Who wrote the Bible?

A lot of people are convinced about the answer to this question, but Robert Beckford, a Pentecostal christian thelogian at Birmingham University, is not taking things for granted. This 100-minute documentary aired in Brittish Channel 4 during Christmas of 2004 and was the cause of some controversy as it deals with a sensitive subject. It is one, though, that should receive a long-overdue attention.
Beckford makes his case by keeping an open mind and following the clues where they lead him. Starting at the beginning, the first five books of the Old Testament, that are popularly attributed to Moses' authorship, appear to have been written by four different authors (two disagree over the name of God, Yahweh/Elohim) and one of them actually mentions Moses' death. Moving forward, the Old Testament is shown to have been dictated by jewish kings with political agendas, themes of triumph giving place to themes of suffering and liberation that correspond to the state of the jewish people at the specific time. The explanation of the motives behind the writing of the text is elegant and provides a connection between the Old and the New Testament.
Examining the New Testament, we find that the only author we can reliably locate in history is Paul. The gospel authors are shown to be far from eye-witnesses of the events they describe and that their consistency varies from plagiarism to direct contradiction. Then there's the issue of the Bible as a printed work and the history of its compiling. The documentary covers this topic and mentions texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls who were kept out of the Bible when the consensus about doctrine leaned elsewhere.
In the end, the divine origin of the text is seriously doubted, but Beckford never discards it and hints that there are valid moral lessons included. However, the fundamentalists interviewed, especially Richard Land (Bush's spiritual adviser), make the case that the belief of divine origin for the Bible is dangerous. You can hear Land preach to the crowd : "I would have flooded Iraq with american troops" and "For a christian to be involved in an armed conflict means that he must be authorized by the legitimate authority. I do not believe that a legitimate authority for the United States is the United Nations. Now if they want to agree with us, great. But if they don't...eh!". You can make your own conclusions. Either way, Beckford's documentary is an intelligible and enlightening documentary that has something to teach to everyone.

The Root Of All Evil

Richard Dawkins has written quite a few books that are well known for their clarity, persuasiveness and innovation when it comes to the theory of evolution. He is also well known for his atheism, as he is actively demonstrating in the two-part documentary of the title that aired on the british Channel 4. It is clear that Dawkins's background in zoology and evolution is what mainly brings him to oppose religion but it is also the reason why I think his effectiveness is less than it should be. Evolution clearly disproves the bible stories about human origin but this can hardly mean much when you are out against ancient world-views that are massively established. Dawkins tries to be polite with those he interviews but his tone, his questions and his general approach is not well received, and this should be expected from fundamentalists. No interview goes into any depth, usually interspersed with Dawkins's own comments, and sometimes without even supplying a much needed answer to the interviewed. In the end, the documentary is sadly preaching to the converted and is even frustrating at points.
Of course, the viewer is shown religion's dark side, but who doesn't know about it? What the viewers really need to see is that there is no bright side, at least not one that we can't do without.