tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55059422012-01-30T18:52:50.401-08:00The Historical Jesusthe travails of Leon Zitzer's search for the historical, Jewish Jesus in an irrational world that still fears him so -- a companion to my site www.historicaljesusghost.comLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comBlogger1791100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-88209187985786952132012-01-30T17:49:00.000-08:002012-01-30T18:52:50.416-08:00WHERE I'M GOING IS NO CONCERN OF YOURS -- UNSILENCING THE SILENCED VOICES OF THE PASTThough suppressing voices from the past may be what academics do best, there are exceptions. The problem is that people's sensitivities to this can be selective. It's okay to silence some voices but not others. You might be terribly upset when historical voices of your culture are repressed, but doing it to Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-67433266054190926982011-12-12T18:39:00.000-08:002011-12-12T19:12:56.222-08:00HOPE -- GOING BACK TO ZEROShe said it, I didn't, but I agree. Carrie Fisher said it on "The Sound of Young America", a public radio show hosted by Jesse Thorn. I was listening this past Saturday when he did two interviews, one with Carrie Fisher, film actor, author, and one-woman show performer, and the other with Errol Morris, documentary filmmaker and also an author. Both, but independently of Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-36414232947599823692011-11-27T14:37:00.000-08:002011-11-27T14:52:26.167-08:00IF I SHOULD COMPLAIN, WHO WOULD LISTEN?I think that line is from Shakespeare, but I cannot remember which play. Anyway, just a quick thought this time.In good scholarship, you are supposed to consider all sides of an issue, the evidence pro and con, etc. At a witch trial, everything is slanted in one direction. Of course, the defendant will proclaim his or her innocence, even though he or she Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-55892343890199840062011-10-30T16:22:00.000-07:002011-10-30T16:36:59.538-07:00NOTHING NEW, OR MAYBE NOTI am not putting up a new post this month. I'll just let the post below this one from last month stand again. A new book is always worth another month's announcement space. And True Jew is certainly worth it. Isn't the historical, Jewish Jesus worth a few months of notice?Just one other word. I have always thought that there is more interest in suppressing the historical Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-22817321448010789342011-09-27T19:07:00.000-07:002011-09-27T19:25:12.539-07:00TRUE JEW -- CAN HE BRING A DOSE OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM?I just want to remind everyone that I published True Jew: How Jesus Really Ended Up on a Roman Cross, How We Still Cover It Up earlier this year. The links to the book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble are at right.Ostensibly, it is about liberating ancient Jewish leaders and Judas from the myth that they had something to do with Jesus' death. The Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-64015584055037635042011-08-30T19:14:00.000-07:002011-08-30T19:55:47.663-07:00MYTHS -- LOVE 'EM OR LEAVE 'EM
Honestly, I could mostly leave 'em. Not that some myths don't have their entertainment value. And some can be inspiring because they capture a truth about the human spirit. Myth as art I can live with.
But I am thinking of the harm that historical myths do. Many of these myths prosper in the face of plenty of evidence to contradict them. You could say their Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-17976772390880052672011-07-31T10:03:00.000-07:002011-07-31T10:26:40.999-07:00JUSTICE LONG GONEA number of times in my writings I have spoken about justice -- justice for Judas, for ancient Jewish leaders, and for Jewish culture, all of which have been hugely misrepresented in their relationship to Rabbi Joshua/Jesus. But recently, I saw an edition of Tavis Smiley's show on PBS that has made me rethink that a bit. I saw the show on Friday afternoon, July 1.He had as his Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-39297919752827828292011-06-30T16:24:00.000-07:002011-07-01T20:34:14.095-07:00THE HISTORICAL, JEWISH JESUS: AN INVISIBLE GORILLAI have not been doing much lately, except occasionally putting up a new video. I recently put up some new ones about fear of the historical Jesus. I may soon change them, but in the meantime you can see them on YouTube. Just click on MY VIDEOS at the right, or search for my name on YouTube.I have also recently read the famous paper of the Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-5290554222775070072011-05-07T21:05:00.000-07:002011-05-17T08:03:59.907-07:00MY VIDEOSFinally, finally, finally. I've begun to put up some videos on YouTube that I can live with. I'm satisfied that I've done a decent job. The link to them is at the right (just beneath TRUE JEW on Barnes & Noble). Or you can always search for my name, Leon Zitzer, on YouTube. Of course, the main purpose is to help promote True Jew: How Jesus Really Ended Up on a Roman Cross, How We