Clearly, scholarship is now in crisis. Without a suitable definition for consensus, many great ideas that depend on it may have to be abandoned. The ivory tower threatens to fall like Barad-dur after the Ring is destroyed.
It now seems that scholarship has sought to achieve something it has yet to define or perhaps, even worse, as Jim West, ThD and bloghost at Biblical Theology, states, "'Consensus' is the self-illusory term utilized by scholars, academics, and politicians to bolster their own viewpoint."
Dr. Cook further notes that this has implications for global warming, which he believes is a case of hard consensus but a "FriendofRalph" thinks is no consensus at all, except among non-specialists.
This lack of consensus on consensus threatens to undermine even the very starting point of research. As Jim Davila, PaleoJudaica.com blogger, writes, "No one should pretend that a consensus is the final word. It's the starting point for your research." Consequently, scholars may not be able to engage in any further research until the bibliobloggers come to a consensus about the meaning of consensus. But, can scholars escape the circular nature of this problem?
Mark Goodacre, recently appointed Professor of New Testament at Duke University, may point to the reason for the lack of consensus on consensus when he observes, "consensus emerges over time and is something that is the result of ... conversations over a beer." Indeed, rather than giving greater confidence to outsiders, this seems to only give cause for Jim West's cynicism. (There is a general consensus among experts and non-experts that beer impairs judgment.)
On the other hand, as Homer Simpson has so aptly commented, "Beer [is] the cause of and the solution to all of life's problems." Perhaps then, hope yet exists for the ivory tower.
On Consensus
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