Sunday, December 6, 2009

The First Christian: Universal Truth in the Teachings of Jesus

Paul F. M. Zahl

Given an unfair choice between understanding Jesus as a first century Jew, or Jesus as a Christian, Paul F. M. Zahl, dean of the Cathedral of the Advent (Episcopal), would probably choose Jesus as the original, "first" Christian. He suggests as much in the title of this provocative short work.

Zahl's small but rich book deals with the fundamental questions surrounding the relationship of Christianity to its mother faith, Judaism, and more specifically, the relation of Jesus of Nazareth to first century Judaism. Zahl attempts to provide a corrective to what he sees as the prevailing re-judaizing and re-culturation of the founder of the Christian faith, Jesus of Nazareth. This tendency, he believes, has been motivated by a shared Christian "Holocaust guilt" and results in a contextualized second-century historical figure that is inadequate to the realities of the unique claims of both the founder and the faith or Christianity.

Zahl claims that "what has occurred within wide sectors of Christian self-understanding since 1945 has been so to detach the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith that it has become hard to say whether the Christ whom Christians worship is the same as the rabbi Jesus who taught and lived in a specific time and place." (p. 5). The result of this has been the tendency to understand Christianity as a variant of first-century Judaism, not much different in substance from the norms of Jewish ethical teachings and monotheistic belief. In the end, the risk is, as Zahl sees it, that Christianity becomes "a form of Judaism for non-Jews" (p. 5).

The corrective for this inaccurate understanding of Christianity is to understand its founder, Jesus of Nazareth, as uniquely Christian and discontinuous with his contemporary Second Temple Judaism. It is this discontinuity, claims Zahl, that becomes the centrifugal force of the movement that ultimately became the Christian church. As such, Zahl emphasizes that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed, "the first Christian" who was at the center of this centrifugal dynamic.

Zahl is not unaware, nor insensitive, to the potential discomfort that a position of choosing to understand and interpret Jesus as uniquely and overtly Christian over his ethnicity may cause. He handles those objections not only through acknowledging the risk involved, but more importantly, through the courageous commitment to theological and scholarly discipline.

The early chapters of the book contain the groundwork for the treatment of Jesus as the first Christian. They include a survey of the search for the historical Jesus movements, a responsible and balanced treatment of Jesus as a first century Jew and as a religious figure who shaped a unique eschatology that led, naturally, to a discontinuity with the Jewish religion of his time. The heart of Zahl's arguments is found in the subsequent chapters titled, "Jesus the Christian" and "The Centrifugal Force of Jesus the Christian."

This is a readable but responsible treatment of an important, often complex, subject. Zahl provides a stellar example of responsible scholarship and theological thinking.

Who on Earth Was Jesus?

The Modern Quest for the Jesus of History


What happens when the Christ of faith meets the Jesus of history? How can it be that scholars can arrive at such startlingly different interpretations of the reported sayings [of Jesus], and thereby such very different profiles of Jesus himself? This is the question that preoccupies Boulton in an amazingly good synthesis of historical Jesus scholarship. Boulton gives an overview of several factions of Jesus scholars, comparing their conclusions and explaining their theses. His scope is as wide-ranging as it is even-handed; from theologians to scholars to popes, he distills their thoughts into a comprehensible and comprehensive survey of the best of the contemporary thinkers. Boulton is a British Quaker, and has been involved in trans-denominational religious activities for many years. Readers will find no overt proselytizing in this book. Instead, the author treats them to an unbiased look at the ever-changing discipline of Jesus studies. In the end, Boulton understands that it is not the scholar, nor the theologian, who will define the kingdom on Earth. Rather, it will be the job of all of us to discern the Jesus of today from words written long ago. This book is not to be missed.
--Publishers Weekly- 3 STAR REVIEW

Thursday, September 10, 2009

The First Paul

by Marcus J. Borg (Author), John Dominic Crossan (Author)

