ORIGINAL SIN & THE "BIBLE'S BURIED SECRETS". In the final episode of Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou's TV series she seeks to locate The Garden of Eden. Her conclusion is that the Adam & Eve story and the account of their subsequent Fall can be traced back to the Temple, Judah's king and the Fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian Empire in 586bc. I consider myself fairly clued up on Biblical literature and have some familiarity with opposing positions, but I cannot say I have ever heard of this hypothesis before. Of course that doesn't mean it is wrong, just that it is almost certainly wrong. It is very important to say that the drive in academic circles is always to innovate; if you want to make a reputation for yourself in academia you have to find a novel angle. That impetus is not always conducive to conserving what is good. If you want to make a name for yourself some public exposure, controversy and novelty are the name of the game. She said the concept of original sin has had a "devastating" effect on human affairs because it implicated everyone but if the real story relates to one particular king's hubris then humanity can say, as she did, "we are off the hook!" Humanity is innocent of evil. The link between the Garden of Eden and Solomon's Temple seems tenuous - it is just as likely that the garden decoration in the Temple is symbolic of something earlier. But even if one concluded that the Bible we have was largely constructed during the Babylonian exile that does not negate the message. If it is strikingly different from the original source all the more reason to ask 'why?' What are the writers of the Bible getting at? It strikes me that the questions raised by the TV programme always stop short; in so far as the Bible has buried secrets why not dig deeper? I can't help but conclude that the series has an agenda, it isn't difficult to perceive what it is. Smear words like "devastating" when attached to concepts like 'original sin' imply that she has a humanist outlook. Her 'straw man' argument about Eve as the cause of evil imply she has a Feminist agenda. But the real feature of this TV series is Post-Modernism; from Dr Stavrakopoulou's point of view it does not matter what the evidence actually is, it is sufficient that this is true for her. A Post-Modernist does not believe in objective reality and that is dangerous for a historian (as for a scientist!) because then the focus shifts from the external realities to the internal and subjective encounter of how 'I' see it and what it means for 'me' as if somehow our present day self-serving worldview is what this history is primarily about. Given this; it is no wonder that the presenter inserts present day priorities into her historical interpretation. Clearly Dr Stavrakopolou is hostile to the concept of 'original sin' and that informs her historical reconstruction. It is not unreasonable to ask if the Bible has got it so wrong regarding evil what is the correct view? She does not answer that. If evil is something which does not touch us all then who does it touch? It is very easy to 'otherise' human evil by identifying a convenient outgroup who can be demonised while we claim to be totally innocent ourselves. Humanists, Atheists, Feminists and Post-Moderns all have their favoured outgroups - in fact that sort of moral fingerpointing is a major feature of human nature... and 'original sin'! The Christian position, drawn from the Eden story, is unique in that it recognises our own culpability. In the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn from 'The Gulag Archipelago' "If only there were evil people some where insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being."

Tree

PAED-IATRIC INTENSIVE CARE & PAED-IATRIC CARDIO-THORACIC SURGERY AT THE EVELINA.

Evelina Children's Hospital

Professorships have been awarded to Mr David Anderson and Dr Ian Murdoch. This is not just a personal honour for them but also recognises the work done within the PICU as a whole at ECH in London. Mr Anderson is one of the leading cardiac surgeons in the world. Dr Murdoch is the lead consultant who consolidated the work of PICU at Guy's Hospital and pioneered the paediatric retrieval service there in the early 1990's. All these services moved from Guy's to St Thomas' in 2005 into a modern purpose built wing becoming known as the Evelina Children's Hospital. It is no surprise that this institution came top in the recent Kennedy review.... and by some margin!

Personally it has been an enormous privilege to have been part of this whole remarkable enterprise for the last twenty years!

These awards are well deserved. Congratulations!

