The C4 series The Bible: A History is so loosely interlinked that “series” is almost a misnomer. I gave some attention to the first episode on creation. I suppose one could characterise that by saying Jacobsen wanted to develop an agnostic aestheticism that valued the text as myth and literature. Last week’s episode was essentially a political exploration from Rageh Omaar about how three competing religions shape their identity and their relationship to the land of Israel and Palestine. The biblical text was a minor player. In tonight;s episode it was a weapon.
This was a rambunctious romp by Ann Widdecombe as a way of bewailing the lack of morality in modern culture. She starts from the odd claim that the Ten Commandments have influenced our culture for over 2,000 years. I’m not quite sure who the “our” is in that assertion. She then journeys around Egypt and the Middle East retelling the Biblical story in a very pre-modern way, before allowing one modern scholar a cursory word of scepticism about the traditional picture. She dismisses this scepticism – any idea that Moses might not have written the Pentateuch, or that the Exodus might have been a rather different thing than that described in the edited texts of the Bible – indeed, dismisses them with a fairly contemptuous snort.
She moves swiftly on to an episodic history, noting the influence of Mosaic law on Alfred’s codification of English law and the way in which the commandments took centre stage at the Reformation, pondering that we could do with a touch of Puritanism today.
Then she moves, via a vox pop doorstepping of the public and the varied views, into a polemical engagement with the pundits, in this case Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens. One could hardly describe this as a meeting of minds, and in another context their anti-religious rants (tempted by Widdecombe’s smug – er, what’s the feminine equivalent of patronising, matronising? – belligerence) could sound quite anti-Semitic. It is, apparently, all the fault of the Jews. Indeed, for Hitchens, the Church lost its way when it failed to adopt Marcion’s rejection of that evil God and his scriptures.
It’s not exactly a subtle advocacy (or subtle rejection) of either the Bible or morality and the law, but then again, Widdecombe doesn’t really do subtlety. It’s either atheism or the decalogue. She hardly helps her mission of claiming them for today’s world by constantly quoting them in Tudor English. Of course, I’m not a fan of privileging the decalogue. But I really can’t think that her conclusion, that our society would be a better place if we kept “biblical law”, is a very odd place for a Christian to end up. What, all of them?
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I agree Doug. I found her infuriating! Her attitude towards the end of her interview with Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou was practically childish (FS: some scholars doubt Moses even existed, AW: but you don’t know for sure, FS: yes of course we cannot know for sure, but that’s not the point, AW: ha ha, you just admitted you don’t know for sure, so phooey to your Theology PhD). I’m not sure her interview with Hitchens and Fry had much point. Hitchens’ portion was abbreviated so badly it was a waste of time including it (unless they just wanted to show Hitchens walking out as some way of saying “Look at Hitchens, he won’t even debate this in a civilised way”, which is a massive misrepresentation of the fellow), and Fry’s section did her no favours at all. Indeed, she was utterly defeated at the preceding Intelligence Squared debate. In all, I don’t think she did anyone, including herself, any favours, but just made herself look ignorant. I’d much rather have seen Diarmaid MacCullouch exploring the subject.
She is, generally, a very poor advocate. All passion and no point.
Indeed. If she did have any points to make, they were weak, confused and conflicted.
Not had a chance to note my own reflections, but you’ve pretty much written what exactly what I thought anyway. Fry almost nailed her with the “you’re leaving our the silly ones” comment, but failed to point out the absurdity of making “worship no God but me” the law. But then this is a woman who left the Church of England because they agreed to lady vicars and who is leaving parliament just as her party are about to sweep to power.
I’ll try and write it up tomorrow
Matt
Look forward to reading it. One thing I didn’t comment on that irritated me was the giving of the commandments: words and phrases from the AV doing a superman title sequence style of swirl over looming thunderclouds and lightning.
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