Whenever Borg and Crossan get together, it is worth paying attention. These two scholars are best known for their work on Jesus, but this new venture into Pauline scholarship is very good. The build on the premise that, in the New Testament, we have the Radical Paul (of the Corinthian letters, Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians and Philemon). Then there is the Reactionary Paul (letters written by others--basically the Pastorals) and the Conservative Paul (Ephesians, Colossians). This distinction helps a great deal in understanding the movement in how Paul is read in the New Testament.
They present Paul as a Jewish Christ mystic who lived with a profound sense of oneness with God. They go through the writings of Paul and show how his message changes on various specific themes (from radical to reactionary and Conservative)like slavery, crucifixion, justification.
Jesus is Lord (ch. 4) is especially helpful, where they develop Roman Imperial theology of "Religion-War-Victory-Peace" and show how Paul responds to this in his own theology of Jesus.
But my favorite in this book is ch 5 "Christ Crucified". This treatment of Paul's theology is some of the best available for the lay person who cares about how we talk about salvation. They deal carefully with several popular explanations of the death of Jesus, demonstrating difficulties in how these themes deal with the theology, then offering a more positive, comprehensive understanding (that makes good sense).
In my judgment, these two chapters are worth the price of the book. These two men develop and excellent theology of Paul in language that can be understood, with an affirmation of faith that is very helpful. They have the ability (and the faith) to acknowledge problems in the popular theology of our day, but they move beyond criticism to develop positive, helpful explanations that allows the reader to build and strengthen their own faith.
Only one criticism. For this reader, the final chapter read as though they were up against a deadline and had to rush through this final discussion. It did not have the depth and quality of the rest of the book. However, having said that -- this is a book of high quality that will be helpful for any more progressive, thinking Christian who wants a better, more holistic understanding of Paul.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Passover Plot

By Hugh J. Schonfield

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Passover Plot (ISBN 1-85230-836-2) is the name of a controversial, best-selling 1965 book, by British Biblical scholar Hugh J. Schonfield who has also published a translation of the New Testament informed with a Jewish perspective.

[edit]Schonfield's conclusions

Based on scholarly research into the social and religious culture in which Jesus was born, lived and died, into the source documents of the Gospels, and into other literature, Schonfield reached the following conclusions:

  • That Jesus was a deeply religious Jewish man, probably well-versed in the teachings of the local northern sects such as theNazarenes and Essenes.
  • That growing up in Biblical Galilee he had a skeptical and somewhat rebellious relationship to the hierarchy and teachings mandated by the authorities (thePharisees) of the Temple in Jerusalem.
  • That Jewish Messianic expectation was extremely high in those times, matched to the despair caused by the Roman occupation of the land, and by their subjugation of the Jews.
  • That he was in many ways both typical of his times, and yet extraordinary in his religious convictions and beliefs, in his scholarship of the Biblical literature, and in the fervency in which he lived his religion out in his daily life.
  • That he was convinced of his role as the expected Messiah based on the authority of his having been descendant from King David (the royal bloodline of David), and that he consciously and methodically, to the point of being calculating, attempted to fulfill that role, being eminently well-versed in the details of what that role entailed.
  • That he was convinced of the importance of his fulfilling the role perfectly (after all prophesy and expectation), and that he could not allow himself to fail, as that would undoubtedly lead to his being declared a false Messiah.
  • That he was perfectly aware of the consequences of his actions all along the way, and that he directed his closest supporters, the original twelve Apostles, unknowingly to aid him in his plans.
  • That he involved the least possible number of supporters in his plans ("need to know" basis), therefore very few knew of the details of his final plan, and even then only the least amount of information necessary.

The culmination of his plan was to be his death (the crucifixion), his resurrection and his reign as the true Kingly and Priestly Messiah, not in heaven but on earth— the realized King of the Jews.

[edit]Planning

According to Schonfield's analysis, the events of the Passover, which are presented in all the Gospels, but inconsistently, are most accurately presented in the Gospel of John. His reading of that Gospel convinced him that John's account, though probably filtered through an assistant and transcription in John's old age, suggests that Jesus had planned everything. Among other things, so that he would not be on the cross for more than a few hours before the Sabbath arrived when it was required by law that Jews be taken down, so that one of his supporters, who was on hand, would give him water (to quench his thirst) that was actually laced with a drug to make him unconscious, and so that Joseph of Arimathea, a well-connected supporter, would collect him off the cross while still alive (but appearing dead) so that he could be secretly nursed back to health. Schonfield suggests that the plan went awry because of a soldier's actions with a spear. Schonfield gives evidence of a high ranking member of the Sanhedrin who was one of Jesus' followers, likely the Beloved Disciple who is otherwise obscure, and notes several instances in which knowledge of or access to the Temple was available to one or more of Jesus' followers. He identifies this follower as John, the source of the Gospel many decades later whilst living in Asia Minor. He suggests that this Apostle, and Joseph of Arimathea, were responsible for events following the Crucifixion, and that it might have been this Apostle (an 'undercover Disciple', as it were) who was seen (by those who did not know him) at the Tomb on the morning of the Resurrection.

[edit]Second half of the book

After first laying out the storyline and outcome of Jesus's life in the first half of the book, along with supportive arguments, Schonfield devotes the second half of the book to a more in-depth exposé of the concepts and arguments used to support his conclusions. Schonfield also discusses how Jesus's original message and purpose may have become transformed during the century after his death.

