Thursday, February 11, 2010

Michael Goulder on the Resurrection and Losing Faith

This is a short clip from an episode of the BBC Radio 4 series Beyond Belief (25 March 2002) in which Michael Goulder was asked by Ernie Rea about his coming to doubt the resurrection of Jesus, and his giving up his Anglican orders:

Update (10 October 2018): If you can't see the audio player above, try this direct link to the audio file.

6 comments:

Danny Zacharias said...

I sure wish I could here more about this. It is actually a bit of an odd clip. The interviewer says Goulder lost his faith after his academic study of the NT, but Goulder says it was Susan Atkin's story.

Mark Goodacre said...

Yes, it is necessarily brief. I wanted to put this piece up because it is so nice to hear Michael's voice again, and wanted to have it for posterity. I will be looking around for other similar clips. For the fuller story, you could have a look at:

“Did Jesus of Nazareth Rise from the Dead?”. In J. Barton and G. N. Stanton (eds.), Resurrection. Festschrift Leslie Houlden; London: SPCK, 1994: 58-68.

“The Baseless Fabric of a Vision”. In Gavin D'Costa (ed.), Resurrection Reconsidered. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1996: 48-61

“The Explanatory Power of Conversion-Visions”. In Paul Copan, and Ronald K. Tacelli (eds.), Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? : a Debate between William Lane Craig & Gerd Lüdemann. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2000: 86-103

“Jesus' Resurrection and Christian Origins: A Response to N.T. Wright.” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. 3 (2005): 187-195.

Come to think of it, this might be worth blogging separately.

David said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David said...

Michael was a lovely man, and one thing which must be mentioned - he was very helpful to young scholars (as I once was!), and would make a point of mentoring them at conferences etc. Although my theological views differed from his, I felt a strong affinity with him because of that. And how he could demolish an argument! PS Mark, I can't get the QuickTime link to play - I never have that problem normally. Any suggestions?

Mark Goodacre said...

Yes, I agree, David. This is the audio file location if you want to access it directly: http://markgoodacre.org/podcasts/GoulderBeyondBelief.mp3

Unknown said...

I am disgusted with the shallowness displayed in christian apologetics, even by fellas such as NT Wright, who parade a few ancient BELIEFS as "evidence"........... Joseph B. Tyson, professor emeritus of religious studies at Southern Methodist University, in his book, The New Testament and Early Christianity, said it well, "The historian is not content simply with reading testimony, for he requires evidence..... It is necessary to distinguish carefully between testimony and evidence". How many christian "scholars" have forgotten to take this line of thinking seriously when it comes to BELIEFS narrated in ancient stories.......