Quisling Bible scholars

While driving today, I heard a bit of a radio interview on our National Public Radio station concerning the so-called "Jesus Tomb" fiasco we discussed last week (Da Vinci Code 'archeology' gone to seed, February 27, 2007). Several persons were being interviewed on the program; but the one I heard speak was Prof. Anthony J. Tambasco, a Bible scholar (actually a professor of "Catholic Studies") from Georgetown University. The sad thing was that instead of calling into question the "Tomb of Jesus," he called into question the New Testament. Instead of calling into question the credibility of the house of cards upon which James Cameron's case rests in the Discovery Channel documentary, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" -- an undertaking in which he could have called to witness an amplitude of scholars both Christian and atheists -- Tambasco instead called into question the credibility of the New Testament narratives.

As it typical of Tambasco and so many other contemporary Bible scholars, he did this incrementally, staking out a position of studied equivocation betwixt the not-to-be-taken-seriously extremes of reading the Bible as literal history and utter myth. It reminded me of O'Leary. Does O'Leary believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ? Well . . . yes and no. It depends what you mean, of course. (Some of you will remember our discussion of O'Leary's existential Christology Part I [Aug. 8, 2005], Part II [Aug. 15, 2005], and Part III [Nov. 28, 2005].) It also reminded me of what Fr. J. Scott Newman described as John Dominic Crossan's "tired and tiresome declaration that if the bones of Jesus were found and were established beyond all doubt to be the authentic bones of Jesus, his faith would still in no way be changed." (Your Faith is in Vain, Dr. Crossan, Random Thoughts, Feb. 25, 2007).

This Georgetown professor could have used this opportunity to inoculate his vast audience of vulnerable and all-too-gullible listeners against uncritically falling for yet another snake oil huckster (see our comparison of James Cameron's documentary with Dan Brown's bestselling bag of illusionist tricks in Da Vinci Code 'archeology' gone to seed, February 27, 2007). Instead, his listeners will have been reinforced by Professor Tambasco in all their popular sophomoric prejudices that the Bible, like the Christian Faith, is not something to be taken with any historical seriousness.