A Book Analysis Series of Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s Book, “God: An Anatomy” (Part 1: A Backstory)

First, a Backstory
The inspiration for this new book analysis series has a curious backstory.  A few weeks ago, as I was thumbing through my Twitter feed, I chanced across a certain video made by a biblical scholar who has his own YouTube (or is it TikTok?) channel. This gentleman was commenting on something yet another scholar (whose specialty is the study of ancient Egypt) had said when he was asked on his YouTube channel regarding what his opinion of Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s work. For the record, Dr. Stavrakopoulou (henceforth “Dr. S”) is a professor of the Hebrew Bible at the University of Exeter.

In any case, the Egyptologist said he wasn’t a fan of her work and that he thought her work was “fringe.” He then made another comment regarding her apparent steady work on the BBC. Long story short, he said the reason why the BBC put her on TV was because she was very pretty, and if you want to get viewers, you’d probably prefer to have an attractive person talking about biblical archaeology than a frumpy, gray-haired old guy. But then he made the additional comment, “We shouldn’t be doing theology by cup size.”

Well, according to the first biblical scholar making the video about the Egyptologist, this was a shocking and disgusting example of rank misogyny. Now, when I saw the video, I thought the Egyptologist’s comments certainly came across as condescending and unprofessional. Personally, I thought his comments came across as more chauvinistic than misogynistic, but whatever. Bottom line, he certainly didn’t come across in a good light. And if the biblical scholar YouTuber was upset about it, okay. In the big scheme of things, an off-handed and inappropriate comment by someone on his own YouTube channel was not really a threat to the civilized world.

I turned off my Twitter feed and went back to doing other things. Over the next 2-3 days, though, every time I checked Twitter, I saw scores and scores and scores of comments regarding this video that was upset over the Egyptologist’s comments. These people were absolutely livid. They were outraged. At the same time, they were so proud of this biblical scholar and his video and were all congratulating each other at how brave they all were, standing up to this sickening and grotesque display of misogyny…and patriarchy…and Evangelicals…etc. Other bloggers wrote their own spin-off posts about the Egyptologist’s comments and the biblical scholar YouTuber’s courage. And they all, of course, swore their allegiance to the brave work of Dr. S.

I’m not going to lie. I was rather amused at all this. I thought it was just a bit overkill. After about the third day, I couldn’t resist, so I just made the comment that I couldn’t believe they were really that upset over it, and that they were just trying to boost their own clicks on Twitter. Well, over the course of the next day, I got quite a Twitterful! The biblical scholar YouTuber, as well as another biblical scholar, both said that since I was a man, I had no right to tell women what was and wasn’t misogyny. I responded by saying that I was pretty sure both of them were men, and that I wasn’t saying the comment wasn’t bad, but I just couldn’t believe they were really that upset about it. I used the term “faux outrage.” For that comment, the biblical scholar immediately blocked me, and a small Twitter mob attacked me with a number of lovely comments that I will not repeat. I wasn’t hurt by them—their hysteria was fascinating to me. They were losing their minds over that.

All that said, I sort of wanted to read Dr. S’s book now. I hadn’t read any of her stuff before. Besides, although I am a part-time adjunct, I now teach high school English again full-time, so I’m not necessarily “in the loop” with certain things in the academic world of Biblical Studies as I used to be.

Over the course of the next 10 days, boy did I read the book! Spoiler alert: I wasn’t impressed. More to the point, I found many arguments in the book to be, quite frankly, silly and laughable. I’ll talk more about these arguments later, but for this backstory’s sake, I’ll just mention two that struck me as funny. First, Dr. S claimed that in Isaiah’s vision of YHWH on His throne in Isaiah 6, the Hebrew really didn’t say that the hem of YHWH’s robe filled the Temple, but rather, YHWH’s big penis filled the Temple. Secondly, later on, Dr. S claimed that the reason why YHWH condemned the “sons of Elohim” in Genesis 6:1-4 for having sex with women was because He wanted to be the only deity to have sex with women. And, in fact, He had had sex with Eve and had fathered Cain.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say most people will find both claims pretty outrageous. I certainly found them funny, and so (because I couldn’t resist), I did something I don’t often do: I actually posted two unsolicited comments on Twitter. Without mentioning the author’s name, I just said that I had just read a claim that Isaiah 6 really is about YHWH’s giant penis filling Temple, and that I thought that was pretty stupid. Then in another Tweet, I jokingly said, “Wow! YHWH had sex with Eve and is Cain’s father! Why was I never taught this in grad school?”

