One useful contact

I'm still struggling to settle in here. Due to a slight mix up on the first day, I still don't know anyone who's doing the same course as I am. I did meet someone at a quiz last week, though, who did my course last year and is doing an MPhil now. He was interesting and said even more about Mark Goodacre being brilliant. (Which seems to suggest that Birmingham without him is a bit like BBC without Jim Bewick) I saw him again on Wednesday when he was going to give me some notes but he'd forgotten them. Instead I quizzed him on various issues and he gladly educated me.
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Judging by what he said, it seems that in NT studies there is a kind of dualism. On one side are (the villains?) the influential Jesus Seminar scholars who are mainly from North America, such as Crossan, Mack, and Borg who apparently follow in the footsteps of Wrede and Bultmann. They are on 'the quest for the historical Jesus' but they seem to dismiss certain facets of Jesus ministry, especially eschatological sayings and anything supernatural, before they start and have questionable assumptions about the Gospel of Thomas (concerning date) and 'Q' (concerning its very existence and multiple layers). Basically, they reduce Jesus to an ethical teacher and they conveniently appropriate more weight to the sources that support this view.
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On the other side are (the heroes?) the likes of E. P. Sanders, N. T. Wright, Mark Goodacre and Michael Goulder (an athiest apparently) who follow from Albert Schweitzer. I think these would also be on 'the quest' in some way but they don't dismiss apocalyptic/eschatological sayings and they don't prefer the Gospel of Thomas. As for 'Q', I think Goodacre makes a good case for doing away with it altogether. They might be said to be more open in their interpretation of the sources. Having said that, I've only heard one side of it.
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Nevertheless, the student was at pains to point out that Goodacre's attitude, at least, was to be open to the benefits offered by scholars on the other side, such as Bultmann's development of form criticism which is a valuable tool whether you agree with Bultmann's conclusions or not.
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I think this is interesting because on my degree there was another kind of dualism installed by Mr Bewick:

On one side, the villains were most definitely the fundamentalists who are prepared to change the words of scripture in order to maintain its authority. Their approach is characterised by inflexibility and being selectively critical.
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On the other side is anyone with a flexible, critical, approach. So the likes of Sanders and Bultmann who might be seen as opposites would both be preferable to Blomberg or Carson.
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It seems that Jim opened my eyes and now I'm ready (maybe) to step outside and see the full dazzling brightness of the day. That makes it sound a lot more romantic than it really is but its a nice image so I'll leave you with it.