The BBC's latest biblical 'find'

If it were not so serious it would be funny. According to an article in The Telegraph, the BBC’s “new face of religion is an atheist who claims that God had a wife and Eve was "unfairly maligned" by sexist scholars.”

Well, everyone is entitled to their scholarly opinion, and this particular scholar apparently also takes the view that the God of the Old Testament had a consort named ‘Asherah’ — nothing there which hasn’t been claimed before, and fine if that’s how you want to approach your Ancient Near Eastern theology.

Of course, there are other views around, and provided they are given a fair go with license-payers’ money, no problem. I know Ken Kitchen isn’t yet pushing up the daisies, for example.

But what’s this? The ‘new face’ is not just on the far left of OT scholarship. It is also a young and strikingly pretty female.

How amazing! A corporation that has already been convicted of ageism with respect to its female presenters finds what is probably one of the best-looking women biblical scholars in the UK, if not the world, to present its latest series. And she’s ‘unorthodox’.

Well all I can say is, “Go, BBC!” First, Brian Cox for astronomy, now Dr Stavrokopoulou for biblical history.

What a find — and how many birds (if you’ll pardon the pun) can you kill with one stone when it comes to fulfilling your usual criteria?

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