[edit]Movie based on book

The Passover Plot is the name of a 1976 movie which was adapted from this book. The movie starred Zalman King as Yeshua (Jesus), and the cast included Harry Andrews, Dan Hedaya, and Donald Pleasence. It was directed by Michael Campus and nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design.

God and Empire

By Dominic Crossan
John Dominic Crossan believes that the Kingdom of God is here, present, that what he terms the "Divine Clean-up," (what others call "The Second Coming") is now and does not await some future cataclysm at the sword of an avenging, returning Jesus. He furthermore compares "God's radicality" to "civilization's normalcy." The latter is comprised of empire after empire promising Peace through Victory, with violence being the normalcy to which civilization accustoms us. God's radicality, on the other hand is the clear and present Kingdom brought by the Jesus who lived 2000 years ago. The Kingdom is a three-pronged program based on mutuality among all people. It is manifested in healing the sick, dining with those you heal, and announcing that the Kingdom is present in that mutuality. There are no divisions, classes, genders, no basis whatsoever to assign superiority and inferiority.

Crossan delivers his own credo on p. 198 when he reveals the content of his Bin of Disbelief, the main reasons he decries Christian fundamentalism and "Left Behind-ish" Apocalyptic theology. "What I reject," says the scholar, is "discrimination and oppression, homophobia and patriarchy, injustice and violence, force and empire."

That's a lot of rejecting. And Crossan is making the case that Jesus' message is right there with him, if only we can parse it out of the Bible. Trouble is, the Bible, including the New Testament, doesn't always seem to contain the same items in its Bin of Disbelief. This is where Crossan will lose a lot of readers. What he posits is that you must choose which parts of the New Testament to take seriously as bonafide Jesus talk (God's radicality) and which parts are later slippages back to civilization's normalcy.

He actually groups the Letters of St. Paul into three categories. The first group, definitely written by Paul, present the radical Paul who believes in the same Christianity as Crossan; the second group of letters are of suspect authorship and reveal the liberal Paul, a middle of the roader. The third bunch of letters are just plain phony, and here we find the conservative Paul, a sexist, anti-Semitic homophobe. The Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles are likewise infected with the backsliding to civilization's normalcy, while the earlier Gospel of Mark is a far better record of what really issued from Jesus' lips.

Worst of all is the Book of Revelation, today enjoying wide renown as the primary basis of the hugely popular "Left Behind" books about the end of the world. Crossan examines Revelation and determines that its author simply presents an untenable Jesus, one utterly different from the Jesus of history. Almost wistfully, Crossan cites Martin Luther King's reference to Revelation (p. 150), made a week before his murder, and concludes rightly that King interpreted the Book as referring to Jesus' First, not Second Coming. Scholarly integrity bars Crossan from such an easy out. He acknowledges that Revelation presents a very violent Jesus coming again and stomping enemies like grapes and feeding them to the vultures. Crossan simply rejects Revelation as a bogus presentation of Jesus and tells the reader he too must choose between the lovingly just and vengefully just Jesus, between the Kingdom of God as present and developing and the Kingdom as coming in fire and cosmic destruction.

It's a tough sell for Christians used to viewing the whole Bible as inspired and "scriptural." The New Testament might revise the Old, but the New Testament doesn't revise itself. There are moments in God and Empire where Crossan really does seem to be force fitting the "acceptable" passages into his preconceived notion of genuine Jesus talk. Most of what he argues, however, is defensible. His explication of 1 Thessalonians' treatment of the return of Jesus is masterful and spot on; it is a resounding refutation of those who want to view that passage as an exposition of "The Rapture" and those "Left Behind." His overall discussion of St. Paul is a little simplistic but most challenging. He is weakest when he argues for an end to civilization itself, as if that is what Jesus came to establish.

Crossan's analysis is far from weak, though. What he makes clear is that the "Left Behind" take on the Second Coming is fatally at odds with core tenets of Jesus' teaching. Not only that, if you buy the Left Behind fantasy, its insistence on God's determination to destroy the planet is so calamitous that it renders Jesus First Coming irrelevant. Jesus didn't have to live at all 2000 years ago for God to wipe us out and save the few He elects. He did it on a less catastrophic scale in the time of Noah, and Jesus wasn't needed then.

Crossan's main conclusions are compelling. The Second Coming of Jesus will not happen soon or violently or literally (pp 230, 231). The Second Coming happens when Christians recognize that the First Coming was the Only Coming and start cooperating with its Divine presence.