http://www.strs.nhs.uk/

Bible's Buried Secrets. Thinking of Francesca Stavrakopoulou's TV series I am reminded of historian Hugh Trevor-Roper's scathing analysis of 'scientific history', "we exist in and for our own time: why should we judge our predecessors as if they were less self-sufficient: as if they existed for us and should be judged by us? Every age has its own social context, its own intellectual climate, and takes it for granted, it is not explicitly expressed in the documents of the time: it has to be deduced and reconstructed. It also deserves respect... To discern the intellectual climate of the past is one of the most difficult tasks of the historian, but it is also one of the most necessary. To neglect it - to use terms like 'rational', 'superstitious', 'progressive', 'reactionary', as if only that was rational which obeyed our rules of reason, only that progressive which pointed to us - is worse than wrong: it is vulgar". It is pretty obvious that the presenter is imposing on the evidence a narrative which suits her agenda. For example in episode one she makes a big deal about the Bible not appreciating how significant Omri was. Firstly, I already knew about Omri - not from this TV series as if this is some startling new evidence cunningly hidden by people motivated by a malevolent faith - but years ago in a sermon at church! As important as Omri's stature may be to an academic the fact is, theologically speaking, he is a minnow. To understand the documents and artefacts from another culture require a sensitivity to that culture which is not aided by thrusting on it a demand to fit in with current priorities. The evidence she presents can be interpreted several ways not just the one way she is promoting. Dr Stavrakopoulou often litters her commentary with 'peacock' words which suggest she is being daringly original when actually this is pretty well known stuff and is not as devastating to believers as she constantly asserts. Episode two starts with a false assertion, that the Bible teaches that Israel was a monotheistic culture and that her "careful reading" suggests an alternative which shatters the foundation of Christianity. This is a 'straw man'. Apart from being smug it is self evident nonsense; the Bible is very clear that ancient Israel was not faithful to its calling and did indeed worship Baal, Asherah and the whole Canaanite pantheon. And that Yahweh worship was syncretistically blended with Canaanite religion is well known. That does not require "careful reading", that is a major theme of the Bible story. Her assertion that 'El' is the personal name for one of the Canaanite gods rather than a generic word for 'god' and that it is this god the Bible describes is torturing the evidence to fit her narrative. The juxtaposition of images of scientists extracting evidence from the ground against those of people prostrating themselves before religious images while incense swings in the air is pretty crass editing but at least it indicates the agenda. Just as the presenter uses 'peacock' words to big-up her own status she uses 'smear' words to put down opinions she disapproves of and wishes the viewer to disapprove of too. It is not very clever stuff, in fact as propaganda it is very superficial. But then the purpose of the TV series is not to change the minds of those who have some background Bible knowledge, it is clearly aimed to confirm those who are ignorant of the Bible in their ignorance. POST SCRIPT: 12 April 2011. For further reading I will recommend 'On The Reliability Of The Old Testament' by K.A. Kitchen.

Tree

The Sola Panel What makes ‘progressive’ progressive?

The Shard from Tooley Street.

The Romantic Revolution by Tim Blanning.

Post-Modernism is often assumed to be a 21st Century response to the misplaced certainties of the modern era. This book raises the intriguing suggestion that an earlier movement prefigures this development by some way.

Tim Blanning makes a convincing case that the Romantic movement was a reaction against the reductionistic certainties of the Enlightenment and the dehumanising consequences of the new industries of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries.

"Three great revolutions rocked the world around the beginning of the 19th Century. The first two - the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution - have inspired the greatest volume of literature. But the third - the Romantic Revolution - was perhaps the most fundamental, radical and far-reaching. From Wordsworth, Coleridge, Burns and Byron, to Beethoven, Rossini, Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner, to Goya, Blake, Turner and Delacroix collectively brought about an alternative revolution".
"'Absolute inwardness' is how Tim Blanning defines the essence of romanticism. From this derives virtually all the cultural axioms of the modern world: the stress on genius, originality and individual expression; the dominance of music; the obsession with sexuality, dreams and the subconscious; the role of the public as patron; the worship of art and artists."

Artists became the high priests of a new religion which venerated paintings, poetry and music. Indeed the concept of spirituality around this time shifted from the religious to the artistic. The Romantics worshipped nature - but not nature as it truly is but an idealised version of it. As a consequence they abhorred any organised religion in favour of subjective deism. The real wonder of the last two centuries has been the resilience of the church to withstand such cultural unpopularity.
The scientific revolution which had diminished the universe and life into a few objective fundamental laws was too reductionistic for the romantics who sought to affirm the value of humanity and yet they were inevitably compelled, as Blanning puts it, to resort to 'absolute inwardness' - turning inside themselves to find value and beauty. To contrast themselves from the Enlightenment which used the metaphor of daylight the romantics applied the alternative metaphor of night-time; a realm of dreams, emotion and subjectivity. For them nature was not to be tamed by the rational.
The problem for the romantic was to find themselves idealising not just nature but the world as it is; as Alexander Pope wrote:

"All nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood.
All partial Evil, universal Good:
and, in spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right."

