Some say that it's not polite to speak ill of the dead - and A. Powell Davies is dead, make no mistake about it. But we're writing this piece because it seems that someone out there doesn't realize that most of Davies' ideas have graves of their own.

It seems that one of our readers has had some dealings with a Muslim debater who used material from one of Davies' books, The First Christian, as authoritative in a discussion. Our reader asked me to look into this author, and well, the book was in a local library, looking nearly pristine and unused. A look inside tells us why.

Davies was indeed a scholar of high rank; of that, there is no question. But he was a scholar of that certain school of liberal naivete - exemplified also by Rudolf Bultmann - whose typical argument form was along this line: "Ha ha! Of course, what the NT says here couldn't have actually been true. The NT writers were obviously lying or covering up something or stupid. Here's what really happened..." And down the drain went miracles, church harmony, and the deity of Jesus: Just because they thought so.

So with that in mind, what do we find in Davies' The First Christian? Oh, the usual litanies: The speeches in Acts as total inventions; suggestions of influence by pagan and Gnostic redeemer myths (this was well before scholars in the field came to their senses and realized that a Jewish background was the key for understanding Jesus, a Jewish prophet, and Paul, a Jewish scholar); late dates for the NT (how about Acts c. 100-110?); the word "modern" bandied about like a flag of pride; the old Theudas issue; the idea that Nazareth may not have existed in the first century AD; James writing to counter Paul; even a few theories about the Dead Sea Scrolls that will make your eyes turn over, though admittedly not as badly as Thiering and Eisenmann.

And so, little else need be said about our long-dead liberal, other than this: If you run into someone who uses this fellow as an authoritative source, ask them if they plan on getting out of their time warp anytime soon. Davies and his scholarship have long been overturned and disposed of.