Still Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-25919995792166855012011-04-29T20:05:00.000-07:002011-04-30T09:36:48.455-07:00ROMAN SOLDIERSIt is well-known by now that John 18:3,12 tells us that Roman soldiers were at Jesus' arrest. John uses speira, the Greek word for a Roman cohort, and chiliarchos, the word for the captain. For a long time, speira had been mistranslated as a band of men. It was one of the few mistakes William Tyndale made and the King James translators continued it. But it has long since been Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-42977935674630662922011-03-30T19:52:00.000-07:002011-03-30T20:22:17.741-07:00NO NEWS? They say no news is good news. Or, as Jack Nicholson put it, if your face ain't up there (on the movie screen, that is), it can't hurt you. Well, maybe so. But I'd like some good news and I don't have any, not this month. And I still intend to put a better video on You Tube. So I will just repeat on this post that my book, True Jew: How Jesus Really Ended Up on a Roman Cross, How We Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-75709398943456413422011-02-25T19:35:00.000-08:002011-02-25T19:42:23.482-08:00TRUE JEW -- AGAINThe links to my new book, True Jew: How Jesus Really Ended Up on a Roman Cross, How We Still Cover It Up, are at the right for Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I should mention both sites also have the book available as an e-book, Kindle for Amazon and Nook-Book for BN.I will be putting up a video or two on YouTube soon. When I'm finally ready with that, I will provide the links hereLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-87324032993207960792011-01-19T11:10:00.000-08:002011-01-19T11:28:16.379-08:00TRUE JEW -- THE HISTORICAL JESUS HERE AT LASTFinally. My new book, True Jew: How Jesus Really Ended Up on a Roman Cross, How We Still Cover It Up, is available. I put the links to True Jew for both Amazon and Barnes&Noble over on the right. It will also be available as an e-book on their reading devices (the Kindle and the Nook) in a few more weeks. Right now it is just the paperback.I had two Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-33857170846777804032010-12-27T13:37:00.000-08:002010-12-27T14:34:12.880-08:00EVIDENCE, ANYONE? -- DO WE EVEN CARE?[It looks like my new book, True Jew: How Jesus Really Ended Up on a Roman Cross, How We Still Cover It Up, will be available in January. I will announce it when that happens.]If we are going to have an honest historical Jesus debate -- a debate about the evidence -- then we are going to have to start paying attention. And that's not easy to do. Not Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-90146510238256948712010-11-07T19:09:00.000-08:002010-11-08T05:13:10.738-08:00NEVER ASSUME — BECAUSE WHEN YOU assume YOU MAKE AN ass OF u AND meIt's an old joke. It goes back at least to Felix's exposition of it in "The Odd Couple". But the point is always worth repeating. Assumptions are the ruination of all good research and thinking.We are burdened when we write about religion. Centuries of inherited assumptions weigh us down. We assume way too much. Just calling it Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-85510364532065178762010-10-25T18:46:00.000-07:002010-10-25T18:55:16.713-07:00BUSY, BUSYI am not going to post something new this month. I've been busy getting my new book ready for publication. I hope it will only be a few more weeks before it is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online bookstores. Maybe next month I will have time to put up a new blog.The new book presents the same theory I presented in The Ghost in the Gospels, but I have even more Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-30874607185207241102010-09-22T10:28:00.000-07:002010-09-22T11:20:20.816-07:00THE ART OF THE DOUBLE STANDARD — AS PRACTICED BY HISTORICAL JESUS SCHOLARSOne of the most common thoughts you will find in all biblical scholarship, but especially in New Testament scholarhsip, is that ancient texts tell us more about the authors of these documents than about history itself. That claim is made for the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament as well as for rabbinic litertaure. Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-3483078552875891742010-08-10T10:11:00.000-07:002010-08-10T12:30:00.978-07:00THE BOOTS IMPOSE THEIR RHYTHMI have been stuck for a while on the topic of self-censorship in historical Jesus studies (leading to suppression of evidence and debate). That's what the last two posts were about. This one too. It's too juicy a topic to let go of. This one is also inspired by something I read in Frederic Spotts' The Shameful Peace, which is about cultural life under the Nazi Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-35979701983547599392010-07-14T11:31:00.000-07:002010-07-16T10:38:09.883-07:00SELF-CENSORSHIP — CONTINUEDThis is a continuation of the blog post immediately below where I wrote about self-censorship in historical Jesus studies. After I posted that, I started reading Frederic Spotts' book, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation. Self-censorship