Monday, August 3, 2009

The Lost gospel of Judas Iscariot

By Bart Ehrman

Review By Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

As Ehrman notes, it's hardly necessary to introduce Judas Iscariot to readers. The many allusions to betrayal or deception: the kiss, the "thirty pieces of silver", the "one among you" reference are scattered throughout our literature, politics and daily circumstances. Even the fratricide of Cain receives less attention. However, a long-lost text providing an alternate view of this man, known to scholars but never seen in its original form, is likely to change all that. Ehrman, who was among the first to study the remants of it after it was found in Eygpt over thirty years ago, here provides an analysis of its contents. In a well-written account, he traces the document's history as known, and what it might mean for Christianity. Judas, Ehrman notes, is portrayed in various ways in the "Synoptic Gospels", the accounts of Jesus that are the standard fare of Christian teachings. They range from a man driven by greed to an instrument of Satan. "The Gospel of Judas", originally written at about the same time as those stock accounts, depicts somebody else altogether. Not written by Judas, the writer tells the story of a man specially favoured by the teacher. According to the text, Judas was the one among "the Twelve" who actually "got" the message. Instead of "betraying" the teacher, Judas is actually given the task of freeing him from the "man who clothes me". Jesus, then, is but a spirit occupying a human body. Judas thus becomes the first Christian. The foundation of this shift of role lies in a religious philosophy known as "Gnosticism". Although much debate has raged around the term as well as its tenets, its underlying thesis is that the material world is inherently evil, created by corrupt gods. The god revered by the Jews and transferred to Christianity is a false deity. Ehrman launches into a discussion of Gnostic Christianity, beginning with its complex creation myth with a pantheon of gods. There are ranks and hierarchies of them, some good and some bad, but all residing under a superior Great Invisible Spirit. The point of his presentation is to indicate that a minority of humans enjoy the potential to join with the greatest of these gods. Those are the "knowing" [Greek "gnosis"] of which Jesus is one and who "recruits" Judas to be another. Judas' assignment to "betray" Jesus to the authorities in order to restore him to the spirit realm, sets Judas apart from the other Apostles. They naturally resent this situation, but aren't "knowing" enough to change it. Ehrman reminds us that all the Apostles but Judas abandoned Jesus at the arrival of the arresting officers. Gnosticism isn't for those seeking simple answers. It required the "knowing" to take a stance in direct contradiction to those accepting the Jewish god as paramount. Jesus does not make demands of his followers. Indeed, it's fundamental to Gnosticism that each individual find the route into the realm of the divine on their own. Over time, that would lead to clashes with those who sought a more hierarchical church system - the "proto-orthodox" who were later vindicated by Constantine. The early "Church Fathers" railed against Gnostic ideas - in fact, it is their writings that preserved the thoughts of the Gnostics in ranting against their ideas. Once in ascendency, the "orthodox" saw to it that Gnostic texts were destroyed. The Gospel of Judas, Ehrman reminds us, was known chiefly by a reference to it in the works of Irenaeus in his polemics against "heresies". To Ehrman, The Gospel of Judas' importance lies in what it can contribute to our understanding of the early forms of Christianity - "Christianities". He leaves unaddressed the inevitable comparison with the doctrine of the Trinity, an issue that has split the faith numerous times. In fact, beyond describing how the Gnostics viewed their spirit realm, he avoids theological discussion. His aim here is to describe the history and words given in the newly found Gospel and put them in perspective. He does a fine job of that in language that must keep his students enthralled. It is a engrossing account at many levels, and deserves your close attention.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Reading Judas

Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity
Book Review by David Ian Miller

He's been despised for 20 centuries -- Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver.
But in April 2006 the National Geographic Society revealed the contents of the Gospel of Judas, a manuscript that had been misplaced for nearly 1,700 years. It casts Judas as Jesus' beloved friend, the man whom Jesus chose to ensure the biblical prophecies concerning his death would be fulfilled.
The Gospel of Judas may be, as it's been described by some biblical scholars, the most significant archeological find in decades, but it's certainly not easy reading. Luckily, we now have a guide to the often convoluted text, "Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity" (Viking, March 2007) by Elaine Pagels, a religion professor at Princeton University and author of the "Gnostic Gospels" (2004), and translator Karen King.
"Reading Judas" allows modern readers to decode the message in the Gospel of Judas, which presents a provocative view of how Jesus' followers tried to make sense of his death. It also raises questions about whether the resurrection was a physical or a spiritual one -- and why that matters in regard to both faith and hard truth.
I spoke to Pagels by phone last week about her take on the Gospel of Judas, how it offers a window into the dirty politics and lively debate that shaped the Christian religion in its earliest days before 325 AD -- when the Council of Nicaea bought together several hundred quarreling religious leaders who eventually settled on a single creed for all Christians to follow -- and what that might mean to people in the 21st century.

