Ugaritic! Huh! What is it good for?! Absolutely everything…

The texts from the city of Ugarit and the language they were written in (Ugaritic) are far more important for understanding the Old Testament than the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the DSS hog all the press.

Logos is about to publish an electronic Ugaritic library. Instead of writing a lengthy post of my own, let me link to one of Logos’ academic staff, Mike Heiser, who explains why Ugaritic is so important. (See also this demo video for usage examples)

Incidentally, Mike is an Evangelical who wrote his dissertation on the Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible, and maintains www.thedivinecouncil.com, where he takes some unusual positions for an EV, uch as arguing that the Israelites were not pure monotheists.

He recently presented a paper, “You’ve Seen One Elohim, You’ve Seen Them All? A Critique of Mormonism’s Use of Psalm 82,” at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. David Bokovoy (at Brandeis) has prepared a 44-page response, and summarizes Heiser’s paper and his response thereto on this board. (Might need to be logged in to see it.)

According to Bokovoy, “Heiser provides a list of sixteen points outlining his position regarding Psalm 82 and the divine council. Hesier divides these views into eight points with which many evangelicals would disagree, but concerning which ‘many Mormons would likely agree,’ followed by eight points ‘with which many Mormons would probably disagree, and with which many evangelicals would likely agree’.”

Good stuff.