F. W. Walbank

[porphyry]

I just received news that F. W. Walbank died last night. To be quite honest, I would have thought him dead long before now.

He was a pioneer in the filed of Hellenistic studies and his writings were extremely influential on my decision many years ago to pursue the Classics.

In the order I read them:

Walbank, F. W., The Hellenistic World (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1981).

_____, Philip V of Macedon (Cambridge, 1940).

_____, and A. E. Astin, edd. The Cambridge Ancient History: vol. VII.1, The Hellenistic World (Cambriege: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

_____, Polybius (Berekely, 1975).

And one I ought to read:

_____, "Supernatural Paraphernalia in Polybius' Histories," Ventures into Greek History, Ian Worthington, ed. (oxford, 1994).

Comments

[vonjunzt.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind my asking, what is your profession? Are you a professor of Classics?

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I ought to be, but instead slave away writing literature and history textbooks.

I was just about to ask elsewhere--what is the approximate topic of your dissertation and what makes it so 'wacky'?

[vonjunzt.livejournal.com]

Ah. Writing literature and history textbooks is quite cool as well. Teaching Classics would also involve slaving away, writing lectures and grading papers.

My dissertation is on an Iron Age cemetery in southern Jordan. Part of it will deal with the Edomites. My ideas about them aren't so wacky, though some people might view them as such. For one thing, I think archaeologists have ignored the issue of the borders of Edom for far too long -- for about the past eighty years, in fact. I think we should be paying closer attention to what Biblical scholars have been writing about that. And, frankly, I think a lot of other people feel the same way; there have been occasional papers on the issue in the past few years. Most archaeologists find it easiest to draw Edom's western border at the Wadi Arabah, when this requires ignoring the fact that the Bible seems to put them far into the Negev. But my adviser doesn't seem to think much of my ideas, so getting the dissertation past him might prove difficult.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I had no idea. So I imagine you know all sorts of ancient Semitic languages.

I confess I know nothing about the ancient extent of Edom--I'd do better with the allegory of the kings of Edom in the Zohar, but even that is a bit sketchy for me. How do your ideas relate to minimalism?

[vonjunzt.livejournal.com]

I've studied Hebrew, though I'm not very good with it. If I'd gone the route of ancient history I'd have had to take seven languages -- German, French, Akkadian, Hebrew, Greek, and I forget what else. But I'm in the anthropology department, which doesn't require all that.

Personally, I consider the Bible to be one line of evidence, like any other. We can't ignore it, but we also can't forget that much of it was written long after the fact. And, like any historical record, it's very biased and has to be read keeping in mind its cultural milieu. I don't agree with these guys who think the Bible was written by Hellenists trying to construct an identity, if that's the kind of minimalism you mean.