You've been a religious scholar for more than 40 years. Did reading the Gospel of Judas change your view of Christianity?
Yes, certainly. All of these recently discovered texts show that the early history of Christianity is much more engaging and diverse than I'd ever imagined.
Just to give you one example: They show that the teaching about Jesus dying for your sins -- because God cannot forgive sins without sacrificing his only Son -- is not the only way to be a Christian.

It isn't? I had thought that idea was central to Christianity.
That's what many Christian leaders claim. But the Gospel of Judas challenges that view and suggests that the fundamental message of Jesus is that we come from God, created in God's image; when we die and leave the visible world, we step into the infinite world of God, into the divine light, and we go into that glorious light with God. How that happens it doesn't say, any more than Paul does when he talks about resurrection. But it's a conviction that's fundamental to this Gospel. And it's a very different way to look at Christianity.

This Gospel also presents a very different view of Judas himself, casting him as Jesus' collaborator rather than his betrayer.
Right. But if you look at the Gospel of John, there is an account that says the night before Jesus died that he not only knew what Judas was doing but told him to do it. Jesus turns to Judas and says, "What you have to do, do quickly." And Judas goes out to set in motion the events that will lead to the crucifixion. So some people have concluded, if this had to happen and Jesus knew it had to happen and accepted this sort of terrible death, then isn't Judas in a way facilitating what had to happen in the divine scheme of things? That's been a question asked since the first century.

And what answers have people come up with?
The suggestion in the Gospel of Judas is that Judas alone knew the truth of Jesus and was entrusted with a mission to hand him over to the people who arrested him. It's interesting that in this book the Greek word that was elsewhere translated into English as "betrayal" is actually a more neutral word that means "to hand over." The point is that Judas indeed did hand Jesus over to the people who arrested him, but he did so because Jesus had not only asked him but required him to do it.

How much do we know about the person who wrote this Gospel?
We don't know much. Whoever wrote it is probably an anonymous Christian in the second century who takes issue with the following three things: 1) that Jesus died as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, 2) that God wants and needs this sacrifice in order to forgive sin and 3) that we should act out that sacrifice in the Eucharist or the Mass or the Lord's Supper as the central act of Christian worship. This particular Christian is taking issue with this whole paradigm that is very familiar to us from the second century of Christianity.

How does he view God?
His view is that God is a loving God, a loving Father, not a bloodthirsty kind of God that desires human sacrifice. Nor does he want his followers to die for him, as some church fathers say.

What we also find here is that questions about the Gospels and disputes between Christians are not new. They are really the way that Christianity has always been. Given all those disputes, how do you discern what is spiritually true?
That's the hardest question in the history of Christianity. That's why orthodoxy was invented, to say: "Let me give you a shortcut. Go to the bishop. Go to the priests, and they will tell you."

They will sort it all out for you, you mean?
Yes. That's what religious authority is all about. I'm working on a book right now on the Book of Revelation and other books of revelation in which that is the chief question that dominates the awareness of Christians between the first and second centuries. There are many, many books of revelation and the question is, Which ones are true and genuine, and which ones are frauds -- and how do you tell the difference? There is no easy answer. I think that's the deepest question there is in theology right now.
Remember that in the early centuries, the Bible wasn't a set canon. In fact, the earliest canon list we have available is from the fourth century. For 300 years there was a lot of fluidity about which texts are the most important, which Gospels are true. You have Christianity flourishing and thriving for 300 years before you have the Nicene Creed and before you have a canon.

It's ironic, because some people would say that without a set creed you have no truth, no way to preserve the religion over time.
Certainly that was the view of Constantine, who convened the council that formulated the Nicene Creed. He felt that this kind of diversity of Christian groups was very problematic, particularly if your concern was to unify the empire. It was for that reason that the creed was formulated. But there were Christians long before the creed.

What has been the response to the Gospel of Judas?
It's been enormously interesting. We haven't had a new Gospel like this for 50 years, and certainly not one with material this strange and fascinating. And it raises important issues. One of them is about how we understand the death of Jesus, whether it was something that God actually required before he would forgive sins. The author of the Gospel of Judas thinks that's a very brutal view of God.

You brought that up earlier, but we didn't really discuss it. Tell me more about that.
The author says: "If you say Christ died for your sins, that this is evidence of God's love, are you saying that God would not or could not forgive human sins without a bloody human sacrifice?"
A friend of mine, who was a Christian missionary in an evangelical group, told me that she went to see Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," and when she did, she was moved to weeping because it made her feel that God loved humankind that much. Now, somebody could ask, and I think the author of the Gospel of Judas would ask: "But what kind of God do you imagine? Is God not a loving Father? Doesn't God send Jesus to heal and save and deliver people from horrible death? Would he actually require Jesus to die before he would forgive sinful humanity their sins?"

