By Sheldon Greaves
Some of you may know that I have been producing a podcast called “Discovering the Old Testament” over at another of my websites, lafkospress.com. The podcast is also available on iTunes and various other podcast sites. It began about two years ago as an experiment. I wanted to see whether my skills learned as a young AM disk jockey on KSLM radio in Salem, Oregon in the late 70’s could translate to this newer form of audio production. I was also under-employed at the time, and looking both for a little extra pocket money. Since I had developed a lot of material for my Stanford University extension class by the same name, this seemed an opportune way to make that content go a little further. I’m a big fan of recycling.
In spite of that, I found that I could only get the production quality I wanted by writing out each episode word for word. That came to about four single-spaced pages each–roughly 2,600 words, for a total estimated 130,000 words or about 200 pages.
There were other reasons, too. In spite of my expressed disdain for the “publish or perish” culture of academia, I confess that publications are important credentials for an intellectual, especially one without the backing of a university or institution. No, the podcast isn’t the same as an article in the Journal of Biblical Literature, but it does say that I’m keeping busy in my field and contributing where I can.
I will also admit that I was partially motivated by a desire to help rehabilitate the Old Testament both as religious literature and point out its cultural significance, particularly with the rise of the so-called “New Atheists” such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris declaring religion and the Bible to be the root of all evil. I encounter their acolytes online occasionally and am frankly amazed at both their fervent conviction, and the ignorance accompanying it. I now know that as soon as I hear someone mention “bronze age morals/stories/fables” or someone starts snarking about the “Sky Wizard” I know that I’m dealing with a near-total ignoramus. It’s sad, really, because in many ways the Hebrew Scriptures are wonderfully subversive in ways many critics might appreciate if they would allow themselves the chance. For my part, this podcast helped me discover that the Bible is even more insightful and subversive than I realized.
But there’s more. Along the way I also encountered some fascinating material on the gulf between what could be called the Cartesean mode of knowing–The methodology of Descartes and Bacon that only allows for numerically measurable data as a legitimate basis for knowing anything–and a more qualitative approach. This is a major theme in Douglas Sloan’s brilliant book Faith and Knowledge, which describes the failed efforts of Evangelical Protestant theology to regain a place for itself in academia. The essential problem is that from the outset, the desire to bring theological studies into academia as a legitimate object of study was doomed from the start by it’s advocate’s concession that only a Cartesean epistemology is legitimate. This prevented the robust study of religion and ethics from taking hold, and put humanities in general on a defensive footing in which they continually had to make the case for their legitimacy in the absence of a qualitative methodology of knowing. That struggle continues to this day and, frankly, it’s not looking good for the Muses.
However, this has also led to some fascinating discussions with a new acquaintance who has introduced me to some very interesting thought along these lines. Not to spill the beans before they’re ready, but there is quite a lot to say about this, and more than a little reason to think that a real, honest-to-god qualitative epistemology is out there, and has been right under our noses the whole time.
As we say in the radio biz, “Stay tuned…”