From a Christian such an outlook is optimistic in the extreme and at variance with the world as it truly is. The world is far from ideal. So far as I know Tim Blanning is not a Christian but as with all sensitive, informed commentators their observations will chime with the Christian world-view. The book is a brilliant commentary on the culture of the West and its anomie or moral rootlessness. The Christian can affirm the empirical method of science but reject its naturalism and reductionism; that science describes the truth and nothing but the truth yet is not the whole truth. Equally the Christian can affirm the value of humanity and nature without the error of deifying them. Ultimate value is not found by 'absolute inwardness' as if we are the centre of the Universe but it is found in God, who is beyond the outermost reaches of nature. Such a God is also far greater than our inner selves. The Christian rejects the twin errors of deism and subjectivism, and avoids the false optimism of those who believe in the perfectability of humanity.

In recent years there has been an attempt to forge a Scientific History which rejects all that is past and affirms universalist values. Tim Blanning quotes Hugh Trevor-Roper's scathing analysis;
"We exist in and for our own time: why should we judge our predecessors as if they were less self-sufficient: as if they existed for us and should be judged by us? Every age has its own social context, its own intellectual climate, and takes it for granted, it is not explicitly expressed in the documents of the time: it has to be deduced and reconstructed. It also deserves respect... To discern the intellectual climate of the past is one of the most neccesary. To neglect it - to use terms like 'rational', 'superstitious', 'progressive', 'reactionary', as if only that was rational which obeyed our rules of reason, only that progressive which pointed to us - is worse than wrong: it is vulgar."

The intriguing conclusion is that what we call post-modernism may merely prove to be the logical extension of the romantic movement. The post-modernist rejects the grand narrative, teleology and rationalism. They have a strong emphasis on hedonism and the need to escape the mundane realities. Music - as the least rational of the arts - is one of the defining features of youth culture. Not to mention the use of narcotics or the fascination with the gothic. These were all features of the Romantic Revolution.
'How do you annoy a post-modernist?' 'Tell him is not original'!

A Response to Patrick Sookhdeo on Halal Meat. The December 2010 issue of "Evangelicals Now" carried a full page article by Patrick Sookhdeo concerning the general sale of Halal meat in UK supermarkets. The question he posed was this; 'should Christians eat Halal meat?' The March issue of EN published a letter I wrote in response to Patrick Sookhdeo's piece. Dear Sir, The article 'Supermarket Halal' starts well by giving an overview of the biblical position regarding meat sacrificed to idols and that faithful Christians need not feel compromised by eating halal meat. Patrick Sookhdeo mentions two contexts where the eating of such meat may be problematic: where a weaker brother's conscience may be adversely affected by our example or where we are publicly associating ourselves with the deity to whom the meat has been sacrificed. So far so good. But I am frankly baffled by the author then leaping to the conclusion that eating halal meat purchased in a supermarket can mean we are 'embracing Islamic law' and 'furthering the Islamisation of society'! These assertions simply do not follow from his exegesis and consequently look contrived. If the conclusions do not flow from sound Bible teaching the casual onlooker may conclude that evangelicals are simply stirring up people's fears about national identity. To imply some sort of Islamic conspiracy is unwarranted and the suspicion will arise that we are fellow travellers with some very dubious political elements. This concern will compromise our witness to what is afterall a minority group who will have cause to fear the tone we have struck. Of course, this whole halal discussion could be resolved by adequate food labelling, but if I do eat halal unknowingly, what of it? My faith in Jesus is not compromised even if I knowingly share a halal meal with a Muslim friend or enjoy a curry on Brick Lane. Everday scenarios are covered by 1 Corinthians 10:25 and it is extremely difficult to pinpoint the real life contexts that lead to the consequences EN predicts. Surely, in so far as halal is an issue at all, it can be a means to demonstrate the freedom in Christ we have from all such dietary concerns. In fact, to take an overly ostentatious stance against certain foods runs the risk of appearing to be just as legalistic as any Islamist! Irony aside, there is a major spiritual question here, but it is not about what we eat, it is about whether, as Christians, we respond to these sorts of issues with faith and love, or are we motivated by unbiblical fears? Sadly, this article and EN are veering towards the latter: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out. Sincerely, Peter Swift. Addendum: It is not my wish denigrate the work Patrick Sookhdeo has done over the years in helping support hard-pressed Christian minorities overseas. My concern is that such work may be tarnished by ill considered teachings in a field where he is considered by some to be an authority.