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Every now and then a theory comes along which is so implausible it is questionable whether it is worth responding. That has happened again this week with reports in the Daily Mail of a certain ‘historical researcher’ names Michael Paulkovich who claims that Jesus never existed and was a ‘mythical character’. The slight irony is … Continue Reading
The latest ‘new discovery’ about Jesus that has been hitting the headlines and topping the best-seller lists is Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan. Aslan holds some personal interest in the question, since he was apparently raised in a Christian home but converted to Islam. The blurb on Amazon … Continue Reading
This week saw the broadcast of the third and last of the series with Francesca Stavrakopoulou supposedly exposing the real meaning of the Bible and thus over-turning centuries of tradition. My reflections on the previous two episodes can be found here and here.
In some ways this episode exhibited the same issues as the first two, though I thought the arguments much less coherent, with more evidence of jumping to unfounded conclusions without setting out
Last night was the second episode of the BBC’s The Bible’s Buried Secrets. Go here for my comments on the first programme. This one covered different areas, but for me was more disappointing.
Once again, Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou (whom I will call FS for short) set up from the outset a sharp dichotomy between religious and ‘objective’ views.
Although FS presents her conclusions as
Last Wednesday saw the first of three programmes, ‘The Bible’s Buried Secrets’, in which Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou of Exeter University looked at what archaeology tells us about the Old Testament. This first episode explored whether there was evidence for King David’s ’empire.’
What did we learn?
1. Subjective Bible versus Objective History?
From the opening, Stavrakopoulou and other commentators
Ian Paul: theologian, author, speaker, academic consultant. Adjunct Professor, Fuller Theological Seminary; Associate Minister, St Nic's, Nottingham; Managing Editor, Grove Books; member of General Synod. Mac user; chocoholic. Tweets at @psephizo
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