“The Michael Ramsey Prize is intended for theological writing which, by freshness and originality, somehow changes the theological landscape, and also serves the needs of the Church; not by being safe or orthodox, or by reinforcing the Church’s institutional life ”“ but by giving people something with which to nourish themselves and to enrich their lived Christian experiences.
“Richard Bauckham in his book ‘Jesus and the Eyewitnesses’ had, in the words of one of the judges, ‘Placed something of a bomb under a good deal of New Testament scholarship’. His book shows why we are right to have confidence in the testimony of those who personally witnessed the life of Jesus as recorded in the gospels.”
I’m glad to see Bauckham receive this prize for what is truly an outstanding book.
It is regrettable, though, that the prize is described in such terms as to oppose “freshness and originality” and “something with which to nourish themselves and to enrich their lived Christian experiences” to orthodoxy. It seems to me that the heterodox, which though it claims “originality” is usually quite stale and warmed over, is most often vastly safer than orthodoxy, and far from being nourishing and enriching, actually impoverishes the Christian life.
There is a great deal of orthodox theology being done out there, much of it with startling freshness and originality. Bauckham’s book may rightly be said to belong to this category.