Reviews, Interviews, News, Commentaries, Excerpts, My Top 5 Books, Wilson's Bookmarks, Book AwardsWhen the Media Became a Nuisance
Not long ago, topics like textual criticism and the extra-biblical Gospels elicited yawns from my seminary students. I went through the obligatory motions of covering these staples of New Testament study, knowing that no matter how hard I tried, questions would be rare and engagement minimal.
All that has changed. Topics like the James ossuary and the Gospel of Judas have hit Times Square, not only pricking the attention of seminary students, but also garnering coverage from journalists and culture-watchers, from CBS News's traditional news team to 360 Degrees's Anderson Cooper.
In the last five years, numerous books on early Christian history have made the bestseller lists. Specials on figures like Jesus and Constantine are produced at a rate that could fill historical cable channels around the clock. And when People magazine weighs in on movies like The Passion of the Christ, you know something new is happening in the world of religion news.
We are seeing a growing public interest in Jesus and the early church. There are two kinds of presentations on these topics: scholarly books and "new find" announcements. Both kinds need our attention because the way this information is released is changing, making it more difficult to tell the difference between fact and fiction. Every Christmas and Easter season, a "blockbuster" story proclaims the need to redefine Christianity. (This Christmas season, the media is touting a book by liberal scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan titled, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Birth.) I tell my students to take their inoculation shots and get ready to engage.
When I started my teaching career, scholars' books were usually fact-checked and peer-reviewed ...
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Streaming This Weekend, May 24, 2013
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Cobus Prinsloo
Thank you -- I have long waited for an article such as this one! Amen to your proposed responses from Christians on these new challenges. I wish more churches will start to take things more seriously.
andy christ
There are only a few sanctified. Others become sick during trials. Jersulum was defeated. Moses raised his arms and warriors continued to fight and win. Jesus today needs warriors. I am being poisoned and police have never questioned about crime. Other corruption.FDA approves blood thining drugs that cause diabetes on purpose. Seriously. They give it psychotics. Police are out numbered by mobs. They should do a campaign for decent officers in small mob controled towns. Mobs run for sheriff. Jesus wants Total submission. listen every second for God the father. Faith in forgiveness from God. Psalms 99:9-hillpray. Please fight these evil USA mobs or death from God or evil. Gal 3:2. 1 corinth 14:26. Every movement about love. Chichasha OK- isreal. Proverbs 19 20 21. Amen!
Robert
Having studied under Dr. Bock, I can say that he is someone for whom I have a lot of respect. However, Darrell is wasting his enormous talents by focusing on the worst popular culture has to offer. The last thing we need to be spend money on, when half the world's population lives on $1 a day. is entertainment in the guise of scholarship. This is exactly what the shows he sites are. Hyping the latest new thing to sell more ads. Having read Darrell's Da Vinci Code book, mostly out of curiousity after the WSJ named it the best of the bunch (but did we really need 25+ books debunking the DVC?), which while well written, missed the point that most people liked the book, not because of its ridiculous assertions about Jesus, but in spite of them, finding it an entertaining read. NG's translation work on gospel of Judas has already been discredited by secular scholars with no dog in this fight. We don't need to join this silly parade of nonsense, nor defend against it, but to rise above it.