How did that idea become central to Christian thought?
The fact was that Jesus was executed in a terrible way and his followers, in order to maintain their faith, said: "There has to be a meaning in it. What could it mean?" And because they were Jews, they immediately thought, "This must be some kind of offering, like the animals that are offered in the temple." So it's a natural kind of image to use because worship of that time was [intrinsically connected to] sacrifice. But the author of the Gospel of Judas is challenging that.

How so?
The Gospel of Judas suggests that Jesus intends his death to demonstrate what he taught Judas -- that he can face death with confidence and hope, knowing that we come from God, and so when we step out of the visible world, we go into God's presence. So it's a message about how to face one's own death with courage and hope.

Did the new viewpoint surprise you when you first started working with this material?
There was a kind of angry tone to the Gospel of Judas that startled us and distressed us. It was very surprising to read of Jesus laughing at the way his followers are following him. It's as though this author were saying: "If Jesus were here now, he would laugh at you. He would reject the way you worship. He would say: 'What kind of God do you have in mind? The God that I know is a loving Father. But you are not worshiping a loving Father if you worship this way.'"

We are heading into Easter. Do you think this material could change the way people observe this holiday?
It's a good question. I think the answer is yes. I think the question some people will ask is: "What do you mean by the resurrection? Does that mean that a body actually got out of the grave, which is what some of the most dramatic stories say, the ones that are wonderfully enshrined in Easter tradition?" But if you look in the New Testament, in say, Luke 23 and John 21, you see that both Luke and John tell different accounts of how Jesus appeared. In one account, he appeared in a vision and he disappeared before they touched him, and in another he appeared in absolutely physical form. He actually ate with them. They could touch him and they could feel the wounds.
So there are different kinds of stories even in the canonical Gospels. And what was important to the authors of Luke and John was not to decide between those stories -- the important thing is that we know in some sense that he is alive. That the resurrection happened. And that is affirmed. But one thing we can see in these other texts is that you don't have to take the resurrection literally to take it seriously. One can speak about Jesus alive after his death with conviction without necessarily meaning that his physical body got out of the grave.

Do you consider yourself a Christian?
Yes, I consider myself a Christian. I happen to go to an Episcopal church, but I love many of the forms of Christianity. And I could as easily be in another church or another religious tradition if I'd been brought up differently. Of course, that's what some people would call heresy. But the word "heresy" in Greek actually means "choice." And that's something that certain Christian leaders thought wasn't so good. They would say there is only one teaching. But the claim that if you don't believe the specific set of things we tell you -- whoever the "we" happens to be -- God will send you into eternal fire, strikes me as inconsistent with what I know about Christian tradition.

What do you think about the idea that the Bible is the absolute word of God?
There is a Protestant view that we have to take the Bible literally, even though we are talking about translations of translations and about language which from the beginning was not literal. Jesus spoke in parables. His teaching is not meant to be literal, in many cases, as compared to the ethical teaching about "Love one another." "Love God and your neighbor" -- that, I think, is very clear and straightforward.
Some people who aren't religious might say we're better off without these sacred texts because people have taken them literally and the result hasn't always been positive.
There is no question that Christianity, like other religious traditions, has [been] and can be very effective in promoting violence. My book on the origin of Satan was about the beginning of Christian anti-Semitism. When I worked on it, I was distressed to see how deeply, how powerfully Christianity can be turned to hate as well as to love. And it's not exclusive to Christianity. It's true for other religious traditions as well.

How has the religious climate changed in this country since you came out with the "Gnostic Gospels"? Are people responding to this sort of material differently now?
Yes. I think that many more people are questioning the sources of religious authority -- whether you are talking about a literal reading of the Bible or their minister or priest. It's not that one should disbelieve the clergy or the Bible. But I think the questions about authority and the hunger for a sense of direct connection with God are more evident than they have been, partly because we are all aware of the diversity of religion and the diversity of claims within Christianity.

Where are you seeing this happening? In your church?
Among my students, in the news media, in things that I read and discussions with people all over the country and, in fact, all over the world. Don't you see something like that?
I do. But I also see the opposite happening. I see plenty of close-mindedness and unwillingness to entertain other points of view in the name of religion.

