A Bible Blogger makes the New York Times Op-Ed Page

April DeConick weighs in with an excellent piece of debunking of the Judas Iscariot scam perpetrated by National Geographic. You will find the piece on today’s Op-Ed page of the New York Times.

I grew up with National Geographic and it has pained me to see it transformed into a multimedia money-making machine built on a predatory approach to would-be consumers of its products. For my kids and for myself, I continue to look for infotainment built on adequate fact-checking. Where are documentaries that are not beholden to special interests of one ideological variety or another? It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Did April make the Op-Ed page because she is an excellent scholar, or because she has an excellent blog that someone noticed at NYT? Both, I imagine. Or perhaps her blogging had nothing to do with it. Still, over and over again, bloggers who write clearly and crisply and against the grain have been noticed by information-brokers. The mainstream media seeks to co-opt them for its own designs. Fair enough. Examples that come to mind include Dan Drezner, Matt Yglesias, and Michael Totten.

Here’s hoping that DeConick becomes a scholar-celebrity. She is engaging, level-headed, and committed to dialogue with opposing points of views. Reporters can’t figure her out because she is as progressive and liberal as they are but she produces careful, conservative scholarship. She is not in the mold of Dan Rather and his ilk, people who make a career of talking down to people they disagree with and playing fast and loose with the facts if it serves “a greater good.”

Truth be told, there are plenty of people on both sides of the liberal/conservative divide who talk down to people and treat facts as wax noses. April is not one of them. Take a look at her blog and see for yourself. (Hat tip: Justin Anthony Knapp)

Comments

[Don Matthews]

I read DeConick's excellent article on the Judas fiasco yesterday in the New York Times. I was particularly interested in what she said about the Dead Sea Scrolls:

"The situation reminds me of the deadlock that held scholarship back on the Dead Sea Scrolls decades ago. When manuscripts are hoarded by a few, it results in errors and monopoly interpretations that are very hard to overturn even after they are proved wrong."

From what I understand, the consequences of the Scrolls monopoly are indeed still continuing today, in a misleading exhibit taking place in a "natural history" museum in San Diego. See this article for details:

http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/did-christian-agenda-lead-biased-dead-sea-scrolls-exhibit-san-diego

Thus, I would suggest that the real question confronting us today is whether liberal Christian scholars -- by which I mean scholars of Christian faith who, like April DeConick, proceed in accordance with fundamental scientific principles rather than any religious agenda -- will part company with their Evangelical colleagues and frankly condemn what is going on with the Dead Sea Scrolls in one museum exhibit after another.

[JohnFH]

Don, you're the second commenter of late to raise issues about this exhibit.

You could be right, but you need to be specific about what troubles you about it. In the meantime, I'll take a look at the article you link to.

[Justin (koavf)]

John,

Thanks for the note. I appreciate April's sincerity; it's refreshing to see someone in the liberal arts not using research as a pretense for propaganda.

-JAK