littlegirlost

Okay, I was doing a little "web research" on the mystery religions and I ran across Dr. Ron Nash quite a bit.

I can tell from his academic affiliations what his theological leanings are. However, I google searched him and I can't seem to find in what fields he earned his degrees.

Can anyone help me out?

Any assessments of Dr. Nash's research on the mystery religions?

(Hot topic, I'm noticing...)

Toto

It would help if you listed what you have found so far.

Is this the person?

Dr. Ronald H. Nash

CX

Never heard of him. (Assuming Toto correctly Identified him). He appears to be confessionally motivated, which in and of itself isn't a disqualification but I tend to take those who mix their faith and their studies only provisionally. Regardless be very wary of information with respect to mystery religions on the internet. The signal to noise ratio is exceedlingly low and crackpots abound.

littlegirlost

That would be him.

Thanks for the advice! I've noticed that. I encountered a "research" article today that used only 3 reference sources, and only 3 of the citations in this article were from a source other than Dr. Nash's book.

http://www.probe.org/docs/mystery.html

Toto

That's not a bad article as far as its criticisms of an overreliance on parallels to mystery religions goes. I would fault it on its uncritical stance in regard to the New Testament writings - which is not surprising given the profile of Probe.

Probe Ministries appears to be one of those organizations that tries to keep evangelical kids from losing their faith when they go off to sinful universities.

littlegirlost

Hmm. I had read a brief article by Nash that is almost identical to the Probe article although a little more in depth.

http://www.equip.org/free/DB109.htm

I wonder if it would be worth my time to check into his book...

I am endeavoring to be discerning in regard to what research materials I give credence to on either side of the issue (not just mystery religions but virtually any topic really). (This is probably showing my naivete, but I'm beginning to become a little skeptical that there is such a thing as an "objective" source, it's like searching for the freakin' holy grail or going on a snipe hunt...) In light of that, I concluded I should probably be wary of articles/books that were written on topics outside of the author's field of study, relied heavily on a small number of research resources, and/or appeared to be regurgitating someone else's interpretation of available facts. That's why I was skeptical about the Probe article.

Any advice for the layperson who's just starting her own quest for information on locating trustworthy research materials?

Rusty Shackleford

"Dr. Nash is Professor of Philosophy at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Kentucky. Previously he was Professor of Philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. Prior to moving to the Florida seminary in 1991, Dr. Nash was for 27 years a professor of philosophy and department head at a large state university in the mid-South. Nash has also taught at Syracuse University, Fuller Theological Seminary (visiting professor), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (visiting professor), Houghton College, and Barrington College. Nash is a graduate of Barrington College (B.A.), Brown University (M.A.) and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Syracuse University. He did post-graduate work at Stanford University under a research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. " - http://www.biblicaltraining.org/speakers/RonNash.html