The Bible didn’t drop out of the sky. It was written by real people, in real places, surrounded by some of the most powerful civilizations the ancient world ever produced. Egypt. Babylon. Assyria. Their literature, their laws, their prayers, their creation stories. All of it was in the air when the authors of the Hebrew Bible sat down to write. And they weren’t ignoring it.
Dr. Christopher Hays is the D. Wilson Moore Professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. He holds a PhD from Emory, an MA in Egyptology from UCLA, reads six ancient languages, and is the author of Hidden Riches, the leading textbook on comparative study between the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East. In this conversation, he walks us through what happens when you place the Bible side by side with the texts of Israel’s neighbors. From Mesopotamian prayers that sound like the Psalms to Egyptian wisdom literature that mirrors Proverbs to Assyrian propaganda that Isaiah turned on its head, this episode will reshape how you understand the origins of Scripture.
In this episode you will learn:
– Why the Old Testament is an Ancient Near Eastern text and what that means for how we read it
– How Mesopotamian prayers called Dinger Shah Dibba incantations parallel the language of the Psalms
– What the Enuma Elish and the Memphite Theology reveal about what Genesis 1 is actually doing
– Why Egyptian influence on the Bible has been massively overlooked and what it teaches us
– The striking connection between the Instruction of Amenemope and the book of Proverbs
– How the Code of Hammurabi and ANE treaty forms reshape our understanding of the Mosaic Covenant
– Why God functioning as the lawgiver in the Torah is a radical departure from ANE norms
– How Isaiah used Assyrian imperial propaganda against the empire itself
– Why Isaiah 24 through 27 is not apocalyptic and what it actually describes
– How new archaeological evidence ties Isaiah 24-27 to the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Josiah
– What it means that Scripture “breathes in” the surrounding culture and “breathes it back out” in a new form
Get Dr Hayes Book:
Hidden Riches: A Sourcebook for the Comparative Study of the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East- https://a.co/d/0cBF0ZNK
Fuller Faculty Page: https://fuller.edu/faculty/christopher-hays/
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