Thomas L. Thompson

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For other persons named Thomas L. Thompson, see Thomas L. Thompson (disambiguation).

Thomas L. Thompson (born Jan 7, 1939 in Detroit Michigan) is a biblical theologian who lives in Denmark and is now a Danish citizen.

Thompson obtained a B.A. from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1962, and his PhD at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1976. He has held positions at the University of Dayton (instructor), Detroit (assistant professor), Tuebingen (research associate), École Biblique (visiting professor), Lawrence University (visiting associate professor), and Marquette University (associate professor), and is presently professor at the University of Copenhagen (since 1993). He was named a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow in 1988. He is general editor for the Equinox Press monograph series Copenhagen International Seminar and associate editor of the "Scandinavian Journal for the Old Testament," and serves on the editorial boards of the journals "Holy Land Studies" and "Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift".^[1]

The focus of Thompson's writing has been the interface between the bible (specifically the Old Testament) and archaeology. His The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (1974), was a critique of the then-dominant view that biblical archaeology had demonstrated the essential historicity of figures such as Abraham and of biblical events such as the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan. The Early History of the Israelite People (1993) set out his conclusion that the biblical history was not reliable, a theme he continued in The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel, which argued that the bible was entirely, or almost entirely, a product of the period between the 5th and 2nd centuries BC. His The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past (1999) continues to be widely used.^[2]

Thompson has been a controversial figure in biblical studies. He is closely associated with the movement known as biblical minimalism (other major figures include Niels Peter Lemche, Keith Whitelam, and Philip Davies), a loosely-knit group of scholars who hold that the bible's version of history is not supported by any archaeological evidence so far unearthed, indeed undermined by it, and that it therefore cannot be trusted as history. His The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives was iconoclastic but formative (Albright's reputation "never recovered from Thompson's critique"), but his later works have been less well received - The Early History of the Israelite People led to his sacking by the Roman Catholic Maquette University, and The Bible in History provoked a storm of vituperation from William Dever and a celebrated scholarly (and frequently unscholarly) clash in the pages of the "Journal of Biblical Studies" between Dever on one side and Thompson and Lemche on the other.^[3]. Theodore W. Williams in his review of 'The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of History' ^[4] wrote '... it is unfortunate, then, to have to declare that as a "great work," or even as an example of scholarly research, The Mythic Past is a mythic disappointment.' (op.cit., p.252). Williams concludes his review with the observation that Michel Foucalt's 'popular dictum' "all history is fiction", 'echoes throughout Thompson's work' (op.cit., p.254).

[edit] Books

The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives, (de Gruyter: Berlin, 1974) (reissued in pb: Trinity Intl: Harrisburg, 2002)
The Bronze Age Settlement of the Sinai and the Negev, (Dr. Reichert: Wiesbaden, 1975).
The Bronze Age Settlement in Palestine, (Dr. Reichert: Wiesbaden, 1979).
The Origin Tradition of Ancient Israel, (Sheffield Academic Press: Sheffield, 1987).
Toponomie Palestinienne, (Peeters: Louvaine la Neuve, 1988).
The Early History of the Israelite People, (Brill: Leiden, 1992, Arabic: Beirut,1995.
(with N. Hyldahl, eds.) Dødehavsteksterne og Bibelen (Museum Tusculanum: Copenhagen, 1996)
(with F. Cryer, eds.), Qumran Between the Old and New Testament (Sheffield Academic Press: Sheffield, 1998)
The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past, (Jonathan Cape: London,1999) = The Mythic Past (Basic Books: New York, 1999), (Arabic: Cadmus: Damascus 2000.),
Jerusalem in Ancient History and Tradition; (London, 2003), (Arabic: Beirut, 2003).
(With Z. Mouna et alii), What is New in Biblical Archaeology (in Arabic: Cadmus: Damascus, 2004)
(with H. Tronier, eds.) Frelsens Biografisering (Museum Tusculanum: Copenhagen, 2004)
(with M. Müller, eds.) Historie og Konstruktion (Museum Tusculanum: Copenhagen, 2005)
The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David, (Basic Books: New York, 2005; Jonathan Cape: London, 2006; pb. Pimlico: London, 2007), (Arabic: Damascus, 2007); (Greek: Athans, 2007).