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I wish all my Catholic and Protestant readers Happy Easter!
The Orthodox have a full month to wait this year.
The Jesus Seminar, a group of liberal, publicity hungry New Testament scholars who were very fashionable in the USA around the turn of the century, disbelieved most of the Gospels, thought Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God and his corpse was probably thrown into a shallow dirt grave, where it rotted away or was eaten by wild dogs.
In fact few non-Christian historians doubt the crucifixion happened (the contemporary Jewish historian Josephus records it) and that something happened very shortly afterwards to create a movement which swept the civilised world.
The non-Christian New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann said ‘It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.’
These experiences were also enough to lead Peter and Paul to suffer death rather than renounce their faith that Jesus had risen from the tomb and was the Son of God. Their martyrdom under Nero is not questioned by any historian, as far as I ever heard. Peter is said to have been crucified upside down at his request because he did not believe himself worthy of the same death as Jesus, but there is no evidence for this.
All of Western and much non-Western history begins with the resurrection, whether or not you believe it happened.
Talleyrand met a young man at a party who asked him for his advice about how to start a new religion. The renegade bishop turned pagan replied, 'First die and on the third day come again'.
Surrexit vire Christus!
ReplyDeleteSurrus
DeleteSurrexit vire Christus!
ReplyDeleteYou do some really good 'in a nutshell' posts!
ReplyDeleteindeed, just thinking same thought. Old style journalism. para by para. vg
DeleteThank you, anonymous.
DeleteThank you, Caroline!
DeleteHe has risen indeed! Happy Easter!
ReplyDeleteIndeed He has.
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ReplyDeleteIt’s a great Talleyrand story.
A few words of caution!
As someone has pointed out, if we need to take historic documentary evidence at face value, nothing is more certain than the existence of witchcraft and the guilt of the thousands of witches who were burnt to death by Christian leaders over the centuries. The evidence given against them at their trials by priests, schoolmasters, mayors, carpenters, philosophers, and the man in the street, is compelling, and yet it’s all hocus pocus.
Enoch Powell annoyed a lot of people when his study of the gospels concluded that it’s possible to work out what was added later and that Christ had been stoned to death by the Jews. He also believed that the whole story of the Resurrection was a later addition.
Enoch was a Baconian and too clever by half. I do not trust a Baconian. He also thought the Pater Noster was incomplete.
DeleteIt’s very short. Even as a small boy, I found it odd that “Thy kingdom come” was quickly followed by “Thine is the kingdom”, and that sounds even odder in the C of E version of 1980, “For the kingdom is yours... now and for ever.” All the things missing are like a whole lot of dogs that failed to bark in the night, but it is still majestic in the Cranmer version.
DeleteThis is Andrew Brown on Enoch's stoning theory. I strongly agree with the first 2 paragraphs and 1st sentence of 3rd paragraph of this. Certainly not with the stoning theory. Enoch was always too clever by half.
Deletehttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/gospel-according-to-powell-christ-was-stoned-to-death-andrew-brown-reports-on-a-former-politician-and-greek-scholar-s-latest-book-which-attempts-to-reinterpret-the-foundations-of-christianity-1376685.html?amp
Surrexit Dominus! Vere Surrexit! Christos Voskrese! Voistinu Voskrese!
ReplyDeletelovely read! thanks for that, Paul.
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter, John!
DeleteYes Jesus has risen - Jesus Christ is alive.
ReplyDeleteCharles FitzGerald : SURREXIT!
ReplyDeletewho john?
ReplyDeleteJohn Boatner above, whom God preserve.
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