Exactly! That's right! And I think what's happening is that, you know, everybody in the world is more and more aware that each one of us is being sort of pressed up against other people who are different. And some people get curious and interested and find that intriguing. Others just want to build up stronger walls. So I think a more conservative and a more questioning perspective are happening simultaneously.
More Reviews:

Monday, July 13, 2009

Beyond Belief

By Elaine Pagels

At the center of Beyond Belief is a textual battle between The Gospel of Thomas and The Gospel of John. While these gospels have many superficial similarities, Pagels demonstrates that John, unlike Thomas, declares that Jesus is equivalent to "God the Father" as identified in the Old Testament. Thomas, in contrast, shares with other supposed secret teachings a belief that Jesus is not God but, rather, is a teacher who seeks to uncover the divine light in all human beings. Pagels then shows how the Gospel of John was used by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon and others to define orthodoxy during the second and third centuries. The secret teachings were literally driven underground, disappearing until the Twentieth Century. As Pagels argues this process "not only impoverished the churches that remained but also impoverished those [Irenaeus] expelled."
Beyond Belief offers a profound framework with which to examine Christian history and contemporary Christian faith, and Pagels renders her scholarship in a highly readable narrative. The one deficiency in Pagels’ examination of Thomas, if there is one, is that she never fully returns in the end to her own struggles with religion that so poignantly open the book. How has the mysticism of the Gnostic Gospels affected her? While she hints that she and others have found new pathways to faith through Thomas, the impact of Pagels’ work on contemporary Christianity may not be understood for years to come.
--Patrick O’Kelley
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Pagels makes clear how choosing the gospel of John over the gospel of Thomas "shaped and limited" Christianity. Thomas directs each person to find the light within, where John says Jesus is "the light of the world' and whoever doesn't come through Jesus has no part of it. Thomas says, "you are from the kingdom and return to it," where John says only Jesus is from God: "you come from below, I come from above." John is saying Jesus is distinctly different than you or me, where Thomas asserts that we can become like Jesus. The book of John is the only gospel to portray Thomas negatively, making him obtuse, "doubting," and rebuking him as "faithless." The whole gospel of John can be seen to refute what the Book of Thomas was trying to represent. After all, Thomas' gospel allowed for a frightening level of individuality and that could be divisive! Thomas teaches that, "recognizing one's affinity with God is the key to the kingdom of God." He encourages us to consider ourselves "children of God" which through John's urging the church has suppressed. John instead offers a simple formula: Jesus loves you, believe in him and be saved. Eliminated is Thomas' urging to become like Jesus. ........
From the review by Polly Castor

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Meditation: The Complete Guide

by Patricia Monaghan , Eleanor G. Viereck

It gives a great overview of meditation, and doesn't force you to think there's only one way of meditating. This book would be good for someone who is curious about meditation and confused about all the different things they hear. It covers trance dancing, drumming, shamanic journeying, yoga asanas and yoga breathing, mantras to show you meditation need not be boring! It also covers gardening, crafts,nature , walking meditations, creative visualizations. Also it covers Prayer, Taoism, Buddhism, Zen, tantrism and Islam meditations. So things that a beginner would not think of as a type of meditation can see that there are lots of ways to meditate !!!

Monday, June 22, 2009

The Origin of Satan

By Elaine Pagels
The "Origin of Satan" is an excellent book for laypeople trying to understand the evolution of one piece of the Christian paradigm, namely the cosmic battle between good and evil, and the vilification of the Jews in the gospels. The book is organized in three principal sections.
The first part dissects the four gospels in the order they were written, and delineates the relationships between the authors, their social context, and their thinking with regard to Satan and all things/people evil. Among the most helpful recognitions in this part of the book is that as the gospels evolved, Pilate and the Romans grew more and more "innocent" (the Christians were trying to make a distinction between themselves and the troublesome dissidents of Palestine), and the Jews grew more and more "responsible" for Jesus' crucifixion, thus "under the influence of Satan." Much of this awareness is found in the recognition that Jews in the Roman Empire were torn between the social elite who were for the most part the priesthood and the wealthy, and the poor fundamentalists who saw the privileges of the empire in opposition to the covenants with God.
The second section of the book describes the growing rift between the pagans of the Roman empire and the growing Christian sect. What is most helpful in this section is comparing the writings of such pagan minds as Celsus and Marcus Arelius with the early writings of Justin, Origen and others. In the Roman Empire, there was no greater virtue than that of "citizenship" in the empire, and the strength of the empire was assured by performing the ritual obligations to the Gods. The Christians saw themselves not as citizens of Rome, but of Heaven, and their rituals ran counter to those of the Pagans. Naturally, this was threatening to the pagan majority, and resulted in the wholesale slaughter of Christians who wouldn't cede to the authority of the Roman pantheon. Satan, of course, was identified with the pagans.
The last section of the book discusses the growing dissent within the early church itself, and the identification of Satan with heretics from within. Reading the writings of Tertullian in particular, compared with the gnostic writers of the same time period, is incredibly enlightening!
http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Satan-Elaine-Pagels/dp/0679401407

