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Houses of Worship: Cover Story -- Time and Newsweek put the Gospels to the test.
Wall Street Journal ^ | December 10, 2004 | GEORGE SIM JOHNSTON

Posted on 12/10/2004 5:37:56 AM PST by OESY

The newsweeklies discovered long ago that Jesus Christ sells magazines. So it is not surprising to find him on the covers of Time and Newsweek a few weeks before Christmas....

What are we to make of the Gospel accounts of the Nativity? For a Christian, of course, they are true, an article of faith. But faith does not preclude looking at them as historical and literary documents....

Since the late 18th century, there has been a scholarly assault on the four Gospels, and some of the "experts' quoted by Time and Newsweek are simply bringing up the rear of this cultural offensive. Enlightenment intellectuals like Voltaire and Diderot could not accept Christ as a divine person. But since he is clearly presented as such in the Gospels, the idea was to deconstruct the texts themselves. Scholars accordingly came up with a storyline that goes something like this:

There was this charismatic religious teacher -- an itinerant rabbi, a political revolutionary -- who wandered about first-century Palestine saying some wonderful things but who certainly was not God. After he died, his followers took the sayings of Jesus and put them in a book. Later, the so-called Gospel writers took this document (which we don't have) and added a lot of mythological material about miracles and claims of Christ's divinity. The role of the scholar, then, is to strip away these mythological elements to get to the "historical Jesus' -- who ends up bearing a curious resemblance to the scholar writing the book.

Needless to say, these critics pare down the Nativity story until there is nothing left. If you read the Gospels with the assumption that miracles do not happen, then the Annunciation, the Virgin Birth and the angels' appearance to the shepherds will end up on the cutting-room floor....

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: annunciation; christmas; davincicode; faith; god; gospels; jesuschrist; luke; magi; matthew; nativity; newsweek; palestine; religion; scripture; time; virginbirth
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To: OESY; 2banana; Semi Civil Servant; wideawake; RC20; Reo; Wings-n-Wind; Conservative til I die; ...
In case any of you are interested, Hugh Hewitt just initiated a "Vox Bloguli" in response to the Newsweek article. Here's a link:

Vox Blogoli VI: What does Newsweek's story on Christmas tell us about MSM?

The first wave of responses are in (from sites like "Solomon's Porch" and "Do Justly") and they make for excellent and thought-provoking reading.

21 posted on 12/14/2004 4:48:55 PM PST by macbee ("Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte)
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To: 2banana
Wonder when these brave news organization will look to put Islam to "the test" right before Ramadan...

Never.

The world is only interested in trying to tear down the one true religion, the one and only way to God, Jesus Christ.

The MSM attacks Christianity, Hollywood churns out antichristian movies, one after another, Christ is removed from Christmas(happy holidays!), from Easter(spring vacation) while Islam and paganism are welcomed into our schools.

All of these things prove that Jesus Christ is the only way to God because this world hates him so much they will even side with the murderous, beheading mullahs over the Prince of Peace who gave up His life for sinners like me!

22 posted on 12/14/2004 5:04:22 PM PST by Walkin Man
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To: Semi Civil Servant

Matthew 5:18
For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Matthew 24:35
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

Mark 13:31
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

Luke 16:17
And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.

Luke 21:33
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.


23 posted on 12/14/2004 5:11:51 PM PST by Walkin Man
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To: Semi Civil Servant

No other book has been so chopped, knived, sifted, scrutinized, and vilified....INTERESTING how the same cannot be said of the Koran as any question of its content is likely to get you FATWAHED....just ask Simon Rushdid (not sure of the spelling).


24 posted on 12/14/2004 5:12:20 PM PST by UltraKonservativen (( YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID ))
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