Barbara Thiering

Barbara Elizabeth Thiering (15 November 1930 – 16 November 2015) was an Australian historian, theologian, and Biblical exegete specialising in the origins of the early Christian Church.[1] In books and journal articles, she challenged Christian orthodoxy, espousing the view that new findings present alternative answers to its supernatural beliefs. Her analysis has been rejected by both New Testament scholars and scholars in Judaism.

Background

Born in Sydney, Australia, Thiering graduated in 1952 from the University of Sydney with First Class Honours in Modern Languages, was a high school teacher of languages for several years, and then, while caring for her three young children, continued study and research privately. She obtained an external B.D. degree from the University of London, a M.Th. degree from Melbourne College of Divinity, and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Sydney in 1973.

Work

Further information: Jesus the Man (book)

From her specialty studying the Dead Sea Scrolls, their semiotics, and their hermeneutics, she propounded a theory arguing that the miracles, including turning water into wine, the virgin birth, healing a man at a distance, the man who had been thirty-eight years at the pool, and the resurrection, among others, did not actually occur (as miracles), as Christians believe, nor were they legends, as some skeptics hold, but were "deliberately constructed myths"[2] concealing (yet, to certain initiates, relating) esoteric historic events. She alleges that they never actually happened (that is, that the events they chronicle were not at all miraculous), as the authors of the Gospels knew. According to her interpretation of the methods of pesher, which she discovers in the scrolls, the authors of the Gospels wrote on two levels. For the "babes in Christ," there were apparent miracles, but the knowledge of exact meanings held by the highly educated members of Gnostic schools gave a real history of what Jesus actually did.

In view of her research publications in academic journals, she was invited to lecture at Sydney University, at first in the Department of Semitic Studies, then in the School of Divinity (now the Department of Religious Studies) where she continued until her retirement. During this time she was a member of the Board of Studies in Divinity and the Board of Continuing Education, and served for twelve years as a lay member of the New South Wales Equal Opportunity Tribunal. When her work became known in the United States, she was made a fellow of the Jesus Seminar.

In 1990 a documentary film about her research, Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls, was shown by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Academic reception

Thiering's thesis attracted some controversy in the media when Jesus the Man was published in 1990, and her ideas have not received acceptance by many of her academic peers. In a response to a letter Thiering wrote to The New York Review of Books objecting to a review by Géza Vermes, Vermes outlined the academic reception of her work stating:

"Professor Barbara Thiering's reinterpretation of the New Testament, in which the married, divorced, and remarried Jesus, father of four, becomes the "Wicked Priest" of the Dead Sea Scrolls, has made no impact on learned opinion. Scroll scholars and New Testament experts alike have found the basis of the new theory, Thiering's use of the so-called "pesher technique", without substance."[3]

In 1993 N. T. Wright, New Testament historian and former Bishop of Durham, wrote:[4]

It is safe to say that no serious scholar has given this elaborate and fantastic theory any credence whatsoever. It is nearly ten years since it was published; the scholarly world has been able to take a good look at it: and the results are totally negative.

James F. McGrath, an Associate Professor in the Religion and Philosophy department at Butler University in his 1996 review of the book states that Thiering's thesis lacks proof, and that she herself acknowledges that the pesher of the Revelation of St. John is her own composition.[5]

Edna Ullman-Margalit, a former professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote:[6]

As an example consider the case of Barbara Thiering. She claims that the scrolls are the product of rivalry between the supporters of John the Baptist, identified with the scrolls’ “Teacher of Righteousness,” and Jesus, identified with the “Man of the Lie.” For my purposes this theory must be considered altogether initially outlandish, given the scientifically definitive dating (based mostly on paleographical and on radiocarbon techniques) of the scrolls to a period well before the birth of Christianity (Thiering, 1992). Thiering’s theory, by the way, is a good example of a fringe theory that is popular with the media.

Death

Barbara Thiering died on 16 November 2015, the day after her 85th birthday.[7]

Selected bibliography

References

  1. ↑ Nerida, Paul and David Thiering (4 December 2015), "Academic and iconoclast Barbara Thiering exemplified tumultuous 1960's ethos", Sydney Morning Herald, retrieved 25 March 2016
  2. ↑ Jesus the Man, p. 46.
  3. ↑ The New York Review of Books, December 1st, 1994.
  4. ↑ Wright, Nicholas Thomas (1993). Who was Jesus?. Wm. B. Erdmans. p. 23. ISBN 0-8028-0694-5.
  5. ↑ James F. McGrath. "Review of Barbara Thiering, 'Jesus of the Apocalypse. The Life of Jesus after the Crucifixion'" Qumran Chronicle Jan. 1996: 170-172.
  6. ↑ Ullman-Margalit, Edna (May 2006). Out of the Cave: A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Dead Sea Scrolls Research. Harvard University Press. p. 20. ISBN 9780674022232.
  7. ↑ Sydney Morning Herald, Tributes; retrieved 21 December 2015

External links

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