Did Hector Avalos really say that?

“Shakespeare's works,” he says, “have no intrinsic value.”

“[T]he Bible has no intrinsic value or merit.”

“I get paid to do what I love, though my conscience is increasingly telling me to do something more beneficial for humanity.”

What Hector Avalos is paid to do is be a biblical scholar. He is a professor of religious studies at Iowa State University.

The full context of his remarks is available here.

I wish him well. I believe his scholarship performs a service to "religionists" like me, whom he is not afraid to challenge.

But I don’t agree with his opinions on Shakespeare and the Bible. Not by a long shot.

Comments

[Brandon]

I'm with you, of course, John. Ironically enough, I have an article in front of me that I'm reading by Hector Avalos. So what he does is beneficial for humanity, or at least for me, but then again I might just be part of the problem and not the solution. The real question, which I'm sure others have already asked, is why he doesn't quit and pursue another area in which he can find meaning?

[JohnFH]

That's an excellent way of putting it, Brandon. When someone challenges what I believe, I want to be open to the truth they bring to the table.

[Christopher Heard]

Yes, he really said that, in the SBL Forum. Then again in his book, The End of Biblical Studies.

[Kevin P. Edgecomb]

The Shakespeare quip is the last straw.

What a barbarian.