BiblicalStudies.org.uk has a free downloadable version of Samuel Sandmel’s 1961 presidential address to SBL in which he used the term “parallelomania” in reference to over-exuberant uses of extra-biblical parallels:
Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” Journal of Biblical Literature 81 (1962): 1-13.
Sandmel was Professor of Bible and Hellenistic Literature as well as Provost of Hebrew Union College (for a bio click here). This is one of my all time top-ten must read articles in the fields of Bible and ancient Near East.
Pingback: Dr. Platypus » Blog Archive » Sandmel: Parallelomania
Do you know that Sandmel is buried in Clifton? United Jewish Cemetery on Ludlow, along with a number of other past HUC professors, including Werner Weinberg. You might go and deposit a stone in honor of the article.
I really need to go the cemetery and I’ll definitely deposit a stone for Sandmel.
Hmmmmm … Samuel Sandmel – that’s a name with great consonance, isn’t it? It’s somewhat parallel to Werner Weinberg … and also parallel to Rosemary Radford Reuther! OMG!! Does this mean that their respective oeuvres should be compared?