In both cases, it was pretty obvious I was just making a joke and that I was having a little fun. After all, it’s Twitter! Well, the same Twitter mob (henceforth known as “the Twitter hyenas”) came out in full force. For the “sin” of my two comments (and daring to say the Egyptologist’s comments, though bad, were not WWII), I was accused of being, you can probably guess it, a homophobe, transphobe, misogynist, right-wing Fundamentalist Trump supporter, inerrantist, apologist, and a stupid, ignorant scholar to boot. One person even wrote a multi-thousand-word post accusing me, not only of those aforementioned things, but of also plagiarizing my PhD! (I didn’t).

Throughout the whole thing, I found their hysterical attacks as funny as they were nonsensical, and I said so. This angered them even more.  The entire time, though, I couldn’t help but think, “These guys are going crazy over my two joking tweets???” I mean, I’m no one special. Although I have a PhD, I will never be a “big name.” In many respects, I’m just a nobody…and yet these Twitter hyenas (some of them actual, full-time professors in the academy!) are losing their minds…over a silly joke I made! Not to play the psychiatrist, but what does that behavior say about them? I mean, look at that list of accusations—they deciphered all that from two joke tweets? This response to my tweets was absolutely pathological.

All that said, I want to make clear that at no time did Dr. S—the author whose book I’m going to go through here on my blog—make any comments. I imagine that, unlike the Twitter hyenas (and even though I do not agree with most of her arguments in her book), she is a serious scholar who wouldn’t get involved in such a hysterical rage mob over an innocuous joke…even if it was at her book’s expense.

What’s at the Heart of My Problem with God: An Anatomy
That’s the backstory as to what led to my writing this book analysis series of Dr. S’s God: An Anatomy. I mean, after that kind of reaction, how could I NOT write a book analysis series of the book? Over the past seven years or so, I’ve often done these “book analysis series” on a variety of books—some that I really liked and learned a lot from, and some that I thought were horrible…and in the process of writing about them learned a lot because of them. This book is going to fall in the second category. That being said, though, there is an underlying issue for me as I go through the book. A number of the Twitter hyenas who are Biblical Scholars in the academia repeatedly insulted me for being “wholly ignorant” of “mainstream Biblical Studies.” Furthermore, when I said I wasn’t interested in reading modern ideologies and issues back into the text, and that my interest was to understand the Bible in its original context, I was basically told that I was excluding the study of “women, gender, and sexual violence,” and therefore was, you know, part of that misogynistic patriarchy.

Back in 2016, when I wrote The Heresy of Ham, in which I confronted the dangers of Young Earth Creationism, I said in that critique that YECists like Ken Ham were guilty of taking their pet political and social views and twisting the biblical text to fit those views. I said that regardless of what one’s personal views about politics or society are, you should never do that. You should try to understand the Bible on its own terms—you shouldn’t read into the Bible certain things you want to be there, because your real motivation isn’t Biblical Studies, but rather your own pet agenda and ideology.

Many conservative fundamentalist Christians and Evangelicals are guilty of doing that very thing. At the same time, it is also abundantly clear to me—now more than ever—that many ex-Evangelicals, progressives, and flat-out atheists do the exact same thing with the Bible as well. Both groups, in my opinion, are fueling the “culture war” and both groups will move to utterly annihilate the person who dares question them on any single one of their idolatrous ideological issues.

As I go through the book and look at Dr. S’s arguments (for the record, she says that she’s an atheist and has never been a Christian), I’m also going to be pondering why so many ex-Evangelicals, ex-Fundamentalists, and other committed atheists are so gushing in their praise of her work. I honestly think, if one’s goal is to understand the Bible in its original context, that Dr. S’s book is not good at all. But that being said, perhaps there is a “new trend” in Biblical Studies that is being pushed by people who see their being atheists as a crucial part of their study of the Bible; those who think that being a Christian is actually a barrier to proper understanding of the Bible; those who think that being an atheist actually means they can be “unbiased” when interpreting the Bible, and see it for the “patriarchal, misogynistic, phallocentric” work that it really is.

Who knows? Maybe that really is quickly becoming “mainstream Biblical Studies.” If so, I think that reality raises a whole number of challenges to Christians today. At some point in this series, I’ll circle back to this and try to hammer out my own developing thoughts.

I know I have yet to say much about Dr. S and her book. As of now, all you know is that she’s an atheist, and she thinks Isaiah 6 is about YHWH’s giant penis and that Genesis 4 claims that YHWH had sex with Eve and fathered Cain! If that isn’t enough to bring you back for the rest of my book analysis series, I don’t know what will.