Knowing our place

Someone named Steve Wiggins is bothered that so many people think they are experts on the Bible. (H/T James McGrath).

All he really means is that people seem to feel free to interpret the thing for themselves.

Everyone is an expert on the Bible. This is one of the factors that provides professional biblical scholars with generous ulcers. Everyone is an expert because they know what they believe about the Bible.

To which my reply was:

Okay, I'll bite. Why should anyone care what professional Bible scholars think about the Bible?

It seems to me that your authority, such as it is, ends the second you leave the lecture room at the school you teach at. After that you're just an ordinary person like the rest of us and the force of your opinions is a function of your ability to persuade the rest of us that you're worth listening to. If you can't convince us, then, sorry but you're out of luck.

I don't know where scholars of any sort get the notion that anyone at all has to or should listen to them. It is one of the glories of liberal freedoms that academics and intellectuals have no special status. That's the way it is and the way it should be. If professional Bible scholars want our respect they should stop whining and start earning it.