plays a crucial role in the story he tells. He makes many of the same points I Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-3838561559783461972010-06-18T19:10:00.001-07:002010-07-14T11:29:50.285-07:00SELF-CENSORSHIPI think most of us would agree that in the most perfect system of censorship, you would get people to censor themselves. This way, no strong arm tactics are required. You don't have to do anything overt, like burn books or arrest people. You simply (and it's not really so simple) create an atmosphere where it will become impossible to think certain thoughts. The system will Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-28139018803097934032010-05-26T19:37:00.000-07:002010-05-26T19:41:40.207-07:00THING IN COMMONWhat do Marilyn Monroe and I have in common? Marilyn was good at running on empty. Same here. It ain't pretty, but sometimes, that's all you've got.Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-88510477837371676432010-04-25T13:13:00.000-07:002010-04-25T13:36:43.700-07:00HOW WOULD YOU FEEL?My opening litany again: Sarah Vowell Jesus blog Francine Prose Rachel Donadio Laura Miller. Unless and until people outside the field of New Testament scholarship take a strong and corrective interest in this, nothing will ever change.How would you feel -- I mean really, honestly -- if someone in your family or a dear friend were convicted of a terrible crime on the kind of Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-26895875118110651532010-03-17T19:10:00.000-07:002010-03-18T19:53:39.803-07:00WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?Here I go with my litany again, every month, as I swore I'd do: Jesus Sarah Vowell blog Francine Prose Rachel Donadio Laura Miller.Now I ask myself, What would I say to any of these swell ladies if I had the chance? I suppose I'd say that history belongs to the people. Then I ask myself, What does that mean? It means, of course, that the study of history is open to everyone, Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-43309849431816176452010-02-22T10:10:00.000-08:002010-02-22T11:18:20.074-08:00IMPERIALISM - PART 2First, my litany again, and the reason being that unless people outside the field of NT scholarship take an interest in this, nothing will ever change. So here we go: Jesus Sarah Vowell blog Francine Prose Rachel Donadio Laura Miller. Sooner or later, right?In the post below this, I picked out some quotations from Chalmers Johnson's discussion of imperialism in Nemesis (2006) Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-51803316799633923282010-01-04T11:49:00.001-08:002010-02-22T11:22:53.535-08:00IMPERIALISM - PART 1I begin as usual with my litany: Jesus Sarah Vowell blog Francine Prose Rachel Donadio Laura Miller. I'm sure this makes no sense to anyone, but one day it will. I hope.So I'm reading this book about American imperialism, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006), by Chalmers Johnson, and I'm again struck by how anything said about imperialism applies so well to Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-57130041641325214092009-12-04T10:52:00.000-08:002009-12-05T11:21:40.873-08:00HOW DO YOU WAKE PEOPLE UP?What if I said their names all in one breath? Jesus Sarah Vowell Francine Prose Rachel Donadio Laura Miller. True to my word, I am mentioning all their names in every post from here on in. Only people outside the field of historical Jesus studies will ever be able to create an impact, a shake-up, big enough to set things straight and save historical memories.And don't Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-23742248199180235452009-11-17T11:01:00.000-08:002009-11-17T11:23:31.780-08:00AN APPEAL — PLEASE — LISTENHistorical Jesus studies will never change until intelligent people outside the profession take a serious look into it. So this blog post is an appeal to writers like Sarah Vowell, Francine Prose, Rachel Donadio, and Laura Miller to pay attention to the way evidence and historical memories get suppressed when scholars lay claim to the historical Jesus and everything Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-4006016376382917462009-10-24T11:35:00.000-07:002009-10-24T11:59:14.627-07:00TO BE OR NOT TO BE JEWISHMy sense of things is that most Christians, and this very much includes Christian scholars, see their religion as the inheritor of Greek and Roman civilization. It's not called the Roman Catholic Church for nothing. While there is some lip service to the idea that Hebrew scripture is a part of Christianity, it is still a serious problem that 1) they do not mean Hebrew Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-79652133217772535802009-09-12T11:17:00.000-07:002009-09-26T12:32:23.758-07:00THE DEVIL MADE HIM DO IT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?Judas Iscariot is old news, some might say. But he is new everytime they do to someone else what they did and still do to him.I comtinue to be shocked at how many scholars there are (and it's probably an overwhelming majority) who take the imputation of devlishness to Judas in Luke and John to