Posted on 04/06/2013 7:51:02 AM PDT by xzins
I have heard and read a couple of comments by O'Reilly regarding his "Killing Jesus" book.
He calls Jesus a revolutionary. He says that his new book in his "Killing" series will present the story in terms of historic and political events that changed the world.
This tracks with the interview he had with Downey and husband on "The O'Reilly Factor" prior to the Bible episodes beginning. He asked Downey their take on the Bible. She replied to the effect that they just wanted to present the stories.
OReilly's reply related to his own book and said something along the line that, as opposed to Downey's version, his retelling would focus on the facts. (My paraphrase after nearly a month, and from memory.)
The first question, given those statements from O'Reilly, would be the extent to which O'Reilly relied on modern, liberal, biblical scholarship for his facts.
The problem with liberal biblical scholarship is that it truly begins with the assumption that "miraculous is impossible." Rudolf Bultmann, for many the star founder of skeptical biblical criticism, was famous precisely for rejecting anything miraculous in the Bible.
Bultmann was also famous, of course, for his dismissal of the miraculous. His famous notions that we who today use electricity to flick on a light switch cannot believe in miracles is often repeated as a microcosm as his thought. Elsewhere he implies that to believe in the miraculous is ridiculous, for we do not read in our newspapers about how demons affect the political or economic scene. [Bult.JM, 37] http://www.tektonics.org/af/bultmann01.html
Obviously, that changes the entire biblical story and requires (1) a search for alternative "non-miraculous" explanations OR (2) a rejection of a story if an alternative "non-miraculous" explanation can't be found. Throwing out the material is the Jesus Seminar's claim to fame with their voting on whether a story is authentic or not, most of which they've found to be "not". If not found by them to be authentic, then they toss it out.
NatGeo teaming with O'Reilly worries me. If they are televising O'Reilly's work for other than pure ratings reasons, then it means that O'Reilly's writing might lean toward the "explain away Jesus" approach.
I've read another item that worries me, and I've heard O'Reilly say essentially the same thing on his program. He is reported to have said that Christians worship "the spirit of Jesus."
Depending on how one interprets that, it is worrisome. If it is a comment akin to O'Reilly's many comments about "the philosophy of Christianity", then I wonder if O'Reilly views Christianity as an Aesop's Fables type Morality Play, or if O'Reilly actually thinks there was an actual physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead in real space, time, and history. I've also long been surprised at O'Reilly's inability to invite the many stellar conservative Christian scholars to his "debates". More often he manages to arrange his debates on moral or biblical issues with unschooled biblical conservatives mismatched against major spokespersons for liberal causes.
What do I fear will be the direction of "Killing Jesus" by Bill O'Reilly?
Just this: the story of a peace-loving revolutionary killed by people trapped in a foment of political turmoil; a Jesus who, after the fact, had the rumor of a resurrection told about Him. From this we are all to draw a moral of the story somewhat on the lines of "don't give up even when life seems the darkest" because "there's light at the end of the tunnel." Therefore, we all should look for "the spirit of goodness" in any situation.
I hope I'm wrong.
Ping
National Geographic pernicious.
Ted Baxter is no biblibal scholar. He is really overeaching with this one and I think its going to flop miserably.
Bill O’Reilly is qualified to write a book on this subject because......?
He overreached on the Lincoln book. The man is not scholarly, although he thinks he is.
I think he thinks he’s qualified because:
1. He’s a reporter and reporters report facts...which he claims to be doing.
2. He is a sometimes, in his mind, defender of “the Christian philosophy”.
As I stated, I think he is terrible at lining up real conservative scholars in his debates on moral, social, or biblical issues.
He’s equally terrible about reporting just about everything......I haven’t watched the guy in over a decade. He put on this tough guy blue collar conservative image, but that’s all it was.
Anyone who thinks Bill O'Reilly is a conservative should think again: he dances around the middle, careful not to be too far left or too far right.
Any conservative who thinks they have a friend in Bill O'Reilly is sadly mistaken; Bill O'Reilly is in it for Bill O'Reilly. Period.
I think you are presuming too much. I believe that BOR is a devout Christian and will do nothing but present the ‘history’ as he can document it. No one can dispute that aside from being the Son of God, he did exist historically. Had it not been for Paul, we might never have known HIM.
His books on Lincoln and JFK were excellent. I say ‘wait and see’. Save your disputation for the actual results of his ‘work’.
I see.... Baxter thinks Jesus is dead.....
To the extent that “presume” means to assume without facts, then I’m presuming.
I’m using O’Reilly’s own comments, and some from memory that I have heard.
CORRECTION:
To the extent that “presume” means to assume without facts, then I’m NOT presuming.
I’m using O’Reilly’s own comments, and some from memory that I have heard.
His head is way too big Now. What makes him the expert..seriously..I guess he’s the historian for all peoples now. Just hush, don’t take issue with him and do what he says/buy his books/see him in on stage, but why? He’s comes across as mostly saying he’s right on issues. I will be so glad when he retires since he’s becoming so know it all. He picks topics that are safe but when he tells us what he really thinks out of the box, he usually steps in it like.. thumping the Bible and now he will be a thump-er author. I liked him on Current Edition. This new method is so transparent. I am not jealous of his wealth. He keeps this up, he will lose viewers not because of the leftists, just because of his fakeness is coming through. He Was against gay marriage, now, it’s a human rights issue or we need the DNA to win the case. The DNA I have, comes from within and it tells me same sex relationships are not a productive way to survive our population in long term. So many issues will come into society which we are seeing already in the courts. I thought he cared the children and their rights.
He co-writes these books with another author. I wonder how much he actually writes, and how much he is just lending his name to the book for a share of the profits? If this other man wrote the books alone, they probably wouldn’t be big sellers. But by Bill O-Reilly adding his name, the sales sky-rocket. He doesn’t have the time to do the research on these books, so I don’t believe he is responsible for too much of the content.
I don’t see the attraction of O’Reilly at all. He’s not exceptionally smart, and it’s clear he’s mainly in the game for self-promotion. If he worked at MSNBC, he could “evolve” into something that would fit right in over there, I’m sure.
Presentation-wise, he’s bombastic and rude, but underneath his political values are the same as, say, Charlie Crist’s. Show him the money and attention, and that’s where he’ll stand.
If he’s decided to talk about Christianity, it’s because he saw the ratings the Bible series received on the History Channel.
Yes, he said that gays have the stronger argument in the same-sex marriage argument. He sees "equality" being the winning argument.
"Bible thumping" isn't a non-religious answer. Those people just "bible thump". (Indignant, he acts as if "thump" is not a pejorative. The last non-pejorative "thumper" I ran across was in a Bambi cartoon.)'
Again, I'm paraphrasing from memory, but that's the gist of it.
He says that conservatives need a better answer. All the while he ignores the research and ideas of Family Research Council, courts that have ruled about the procreative purpose of marriage, etc.
He covers and doesn't cover what allows him to continue getting invites in New York City.
Isn’t this the commentator that paid several million to settle a sexual harassment suit brought by one of his underlings? It was alleged that the victim had tape recordings of the telephone conversations etc. Now he gives us his views on Jesus. In my opinion a dignified silence would be more appropriate.
Chaplain, the only issue I have with your otherwise wonderful post is that I really don’t give a hang what Bill O’Reilly thinks about anything.
I get my information from a higher power, and I’m sure you do too.
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