‘Gospel story’ irreverent

On Good Friday, television gave us a secular version of the Gospel story in The Last Days of Jesus.

It was merely the latest venture in the rewriting of history, an activity that seems to hold and endless fascination for our newly secular culture.

Numerous experts offered their opinions, apparently none of them clerics.

No one from the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem or from any of the Pontifical academies, and evidently no one from the Anglican communion, which enjoys such a high reputation in biblical scholarship.

The programme adopted a purely secular approach; it embraced the assumption of a long discarded 19th century scholarship, and indulged in speculation to an extravagant degree.

Even more disturbing was the inappropriate timing.

Was it not offensive to Christian sensibilities to have broadcast such a programme on one of the most sacred days in the Christian calendar?

Would anyone have dared put out a programme during Ramadan, or at any other time for that matter, questioning the historical foundations of Islam?

Seemingly Christianity is fair game for irreverent treatment and Christians must expect more of the same in the future.

The revisionists can continue their myth-making secure in the knowledge that Christian don’t issue fatwas. P J McPartland