be a valid piece of evidence that he had done something Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-2264318770639530772009-08-15T10:43:00.000-07:002009-08-22T12:02:10.275-07:00WILL THE REAL HISTORICAL JESUS PLEASE GO AWAY — AND STAY AWAY!Whether it's the Crossan historical Jesus or the Borg historical Jesus or the EP Sanders historical Jesus, they all have one thing in common: Not only are they not very Jewish, they are rather anti-Jewish. Crossan expresses this in the strongest way. His Jesus is "lethally against" his contemporary Judaism and seeks the "absolute Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-47979841210518114022009-07-22T19:53:00.001-07:002009-07-22T20:24:09.734-07:00"WHEN I DIE, I WILL GET STRONGER"(The following is a short story under 600 words. If there was an honest historical Jesus debate, such a story would not be necessary. But scholars have very cleverly used their power to suppress debate and close examination of the evidence. Hence, the need for a story like this.)He was born too soon. It was still the dark ages. He had been happy once. He had Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-75439231522500009412009-06-29T20:09:00.000-07:002009-06-29T20:44:22.236-07:00WHAT DID JESUS LIKE ABOUT BEING JEWISH?Most scholars could not answer this question correctly. That's because most scholars never even think about it. I'll take it further: Most scholars could not even describe what it meant to be Jewish in the 1st century — that is, the sheer variety of this culture's aspects. The typical historical Jesus scholar reduces Jewish culture to Temple, rituals, and Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-8325984347789045372009-05-31T13:03:00.000-07:002009-05-31T13:27:05.886-07:00IS THE BIBLE THE ONE EXCEPTION TO OUR SEACRH FOR TRUTH?Most of us would say we have a deep faith in the truth. We believe that the truth is good to know and that lies are harmful. We believe this in practically all areas of life from the personal to the political. We will fight for the truth — for our right to know it — and we harshly criticize anyone who tries to hide it from us and offer us Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-78790839909970620692009-04-26T10:44:00.000-07:002009-05-06T20:05:08.115-07:00SITTING AT THE FEET OF RABBI JESUSThis is the title of a brand-new book by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg, published by Zondervan. As a book on Jesus' Jewishness, giving more detail than most books do, it deserves to be addressed in a careful, detailed way, which I will do in this essay. I am not a book reviewer, so don't look for a broad review here. However, I will tell you one thing that any Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-77415831245189286572009-03-28T10:40:00.000-07:002009-03-28T11:04:07.925-07:00WHERE ARE ALL THE FILMMAKERS? WHERE IS ANY FILMMAKER?It's been five years now since Mel Gibson's The Passion was released. Many people, both Jews and Christians, were upset at what he did in that film. In Hollywood too, there was plenty of anger at the anti-Jewish sentiment in this film. But for all the talk and controversy at the time, where has there been any response in a movie to his Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-70011395166316438892009-02-22T14:34:00.000-08:002009-02-22T15:30:53.241-08:00KIDNAPPED JEWS — A HASIDIC STORYYou hear and read a lot of stories as you go along in life. It is only when the years pass and certain stories remain with you that you can say which ones are really meaningful to you. It could have to do with the story itself or something inside you, but this is what grabs you — strongly enough so that many years later, you cannot forget it.For me, one of these isLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-39931642157159394672009-01-31T10:43:00.000-08:002009-02-02T19:48:27.123-08:00THE GOSPELS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM, SCHOLARS ARE THE PROBLEMThese days, everyone, at least among historical Jesus scholars, wants to demonstrate their anti-antisemitism credentials. The most popular way for scholars to do this is to blame somebody else for any ongoing problems. That someone else is usually the Gospel authors. New Testament scholars establish themselves as being free of prejudice by Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-78871517278635605992008-12-30T10:47:00.000-08:002009-01-31T11:30:12.574-08:00WHY HISTORICAL JESUS SCHOLARSHIP IS A THEOLOGICAL FIELDActually, I am not going to go over this in detail or offer the profoundest reasons. On previous posts, I have spelled out how anti-historical everyone is when they discuss Judas or any Jewish complicity in the death of Jesus. Blaming some Jews is a theological point with scholars and not the result of paying attention to the details in the Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-17411405763117596732008-11-27T14:32:00.000-08:002008-11-27T15:38:31.762-08:00IS IT COOL?In the battle between recovering the historical and very Jewish Jesus and covering him up so that he never sees the light of day, the use of language is crucial. The battle takes place primarily in language. We use it to encourage bad ideas and discourage good ideas. Archaeological discoveries are rare and usually not to the point. Research is mainly reading and re-reading the New Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-4904853158012181432008-10-26T20:10:00.000-07:002008-10-26T20:14:49.205-07:00THE EXACT OPPOSITEIf you want to figure out the rules of science, there is one sure-fire way to do it. Just study very carefully what historical Jesus scholars are doing and the exact opposite is science.Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-64920792091773373232008-09-07T11:46:00.000-07:002008-09-07T11:59:35.315-07:00MARK 14:1 IS NOT EVIDENCE OF JEWISH COMPLICITY IN JESUS' DEATHThis is a follow-up to the post below where I discussed the general problem of confusing an accusation with proof for the accusation. Mark 14:1, as used by scholars, is a particular example of this. This verse says that "the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him."Most scholars take it Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-36369014072618705732008-08-08T18:53:00.000-07:002008-08-08T19:27:32.283-07:00CONSTANT REPETITION DOES NOT MAKE AN ALLEGATION TRUEI am surprised at how many people, the scholars of historical Jesus studies very much included, think that if numerous sources repeat the accusation that Jewish leaders played a role in the death of Jesus, then this is good evidence for the truth of the allegation. What incredible nonsense. It is a violation of basic science. The whole point of Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-41153043092073442172008-07-10T19:15:00.000-07:002008-07-10T19:29:33.393-07:00WHY IS RATIONAL STUDY OF THE GOSPELS LIKE SURFING?Because it is an utterly beautiful thing to do and completely pointless. Pointless because no one cares. What matters for most, including scholars, are ideas and beliefs about Jesus, not evidence, and then to give just a semblance of rationality to these ideas and beliefs. A real rational interest based on a strong pattern of evidence is besides Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-18571288332018019322008-06-23T11:54:00.000-07:002008-06-23T12:28:10.361-07:00BLOWING THE WHISTLE ON SCHOLARLY FRAUDAs Bob Dylan once sang, I guess it must be up to me. Somebody's got to do it. It is not a pleasant thing to accuse an academic discipline of committing fraud. Nobody could enjoy this. I certainly do not. But it has to be done. Because it is the truth. Because the evidence is there to prove it. Because it is wrong and historical Jesus studies will be stymied Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-783867477051127712008-05-18T12:06:00.000-07:002008-05-18T12:31:28.916-07:00JEWS, JUDEANS, ISRAELITES — SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHTThere has been so much confusion lately over the attempts to replace "Jew", "Jewish", etc. with "Judean" or "Israelite" that considerable clarification is called for. I get the sense that too many scholars approve of this new terminology.In the post for Feb. 2008, I was critical of Steve Mason's article calling for "Judean" to be the new Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-42520850484071532652008-04-06T15:09:00.000-07:002008-04-06T15:48:57.176-07:00THE ARROGANCE OF SCHOLARS — DISAPPEARING EVIDENCE FROM HISTORY — AND THE HOLOCAUSTMore than anything, my book, The Ghost in the Gospels (link at right), is about evidence. If you love the pursuit of hard evidence and rational solutions to how we got this pattern of evidence, then I think you'll like my book. If beliefs are more important to you than actual historical data, then you might have a Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-79333465462125441042008-03-30T19:17:00.000-07:002008-03-30T19:36:04.592-07:00THE HISTORICAL JESUS MAKES AN APPEARANCEEaster came early this year. What else came early? Good Friday. And what else? A historic moment. Something that has not happened in 2,000 years. (So, okay, it's late, it's way late, but it came earlier this year than it would have any other year.)In a church in South Wales in the UK, on Good Friday, the truth about how Jesus died has been told from a Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-32691219767419410702008-03-25T19:38:00.000-07:002008-03-25T19:51:07.771-07:00MY BOOK IS AVAILABLEI have just noticed that the picture of my book at right is missing. The icon link still works. If you click on it, it will take you to the site at iuniverse.com where you can see it. The title is The Ghost in the Gospels: The True Story of How Jesus Died and How We All Missed It for 2,000 Years. You can also find it on amazon.com or bn.com. Just search for my name or theLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-89316753530297320192008-02-18T12:53:00.000-08:002008-02-18T13:47:07.692-08:00DISAPPEARING "JEWS" FROM HISTORYIn the post below this one, I discussed John Elliott's article "Jesus the Israelite Was Neither A 'Jew' Nor a 'Christian'". I gave my reasons why I think his suggestion of replacing 'Jew' with 'Israelite' is a wrong