dead Sea Scrolls. While I do not believe an LDS audience would agree
with everything he concludes, there is much in the way of valuable
information.

If anyone else has read these books I would love to know what
you thought of them. I hope these books can be of help to others.

Bryan S. Kerr