Life after Death

By Deepak Chopra
Using a Hindu folk tale about death as a springboard, Chopra examines issues related to Near Death Experiences, Reincarnation, Remote Viewing, ESP and many more by examining the areas in which Science and the Vedic Tradition merge. This book is enjoyable to read, but requires a little time to digest. Although written from a Hindu perspective, Chopra takes the time to discuss other spiritual traditions, including Christianity and Buddhism.
Probably, the best part of the book is the stories. The Indian tale of Sativri, who doesn't want Yama (death) to take her husband, is an underlying theme as Deepak tells it in segments throughout the book. Mellen-Thomas Benedict's hour and a half near-death experience was another highlight. His journey to the other side was a very unique experience, even among NDE's. Another story on reincarnation told of a boy who was obsessed with fighter planes from WWII. He told his parents he died in Iwo Jima, giving them names and dates, which were all corroborated.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The Brother of Jesus

and the Lost Teachings of Christianity
By Jeffrey J. Butz

Reveals the true role of James, the brother of Jesus, in early Christianity• Uses evidence from the canonical Gospels, apocryphal texts, and the writings of the Church Fathers to reveal the teachings of Jesus as transmitted to his chosen successor: James• Demonstrates how the core message in the teachings of Jesus is an expansion not a repudiation of the Jewish religion• Shows how James can serve as a bridge between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam James has been a subject of controversy since the founding of the Church. Evidence that Jesus had siblings contradicts Church dogma on the virgin birth, and James is also a symbol of Christian teachings that have been obscured. While Peter is traditionally thought of as the leader of the apostles and the "rock" on which Jesus built his church, Jeffrey Bütz shows that it was James who led the disciples after the crucifixion. It was James, not Peter, who guided them through the Church's first major theological crisis—Paul's interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. Using the canonical Gospels, writings of the Church Fathers, and apocryphal texts, Bütz argues that James is the most overlooked figure in the history of the Church. He shows how the core teachings of Jesus are firmly rooted in Hebraic tradition; reveals the bitter battles between James and Paul for ideological supremacy in the early Church; and explains how Paul's interpretations, which became the foundation of the Church, are in many ways its betrayal. Bütz reveals a picture of Christianity and the true meaning of Christ's message that are sometimes at odds with establishedChristian doctrine and concludes that James can serve as a desperately needed missing link between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam to heal the wounds of centuries of enmity.

Monday, June 8, 2009

How to Read the Bible

By James Kugel

James L. Kugel (1945-) is chair of the Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible at Bar Ilan University in Israel and the Harry M. Starr Professor Emeritus of Classical and Modern Hebrew Literature at Harvard University.

In How to Read the Bible, Harvard professor James Kugel leads the reader chapter by chapter through the "quiet revolution" of recent biblical scholarship, showing time and again how radically the interpretations of today's researchers differ from what people have always thought. Such findings pose a serious problem for adherents of traditional, Bible-based faiths. Hiding from the discoveries of modern scholars seems dishonest, but accepting them means undermining much of the Bible's reliability and authority as the word of God. What to do? In his search for a solution, Kugel leads the reader back to a group of ancient biblical interpreters who flourished at the end of the biblical period. Far from naïve, these interpreters consciously set out to depart from the original meaning of the Bible's various stories, laws, and prophecies -- and they, Kugel argues, hold the key to solving the dilemma of reading the Bible today.

http://www.jameskugel.com/

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Mahatma Gandhi's Worldview

Author: Prof. M. P. Mathai
Published by: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 221-223, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 250.

Mahatma Gandhi's Worldview is the doctoral dissertation of Prof M. P. Mathai. Prof Mathai argues that in today's world in which the humanity is facing extinction, Gandhi's worldview has much more relevance than it had in his own day. Although Gandhi was primarily a karmayogi (man of action), his action was firmly founded on a very strong worldview. This worldview, sprouted in Gandhi's young mind as a passion for truth, slowly grew into a mighty tree absorbing nutrients from the best religio-philosophical systems in the world. Grounded on the Advaita-Vedanta Philosophy of oneness of all that exists, he identified the ultimate reality with God. Nature, therefore, is not an object to be exploited, but it is like our own body or our own mother that need to be taken care of. Human beings, regardless of their race, caste, color, or gender, are all God's temples, and therefore, deserve equal respect. His social goal was sarvodaya, which is the rise of all. And his plan of action was satyagraha, an earnest wish to reach the ultimate goal of truth through honest means.

A Review: http://thehindujobs.com/thehindu/2001/04/10/stories/1310017a.htm