move. Basically, it will encourage people to associate Jesus with biblical Jews and disassociate him from the ongoing culture of his time.Now I turn myLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-3044396004632781842008-01-27T16:43:00.000-08:002008-01-27T17:52:42.291-08:00TWO RECENT ARTICLES — REMOVING "JEWS" FROM HISTORYIs historical Jesus studies going backwards or forwards? Backwards. Definitely backwards. Scholars are becoming more sophisticated and subtle than their predecessors, but their goal to defeat historical study remains the same. All these blogs are a kind of lament for the backwardness of historical Jesus studies.Last year, two articles appeared, Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-51492894109299506212007-12-24T14:46:00.000-08:002007-12-24T15:05:26.869-08:00IS JESUS THE ONE EXCEPTION TO OUR SEARCH FOR TRUTH?We are a society that claims to value rational inquiry into almost any subject you can name. We are hungry for knowledge. So we say.We are eager to know what the moon is made of, what lies at the bottom of the sea, how do centipedes move, and whether a horse lifts all four legs off the ground at once when it trots. What was Abraham Lincoln Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-90961270034488784902007-11-25T11:20:00.000-08:002007-11-28T19:39:10.238-08:00A PERFECT STORM(The picture at right is a link to my book, "The Ghost in the Gospels", on iUniverse. It's also available at amazon.com and bn.com.)The field of historical Jesus studies does not exist yet. It's not allowed to exist. You can thank a perfect storm of forces for this. Everyone conspires to make sure it never happens, and that probably includes almost anyone who is reading this. All Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-27276691924027407732007-10-21T10:48:00.000-07:002007-10-21T11:22:01.105-07:00WHAT IS A GENUINE SCHOLAR?I could say a genuine scholar, a real historian or scientist, is one who is in love with truth. Or I could say he or she is in love — madly, crazy in love — with the search for truth wherever it may lead. Blocking the search for truth is an even worse sin than suppressing the truth itself.But I can also put it this way: The real scholars are ecstatic over any sentence Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-55693671600567377322007-09-30T10:43:00.000-07:002007-09-30T11:36:38.928-07:00LYING ABOUT JUDASFighting for truth and justice in the study of history is a lot like fighting a war, isn't it? No guns and bullets, but the energy it takes to go up against the powers that tell lies is enormous and the hostility you encounter because you oppose them often feels lethal. It feels like it takes your whole life just to make small corrections.In Bart Ehrman's The Lost Gospel of JudasLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-2486712712173373372007-08-20T20:18:00.000-07:002007-08-20T20:46:07.494-07:00THREE GOLDEN RULES OF SCIENCE AND THE THREE FOOL'S GOLD RULES OF HISTORICAL JESUS STUDIESHere are three golden rules of science which are practiced in every legitimate scientific or historical field but are constantly violated in historical Jesus studies:1) Never confuse theories and facts (or data). They must always be distinguished and theories must never be promoted as (false) facts.2) If a Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-59016534012644974112007-07-22T10:34:00.000-07:002007-07-22T11:13:02.004-07:00THE ABSURDITY OF A QUEST AND THE PERFECT CRIMEDoes anybody quest for the historical George Washington or the historical Socrates? Is there a historical Gandhi or a historical Joan of Arc that has to be searched for like some lost, mysterious object? Of course not. It would be silly. One simply studies history and reports one's findings. We know these people are historical (the historical Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-36309815827456117322007-06-23T10:50:00.000-07:002007-06-23T11:04:37.538-07:00If I had an ad for my book (link at right), it would go something like this:THE HISTORICAL JESUSMISSING FOR 2,000 YEARSNOW FOUNDHidden in plain sight. Right there in the Gospels. Only buried beneath our prejudices. Even the majority of scholars have been biased against the Jewishness of both Jesus and the New Testament — and missed the Gospel record of how Jewish leaders tried to rescue Jesus Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-61578372204026371262007-05-13T10:53:00.000-07:002007-05-13T11:27:54.217-07:00WHERE DO YOU GO FOR JUSTICE?FOR MARY MAGDALENE, FOR JUDAS, FOR ANCIENT JEWISH LEADERS?You certainly don't go to academia. All scholars are interested in doing is repeating the same old myth of Jesus being persecuted by Jewish enemies — first and foremost, the Jewish leaders and also someone like Judas. It has become so integral to the identity of Jesus that he existed over against Jewish enemies,Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1174878628119431052007-03-25T20:36:00.000-07:002007-03-25T21:10:28.130-07:00WHEN YOU ASSUME, YOU MAKE AN "ASS" OF "U" AND "ME"One of the big problems in any scientific field is assuming something is a fact when