Posted on 12/26/2004 1:29:14 PM PST by tbird5
The world's leading Gospel scholar separates the myth from the historical facts of Jesus's life WHAT DOES Christmas signify today if we discard the festive eating, drinking and merrymaking, inherited from the pagan Yule? Is it a reawakening of childhood imagery, dreaming of, but rarely experiencing, a white snowy morning, with Jesus lying in the manger, greeted by bearded shepherds and three colourful oriental stargazing kings, while in the background angelic choirs sing glory to God? Alas, all this is largely pious fiction.
No one knows the exact date of the birth of Jesus Christ. December 25 was selected by the Western Church only in the 4th century to rival the pre-Christian Roman feast of the Victorious Sun. Nor was Christ born in Year 1 as the era bearing his name continues to pretend. The New Testament locates the event shortly before the death of King Herod which occurred in 4BC. A 6th-century Roman monk, Dionysius the Small, is guilty of the miscalculation: he wrongly placed the birth of Jesus in the year 753 ab urbe condita — after the foundation of the city of Rome — instead of 747 or 748.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
What's left is the Incarnation, the Infinite intersecting with the finite, the Word made flesh. That's the essence of it for real Christians. Take it or leave it.
"He addressed his message to “the house of Israel” alone and expressly forbade His disciples to approach non-Jews, although occasionally he showed compassion to Gentiles and healed the servant of a Roman centurion from Capernaum and the daughter of a Greek woman from southern Lebanon."
This is true and did not change until His death when he went to the prisoners held since man was created in the flesh and offered salvation to them first. Salvation was then opened and offered to ALL who would believe.
Problem is most Christians have no clue who the house of Israel is and where they are even this day.
The last paragraph of the article is a clear indication of why jolly old England is so spiritually clouded......
Well said, but a mystery like the Incarnation doesn't have much appeal to most of the world today. People don't like holy mystery.
If Jesus's Resurrection is a myth perpetrated by the grieving Apostles, how does this author account for the many miracles that have occurred, and the change in attitudes towards our fellow man in the almost 2000 years since His death? I guess those are just in the imaginations of those who were touched by them.
You're so right, 'official' England views Christianity as a mere 'feel good' philosophy which holds no one accountable for their sinful actions, only gives brownie points for helping the poor and downtrodden.
Bad news for the scholars, Jesus, like the proverbial Genie is out of the bottle and Incarnated into our world. Once he has escaped the manger and become King of Kings, it is bad news for ACLU and all other sorts who would try to reconfine him. Herod could not do it. The Pharisees could not do it. And the shcolars and naysayers won't be able to do it either. Joy to the World, the Lord has come!
Geza Vermes has spent the last 40 years of his life trying to lash out at Christianity.
He addressed his message to the Israelites AND OR the 'stangers' that lived among them?
The idea that the Resurrection is fiction is silliness.
The guards would not have allowed a small band of people to come and roll away the stone and take the body. That would have meant severe punishment for the guards or even death.
And no man, even the toughest man, would be willing to die for a lie. Death was the fate suffered by most of the apostles.
Actually His first instruction was to go 'but to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. They were no where in this neighborhood, that House had been taken captive hundreds of years before by the Assryian king.
Well, he certainly did on this article. Jesus per Geza is reduced to mere platitudes and moral stories.
Yep - the ressurection - the ultimate sine qua non.
Yeah, we know that, but the British seem to have intellectualized themselves right out of Faith!
Amen...A few years ago I spent Christmas in England. A sad time was had by all. From the miserly decorations on Oxford street (paid for by Birdseye or Tang, I don't remember which, but that year they consisted of a dozen or so strings of orange lights strung accross the street) to a practically deserted Midnight Mass in St Johns Woods. With only a few elderly parishioners, there was little sense of rejoicing and a powerful reminder that I wanted to take my family out of "jolly old England".
As a second generation American (from the U.K.), I find it very sad indeed......
Yes, those that had been taken captive for their apostate ways. Yahweh divorced them for whoring after false gods and idolatry. They get reinstated though when they return to their Hebraic roots.
Those who can't deal with the Jesus that the apostles knew and worked hard to transmit try to reshape him to fit their needs, instead of letting God fit them.
If they aren't trying to make him into an ascended master, a gnostic spirit, or even an UFO gifted teacher, then they try to strip away the reality of the empty tomb.
Look at the churches whose clergy still believes and look at the churches where they believe the bible is interesting or perhaps useful narratives, and look at which ones are growing and which ones are dying.
If a person cannot agree with this -
He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him. ] He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Colossians 1:15-20
If a person cannot agree with that, what are they doing being a minister of a Christian church, a theologian of Christianity, or even wasting one's time being a member in a Christian denomination?
If the person who is giving you information about the faith cannot in good honesty say "Jesus Is Lord" and mean it in the old and true way, then it's time to listen to someone else.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.