Although it is nearly 24 hours since I watched the first in Channel 4’s new series, The Bible: A History, I still find myself annoyed at the mere memory of it. It ended up being more of the aspirational wishful thinking of a romantic presenter than the history deceptively portrayed in the title.
The first quarter of the programme started to fulfil the expectations of the title - some attempt at giving information on the history of the bible. In this programme the subject was the creation account. Various archaeologists and biblical scholars were wheeled out to explain the similarities between the biblical story and the Babylonian creation myths. They then present the reasoning behind the hypothesis that the creation account was almost certainly not dictated to Moses by god, but was written by Jews in Babylon in an attempt to come to terms with their disastrous defeat and exile 500 years after the death of Moses. But at this point the discussion of history ended and the presenter, Howard Jacobson, spent the next three quarters of an hour showing his dislike of people of conviction and his desire for an almost fantasy world where things could be both true and untrue, where you could reject the creation story and believe it at the same time.
Howard Jacobson wheeled out more experts (a Cambridge Professor of Physics who was also an Anglican Priest) who said that theology and myth was not meant to be science, and that people who accepted the biblical account literally or who rejected the biblical account with certainty were both wrong.
In my view the second part of the programme had several flaws in it.
First, Jacobson accuses atheists of not realizing that the creation account is literature rather than science, and for attacking something unjustly. This simply isn’t true. Most atheists would recognise that the creation accounts are myth and not science. If atheists do ridicule the creation account, it is not because they fail to recognise its mythical quality, but precisely because millions of religious believers fail to do so and take it to be literally true. For me two of the most chilling parts of the programme were when two Mancunean rabbis were asked if they believed the account to be literally true and said they did because that is what had been taught for thousands of years, and when a London clergyman, Greg Haslam, also said he believed it to be literally true and then went on to confidently proclaim that the science was on his side.
Jacobson criticizes Dara O’Brian for making jokes about the creation story implying that this is nasty and unjustified. But isn’t Jacobson guilty of the same crime that he unjustly accuses atheists of - miscategorizing something. Dara O’Brian is telling a joke for comic effect, not making a scientific or logical argument in a treatise.
Secondly, Jacobson again attacks atheists for setting up simplistic straw men to attack, but again goes and does precisely the same thing in his argument about Richard Dawkins. He implies that atheists are harsh, and that they only go for the easy targets - the religious fundamentalists. This may be true of a minority, but my reading and viewing of Richard Dawkins is that this is far from the truth. Both Dawkins and Sam Harris do point out the weaknesses of the fundamentalist case, but also go on to point out the difficulties of any religion, and despite claims that Christianity and Islam are religions of peace, point out the warlike claims and acts advocated in their sacred texts. One other major point that both of the above author’s make is that they are living in a rational world, and if they are certain about their claims about religion, they are only as certain as the evidence. They repeatedly invite religious people to produce counter evidence, or evidence to support their claims - and of course, this never happens. Dawkins is far from arrogant, despite his protractors portraying him as such. He repeatedly says that he will change his mind if given good reasons for doing so - something the believers patently will not do.
The third weakness of the programme for me was the implicit notion that certainty is wrong. Jacobson is someone who was happy to rely on the ‘certainty’ of the laws of science to fly aeroplanes to different places to make his programme, but seems uncomfortable with atheistic certainty in rejecting the creation account. Clearly some things are just blatantly true and others blatantly false. What is alarming is the fact that millions of people (Christians in America, Muslims in Turkey and in the Middle East) believe the creation accounts to be literally true and are resisting science education because of this. Such attitudes clog up cognitive evolution and hold societies back (see Opening Up). It doesn’t seem wrong to say that things are false if the evidence about their falsehood is compelling. If the evidence changes then the judgement can change.
Jacobson clearly doesn’t believe in a literal creation, but wants to believe something and freely admits that in the programme. There is nothing wrong with myths as interesting cultural ideas (or even with wanting to believe something). However, to want myths to be true so much that you try to claim that they might have the some external validity (as science and historical fact does) seems to be a leap of faith too far - especially when you are meant to be presenting a programme about history rather than about whim or fancy.
Notwithstanding
pretensions toclaims of objectivity, many authors, TV personalities, etc., still treat religious beliefs with kid gloves. These people can’t have it both ways. If the Genesis creation account is not literal, then criticism should be directed at Biblical literalists who believe that it is a literal account and act on those beliefs, not at the atheists who point out the error of such a reading of the account. On the other hand, if the Genesis creation account is literally correct (we both know it’s not - I’m just throwing this out for argument’s sake), then that fact has significant ramifications for science, as well as theology.I like this statement, but would make an even stronger one: it isn’t wrong to say things are false….
Thank you, Howard Jacobson. The impression you left with me at the end of your inconsistent, rambling, and contradictory programme was that the creation story is a myth. Good. That’s what I thought to begin with. And, by the way, Richard Dawkins is not a fundamentalist, nor does he utterly refute belief in God. In fact, in his book The God Delusion, the chapter you held open to the camera while you vented your fury at his ‘fundamentalist’ approach was entitled ‘Why there almost certainly is no God’. That’s the considered view of a scientist.
Jacobson’s argument was childish and self-indulgent. Any University Professor worth his or her salt would have dismissed it as in incorrect interpretation of the title.
Judith McCarter
I’m encouraged to learn that you thought the programme was strange too. I thought it was bad, but then I watch Ann Widdecombe last night on the 10 Commandments and decided that she was even worse than Howard Jacobson. It’s obviously a dreadful series that has little to do with biblical history.