Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou is the latest theologically-inclined, telegenic academic to be commissioned by the BBC to present her objectively-atheistic (ie ‘neutral’) worldview to the nation, courtesy of the taxpayer.
She has been deploying her much-vaunted Oxford doctorate and senior lectureship at Exeter to tell us about the ‘Bible's Buried Secrets’, which were not actually buried very deeply; indeed, they were not particularly secret. Perhaps standards have slipped in Oxford’s theology faculty.
Is it the incongruity of her glamour and grace with the stark and foreboding Old Testament that the BBC found irresistible? Is it that she wore a sensual, green blouse throughout? Or is it that her name sounds sufficiently like a course in New Testament Greek all in itself? His Grace asks because Dr Stavrakopoulou’s profound doctoral insights may be read and discovered by Tyndale's ploughboy: they are all certainly within the grasp of a first-year undergraduate. So quite what is ‘buried’ or ‘secret’ is... well, buried and secret.
The BBC sent Dr Stavrakopoulou all the way to Jerusalem, Judaea and Samaria to contextualise her mind-blowing, ground-breaking, startlingly-original and revelatory thesis that Israelite monotheism developed and that King David did not have a global empire. She is very keen to point out ‘as an academic’ that ‘religious literature shaped by ideological and political factors’ which ‘can result in a biased account’.
His Grace is dumbfounded by her brilliance.
He lauds and praises the BBC for discovering a Dawkins disciple of such intellect.
She further informs us: ‘Much of what is presented as historical fact, I know to be ambiguous.’
She knows. She does not explain how she knows, but she knows that she knows what she knows. With her, there are no known unknowns. Or unknown unknowns.
His Grace genuflects in the presence of her omniscience: he is not worthy to comment.
But he knows a cleric who is.
Bishop Alan Wilson is of the opinion that this is ‘pisspoor stuff’. And it is. He summarises his opinion in the Facebook snippet reproduced above (without permission, but he’s a good egg).
And speaking of eggs, please don’t trouble Bishop Alan about his use of language: he is quite busy at the moment tending his new flock of chickens, and ‘piss’ can be discovered numerous times in the Authorised Version (Is 36:12; 1Sam 25:22, 34; 1Kg 14:10, 16:11, 21:21; 2Kg 9:8, 18:27). It is refreshing indeed to hear such use of the vernacular by senior Church of England clergy. One wonders why the BBC haven't engaged him to present a documentary on the Bible's un-buried non-secrets.
But perhaps he would look a bit silly in a flimsy, green blouse.
