Bamboozled
Dec. 26th, 2004 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloChannel 4 boldly, and in the teeth of protests, gave over their prime-time Christmas slot to a show about how the Bible was written and edited by a succession of power elites and how anybody who thinks it's the unmediated word of God is stupid and/or dangerous.
I was taught this stuff at theological college thirty years ago, but it seems to be no more common knowledge now than it was then. The churches give the information to their clergy (fore-warned is fore-armed) but they don't encourage them to pass it on to the folks in the pews.
I find this mildly scandalous. It's nearly a hundred and fifty years since scholars first began to take the Bible apart. Their conclusions ought to be as much a part of the common culture as Darwin or Dickens.
And so should their methods. If we're awed by one text we'll be awed by others- and politicians, leader writers, newscasters, gurus and advertisers will continue to be able to manipulate and bamboozle us.
I was taught this stuff at theological college thirty years ago, but it seems to be no more common knowledge now than it was then. The churches give the information to their clergy (fore-warned is fore-armed) but they don't encourage them to pass it on to the folks in the pews.
I find this mildly scandalous. It's nearly a hundred and fifty years since scholars first began to take the Bible apart. Their conclusions ought to be as much a part of the common culture as Darwin or Dickens.
And so should their methods. If we're awed by one text we'll be awed by others- and politicians, leader writers, newscasters, gurus and advertisers will continue to be able to manipulate and bamboozle us.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-26 02:13 pm (UTC)I don't know about books. The ones we read in theological college are almost certainly out of print by now.
But I see that Amazon are selling a couple of recent titles together at the knockdown price of $23.06.
They are- Who Wrote The Bible by Richard E Friedmann
and
Whole Wrote the New Testamant by Burton L. Mack.
These seem to be the kind of texts you're looking for...
no subject
Date: 2004-12-27 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-27 03:32 am (UTC)