Elsewhere – Nativity naivete: Andrew Bolt tries his hand at biblical criticism
Nativity Naivete: Andrew Bolt Tries His Hand At Biblical Criticism
Andrew Bolt’s recent “expose” of the Gospel nativity stories and the Genesis creation story reminds me of the overreaching first-year Arts student – every year has one – who has stumbled across questions he himself has never considered, but who then has the temerity and naivete to pose them in class as fresh problems not yet confronted, let alone resolved.
Via Matthew of Canberra in the Open thread
How is it that Andy will defend Christianity even against science but won’t commit to Christianity himself?
To be honest, Bolt’s criticisms are naive and lame; but then, Dickson’s defences are dishonest. Dispute over the existence of a historical Jesus is a lot more widespread than he’d have us believe.
The naive biblical criticism I like is the question of how the gospel accounts of Jesus’ interview with Pilate were informed.
Either a helpful secretary handed over the shorthand notes, or after the resurrection Jesus said to his disciplines “Well, it’s like… and I’m like…. and Pilate’s like…. and I’m like… and Pilate goes…. &c).
Neither seem very likely.
Its only taken Mr Biblical Scholar a few hundred years to catch up on higher criticism. Read some Bultmann, or even go back to Nietzsche.
His childish glee at “discovering” what has been bouncing around for over 200 years or so is embarassing for News Ltd.
As has been pointed out before, his lack of a tertiary education explains a lot about obsessions, ignorance and closed mind.
calyptorhynchus – I like the old chestnut of “Did Adam have a navel?”
(No it was Valencia)
If one needed further confirmation of the man’s arrogance; pretending to be a giant amongst his flock, while being a flea standing on giants’ shoulders.
An interesting article, I read it up to this point
Dickson’s post actually makes me want to defend Andrew Bolt. Bolt is writing for a broad audience that will certainly be unfamilar with biblical scholarship, so obviously he writes with a ‘did you know this?’ style. Dickson gets snotty because Bolt doesn’t assume that everybody is already a biblical scholar. Dickson’s ‘how could you not know this’ arrogance is more objectionable than Bolt’s fairly straightforward summary of a book’s argument. That he dismisses a well-known scholar Robin Lane Fox as ‘populist’ tells you all you need to know about Dickson’s attitude to the general public having an opinion on his pet topic.
“Dickson’s post actually makes me want to defend Andrew Bolt. ”
Drat! Double Drat! Darn you, Dickson!!!!1!
(quite a lot of D’s in that, eh?)