272 BCE - A terminus a quo
If I Forget You, Jerusalem! - Studies on the Old Testament - Niels Peter Lemche
Niels Peter Lemche [+ ]
University of Copenhagen
Niels Peter Lemche, has been publishing in the field of Old Testament studies for fifty years. He has been both Assistant Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, from 1978 to 1986 and Professor of Theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1987 to 2013. He is the founder of the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, and a member of the board of the Copenhagen International Seminar (Routledge). He has recently edited (in co-operation with Dr. Jim West) Jeremiah in History and Tradition (Routledge, 2019).
Description
272 BCE is the first an until now only indisputable terminus a quo for the emergence of Old Testament literature. In 272 the Greek general Pyrrhus was killed during a street battle in the city of Argos, when a woman threw a tile from the roof of a house and hid Pyrrhus immibalizing him. Pyrrhus was eliminated by a bystander. Pyrrhus’ fate was undoubtedly the inspiration for the story in Judg 9, followed by the sacrifice of Jiphta’s daughter, so often likened to the fate of Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia, and the story of Samson, very easily identified as Heracles.