Gary portrays one of the preachers in his program -- namely Dr. Youssef -- as emotional. Indeed, that Christianity is nothing more than emotion. What ignorance! Really, Gary!!!

Funny thing, I was telling my coworker this morning that all the holiday buzz seemed milder this year and then I hear this report on the NOVA special and now I know Christmas is around the corner. Every year there is some "Special" report, wily around Christmas time only, to inject America with more skepticism that faith is just something people made-up to feel better about themselves and to give gifts - enter retail culture - on a winter night. Instead it's reports like these that are untrustworthy and full of theories from scientists and archaeologists digging deep to get the next grant. There were so many holes to the interviewee's report that if the takeaways morning guest host were not so predetermined to nail God to the cross, she would have been a better interviewer and asked more journalistic questions. FYI, during their exile, the Israelites were under the influence of the Pagan gods - does this explain Ashera?

Jerry is right, of course. There is nothing new about the idea of mutltiple authors, or Ashera, for that matter. But I was glad that the general public who may not know anything about Bible scholarship got to hear this story. I was interested to hear that the interfaith community did not complain when they previewed the Nova show, since many orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Christians find the idea of multiple authorship offensive and short-sighted.

In discussing the Nova program on bible authorship, the commentator should have mentioned that this is hardly news. For more than 150 years scholars have been aware that the bible shows evidence of multiple authors. There are undoubtedly new discoveries being made that flesh out the story and perhaps the news didn't reach Providence, RI until fairly recently, but for most of us it was an serious omission not to give the historical background that's available from numerous sources.

I can't say that I like the Takeaway better than Morning Edition, but it definitely beats listening to M.E. twice.