The Albright-Cross-Waltke “cult” part 2

The last post was over edited, I cut out a lot personal stuff and the result was an almost unintelligible story. What ties these people together isn't just their use of the divine name. If you look for patterns of ideas about OT biblical studies, particularly the use of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature out side of the Hebrew Bible, you can trace a thread of thinking about how the oldest texts in the Hebrew Bible, e.g. Job, certain Psalms, Exodus 15,  fit into the world of ANE literature and the use of the divine name is just a secondary issue. It is the line you can trace from Herman Gunkel Schöpfung und Chaos (1895) to W.F. Albright, F.M.Cross and some of his more famous students, J.J. Collins and B.K. Waltke. One of my favorite biblical literature professors Gary Staats was fresh out of Waltke's ThD program at Dallas.  Staats was a NT scholar but he had the Waltke style of teaching. No english bible, thank-you, even though the class was listed in the catalog as english bible. Ralph Alexander also had some similarities of thought to Waltke, but I only had one class from him. The big ideas were what tied these people together,  a certain attitude toward the text, an approach to ANE sources.

BTW, I just picked up the book that made Peter Enns news from the library this after noon. I'm about 30 pages into it and so far it is all review. Enns could easily end up being a member of the same group I have been describing. So far he reads like just another member of the Gunkel-Albright-Cross-Collins-Waltke ... club.