is that it's actually very healthy to challenge "received wisdom"
Nice quote and sentiment but it is ALWAYS done in a biased way depending on what side you're on. For instance, take revisionism. Academics simply close their minds if a fundamentalist suggest that the Babylonians or Persians revised their records! Yet they will talk about how Isaiah and the postexilic writings in the Bible were carefully revised in a minute. So they analyze the Bible with concepts of comprehensive and complex revisionism, but they don't bother doing that for the pagan records. Why not?
I say, YES! Let's do challenge ALL received knowledge. Let's put the Bible and the pagan histories on the block and examine both of them with the same standards! Then see what we come up with.
But that seldom happens. The intellectuals have their own agendas, that's why. Clearly anti-Biblical and proto-secular. Thus you will find analyses of the Book of Isaiah being examined for every word and nuance, but few will compare the apocrhyal Esdras with the canonical Esdras (Ezra/Nehemiah), will they? That's a much direct comparison if you are looking for revisionism. But no, that won't happen. Because that comparison will challenge established secular chronology and they don't want us to ever even question it as being flawed or revised.
So I agree. Let's analyzed it ALL, but do it evenly and equally on both sides of the fence.
JCanon