Edward called me to watch a new video by Dr. Stavrakopoulou, a professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter, who knows Jesus too. She is an out-and-out atheist and a strong skeptic, not accepting much of the Old Testament as true. She is noted in the notes of her:
She supports the academic consensus that important figures in the Hebrew bible were not historical figures. In her book, God: An Anomaly, Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is male. This is a portrait of a god in ancient myths and rituals who was a product of a particular society, at a particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then, shaped by their own circumstances. The book shows that the non-corporeal God of Judaism and Christianity was not yet seen in the Bible, where God appears in a much more corporeal form.
I agree with Dr. Stavrakopoulou that the Bible was not written to be a factual account of the past, but why did Church fathers like him? Were they aware that the Bible was written? Some of the theologians saw both a metaphorical and a physical meaning of the Bible, but the meaning was always there.
Dr. Stav is talking with Andrew Copson, the Chief Executive of Humanists UK, about her new book and biblical views. Her book, which is called God: An Anosis, got good reviews in the UK and will be released in the U.S. in a week.
I could describe the high points, but I think the whole video is worth watching, for you will see someone addressing the Bible as a work of historical fiction. She has an engaging style of speaking and she does a 3-part special for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
She describes the story of Job as being about God messing over Job for no reason, and my favorite part is at 8:40, when she says that Christianity has done a tremendous job of pretending that there is a triune God. How refreshing is that? I wonder if her students are confused when they take her classes because they are being taught by a nonbeliever.
It is our job to know more about religion than believers themselves, for you can always best them by knowing your Scripture. If you haven't read the Bible, do it. You should read Dr. Stav's book.
She doesn't say anything on social media.
The research about the real event shaping the biblical story of Sodom was stupid. This is why rubbish like that is problematic.
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When Biblically inspired pseudoscience and clickbait cause looting, it's called SAPIENS.
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January 9, 2022.
Edward.
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