I took a break from this crazy proposal business and watched the commentary with Earl Doherty on The God Who Wasn’t There. As if it were possible, I learned even more. And Doherty is pretty sure that the Jesus Myth will hit mainstream scholasticism in the next 10 to 20 years. (Hell, I wonder what he thinks of the trial in Italy right now.) He says that the thing about the Internet is that you just can’t shut people up. “New” ideas get more air time than they normally would. He talked about Alfred Wegener, the guy who put forth the idea of continental drift, because he was ridiculed for his “new” idea (although people like Ben Franklin had already made similar observations). Granted, there are oodles of completely crackpot ideas flooding the ions, and many people consider this to be one of them. But once in a while, something valid breaks through. And if you keep finding enough holes and pushing people to be honest, they have to. As Doherty said in the interview (and I’m paraphasing), this isn’t an issue of faith. We should strive for honesty and promote the ongoing search for historical truth.

Doherty hadn’t read The Da Vinci Code. I’m sure he’ll have a field day with that, especially Brown’s claims to extensive research.