"Who wrote the Bible?"

O'Coonassa

Dr Robert Beckford the academic theologian investigates the roots of the Torah and the NT. Interesting stuff for anybody who loves the God given gifts of logic and reason. (Running time 1h 43m)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=475017379969914449

Excelsior

Beckford is more famous for being on telly than anything he has ever written.

The Bible is a collection of books with scores of contributors. I can't help but think you'll need to actually make a point instead of advertising a tv show if you want a discussion to start.

O'Coonassa

Being on telly Vs being in a book. I don't really see the difference tbh, it's all content.

I'd made the point on another thread and it was challenged but yes you're right I should've really remade the point on this thread.

Seaneh

Excelsior wrote: »

Beckford is more famous for being on telly than anything he has ever written.

The Bible is a collection of books with scores of contributors. I can't help but think you'll need to actually make a point instead of advertising a tv show if you want a discussion to start.

ello old man, where have you been hiding?

Excelsior

Seaneh wrote: »

ello old man, where have you been hiding?

Why here of course. I found after a long old while that deconstructing the misconceptions people had about "Who wrote the Bible?" and so on was more work than was needed: I could just deal with the questions in a blog.

Beckford is on the telly cos he is good to watch. My point O'Coonassa, is that he doesn't do peer reviewed Biblical research, he doesn't write books that can be openly dissected and most importantly, he never has to footnote a thing.

Now before I am sucked in, I am gone.:)

O'Coonassa

Excelsior wrote: »

Beckford is on the telly cos he is good to watch. My point O'Coonassa, is that he doesn't do peer reviewed Biblical research, he doesn't write books that can be openly dissected and most importantly, he never has to footnote a thing.

Well I guess that's because what he's saying has all been said before by other less telegenic people. He's not breaking any new ground really.

Fanny Cradock

Excelsior wrote: »

Why here of course. I found after a long old while that deconstructing the misconceptions people had about "Who wrote the Bible?" and so on was more work than was needed: I could just deal with the questions in a blog.

Beckford is on the telly cos he is good to watch. My point O'Coonassa, is that he doesn't do peer reviewed Biblical research, he doesn't write books that can be openly dissected and most importantly, he never has to footnote a thing.

Now before I am sucked in, I am gone.:)

I check the what the Zoomtard is up to from time to time. Good work, I approve.

passive

Ooh, ooh, I know this one! teacher, teacher, pick me!

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John!

also...http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1481#comic

(edit: sorry... )

Fanny Cradock

Very amusing. Now stay on topic, please.

hivizman

Excelsior wrote: »

Beckford is more famous for being on telly than anything he has ever written.

One of his few papers in a refereed academic journal has the title "Does Jesus have a penis? Black male sexual representation and Christology", Theology and Sexuality Vol. 3, No. 5, pp. 10-21. I'm surprised he isn't famous for the title alone.

hivizman

O'Coonassa wrote: »

Dr Robert Beckford the academic theologian investigates the roots of the Torah and the NT. Interesting stuff for anybody who loves the God given gifts of logic and reason.

Thanks a lot for the link to this programme. I didn't catch it back in 2006 because I was off having a mid-life crisis.

My main concern with Beckford's argument was that he seemed to present the emergence of the Bible, in the form we know it, in rather simplistic, either/or terms. He claims towards the end of the programme that the power of the Holy Spirit working today allows him, and others, to question taken for granted views about Scripture, but denounces the workings of the early Church Fathers and the Councils that determined the canonical New Testament as nothing more than a matter of power and politics. I had more sympathy with the views of Father Stephen Pisano, the Director of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, who was prepared to concede that power and politics was involved but believed that the Spirit was nonetheless at work in the formation of the canon.

Beckford was able to wheel out some quite impressive interviewees - in the New Testament part of the programme he interviewed, among others, Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, and Alister McGrath, then Professor of Theology at Oxford (he's recently moved to King's College, London), two theologians for whom I have the greatest respect, as well as some other scholars. One of these, Mark Goodacre (then at Birmingham University but more recently at Duke University in the USA) is perhaps a little unorthodox because he believes that the Gospel of Luke was based on that of Matthew, and rejects the commonly held theory that Matthew and Luke were written independently, and that they were both based on Mark's Gospel and a lost source "Q" (see his book The Synoptic Problem).

Fanny Cradock

hivizman wrote: »

Thanks a lot for the link to this programme. I didn't catch it back in 2006 because I was off having a mid-life crisis.

Oh, dear. Sorry to hear that!