Sunday, May 1, 2011

Caveat emptor again for Coast (David Elkington)?

Just now listening to the April 2 Coast To Coast with Ian Punnett, whose guests generally are fascinating on first listen, but often prove to be bogus or carrying hidden political (normally right-wing) agendas. Such *may* be the case for David Elkington, who purports to have revealed some ancient metal codices from the first century AD compiled by members the nascent Christian movement. Mr. Punnett, unlike some of Coast hosts, is actually smart enough to distinguish forged or bogus accounts from historically credible ones (refer to his excellent discussions with Bart Ehrman), so I am wondering why he is putting his credibility on the line (or is simply being gullible) to devote two shows to this individual. I can't find a lot of substantial info about Mr. Elkington online; his detractors seem to be divided into two camps; one camp says that the metal plates are forgeries, and another camp comes from a fundamentalist Christian angle which attacks the plates simply because they are inconsistent fundamentalist dogma. The consensus gaining in the mass media seems to be pointing to the lead plates as fake. If so, that would be a shame, on many levels.

On the subject of hidden political agendas and obvious frauds, I can't end this post without remarking that Coast's promotion of the odious and thoroughly disreputable Jerome Corsi should end forthwith, after allowing, of course, Mr. Corsi one final four-hour show to promote his next conspiracy.

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