it isn't a fact at all. It's certainly a big problem in New Testament studies. By facts, I simply mean the data. I don't mean that it is all necessarily true. The facts or data are one thing. The interpretation of the data, or our theories about the data, areLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1170645648712155232007-02-04T18:58:00.000-08:002007-02-04T19:26:30.900-08:00THINK, MAN, THINKTwo posts below this, I commented that while no rational person would take seriously the statement that the devil made Judas Iscariot betray Jesus (as a couple of verses in Luke and John more or less state), it does deserve some thought. And if you do think about it, you realize that this statement speaks in favor of the historical Judas as an innocent person.The reason the devilLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1168897130940722532007-01-15T13:15:00.000-08:002007-02-04T18:57:45.846-08:00HOW THEY LOVE THE IRRATIONALThe two posts below this are about Judas (Iscariot, though I doubt this was his real name). Here, I offer a little ditty about the depressing state of modern scholarship. Some people take to drink when they are depressed. But me, I get no kick from champagne or mere alcohol. I need a song.This one is written to the tune of Cole Porter's "Always True To You In My Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1167083326254434302006-12-25T13:23:00.000-08:002006-12-25T13:48:46.263-08:00THE DEVIL MADE HIM DO IT(My book can be ordered by clicking on the picture at right.)No rational person would take seriously the statements at Luke 22:3 and John 13:2,27 that the devil entered Judas as a serious piece of evidence against him. However, it is a piece of evidence that exists in these ancient texts (which otherwise have a lot of accurate historical information) and it deserves some Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1165780575866303772006-12-10T11:18:00.000-08:002006-12-10T11:56:15.876-08:00BRANDING JUDAS A TRAITOR AND PROVING HE WAS A TRAITOR ARE NOT THE SAME THING(The picture at right is a link to where my book can be ordered.)The key point to remember is that the treachery of Judas is not a stated fact in the Gospels. It is an interpretation of the Gospels. It is a questionable interpretation, as Hans Josef-Klauck has said. It is based on very little, almost nothing, Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1164604081049609412006-11-26T20:41:00.000-08:002006-11-26T21:08:01.060-08:00JESUS, JUDAS, AND THAT "NEW" GOSPEL(For anyone who is interested, my book is available; to get to where it can be ordered, just click on the link/picture at right.)Jesus and Judas, Jesus and Judas, Jesus and Judas. Their names are linked forever, whether you consider the historical Jesus and Judas, or the mythical Jesus and Judas Iscariot.Ben Witherington III has been widely quoted as saying Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1164311909049136342006-11-23T11:40:00.000-08:002006-11-23T11:58:29.073-08:00THIS MAY COME AS A SHOCK, BUT ...... it really is possible to study the Gospels rationally and come to some definite historical conclusions. That it is never done does not mean it cannot be done. That there is a fear of rational study of the Gospels or any part of the Bible does not mean it should not be done.I am talking ideals here, though ideals that can be accomplished. In the real world we Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1161657785953113062006-10-23T19:34:00.000-07:002006-10-23T19:43:05.963-07:00ONE SIMPLE THEORYThe goal in any scientific scholarship is to see if you can come up with one simple theory that will explain all or most of the evidence. That's what I do in this book, "The Ghost in the Gospels". There is one very simple way of looking at the evidence in the Gospels concerning Jesus' death which resolves all of the problems. And all you have to do is drop that anti-Jewish Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1160107226957527812006-10-05T20:47:00.000-07:002006-10-05T21:00:26.970-07:00HERE AT LAST, HERE AT LASTIt's finally here, my book, "The Ghost in the Gospels". It can be ordered by clicking on the link to iUniverse on the right (the first link). When you're on the iUniverse page, you have to scroll down just a little bit to get to my book (for some reason, the top part of the page is blank, I have no idea why).Just think what you get: The truth about how Jesus died —Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1158639142640390522006-09-18T21:08:00.000-07:002006-09-18T21:12:22.650-07:00A SLIGHT DELAYWith all the proofing, it has taken a little longer to get the final version of the book ready, but I hope that sometime in early or mid-October, the book will be available from iUniverse. It will finally set the record straight on what the Gospels really tell us about Jesus' death. A great adventure awaits us.Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1154547858701504102006-08-02T12:39:00.000-07:002006-08-02T12:44:18.756-07:00COMING SOONI hope my book will be available from i Universe by late September or early October. I am going through the final stages now. There is still a chance it will be translated and published in Germany, but I decided not to wait for that to happen. So I am moving ahead with online or digital or print-on-demand publishing. When it is ready, I will announce it here and put a link at the rightLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1151637315314739112006-06-29T19:50:00.000-07:002006-06-29T20:15:15.363-07:00THE TEMPLEOne of the more obvious things about Jesus is that he venerated the Temple. There are many positive statements about it in the Gospels. One of the strongest is at Matt 23:16-21 where Jesus says that the Temple makes the gold sacred and that anyone who swears by the Temple is swearing by God who dwells in the Temple. Just about everything else in the Gospels makes the same point.There's Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1148918837195911642006-05-29T09:00:00.000-07:002006-05-29T09:07:18.656-07:00THE GOSPEL OF JUDASThere have been a number of articles about the recent publication of the Gospel of Judas. Here is a copy of a letter I sent to the New Yorker a few weeks back:Dear Editor:Adam Gopnik made some good points in "Jesus Laughed" (Apr 17) on the Gospel of Judas. But there is still this pervasive delusion that the historical Jesus and Judas might be found in a lost document. The Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1147630443167016502006-05-14T10:41:00.000-07:002006-05-14T11:14:03.310-07:00MORE ON GARRY WILLS' "WHAT JESUS MEANT"You cannot help but feel an immense warmth for someone who writes about Jesus that any priests who molest a child molest Jesus, any televangelist who cheats old women out of their savings cheats Jesus, any who kill members of other religions because of their religion kill Jesus, any who persecute gays persecute Jesus, any who neglect the homeless neglect Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1146365921051023382006-04-29T19:43:00.000-07:002006-04-29T19:58:41.090-07:00GARRY WILLS' "WHAT JESUS MEANT"Perhaps next blog I will post some additional comments about this book. There are a few things I did like about it. But one major thing I did not like. Below is copy of a letter I sent to the NY Times Book Review. Of course it was not printed. Here it is:Dear Editor:It has been several weeks since Jon Meacham's review of Garry Wills' "What Jesus Meant" appeared (MarLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1144519482836046232006-04-08T10:29:00.000-07:002006-04-08T11:04:42.890-07:00MICHAEL BAIGENT'S "THE JESUS PAPERS"I have not read his book, but I did hear him speak this past Wednesday, April 5, at St. Bart's in Manhattan. My basic impression was this: The historical Jesus may be the only subject about which you can hear a lecture and hear about everything but the historical Jesus. Baigent seems like a very nice guy and sincere, but the historical, Jewish Jesus is Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1142480885751906072006-03-15T19:15:00.000-08:002006-03-21T20:11:53.716-08:00WE ONLY KNOW WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYSThere are many ways of stating the first principle of science. The above is just one. It was the last blog that reminded me of this. I there quoted an author named Tony who did what most Gospel scholars do. He followed the exact opposite of scientific procedure and began with knowledge (e.g., "we know Judas was a traitor") and then in effect rewrote the Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1141499393681569062006-03-04T10:37:00.000-08:002006-03-04T11:09:57.600-08:00DO SCHOLARS HAVE THE RIGHT TO REWRITE THE GOSPELS?I would hope that is a rhetorical question. The trouble is that scholars do it all the time, so they certainly act as if their PhDs entitled them to do this. They particularly do it to "prove" that Jesus was surrounded by Jewish enemies. I discuss enough examples of this in my book. But it's always a shock to encounter yet another of seeminglyLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1140632277173500922006-02-22T10:03:00.000-08:002006-02-22T10:17:57.206-08:00"Sometimes I just get all hunkered up like a jackass in a hailstorm."LBJ said that. He may have been talking about his efforts to get civil rights laws passed or about a lot of things. It describes how I feel about trying to get people to start making sense about the historical, Jewish Jesus.In the last post, I mentioned that feminists scholars have been apologizing for injecting Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1138726814979987282006-01-31T08:42:00.000-08:002006-01-31T09:00:15.050-08:00FEMINIST THEOLOGY AND THE JEWISH JESUSSeemingly, nothing ever changes with every new development in Christian theology. It is well-known now that, when they first started out, Christian feminists repeated the anti-Jewish errors of the established male hierarchy. They argued that Jesus' attitude towards women was superior to anything in the Jewish culture of his time.Due to the criticisms of Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1134967609644065092005-12-18T20:05:00.000-08:002005-12-18T20:46:49.696-08:00THE RELUCTANT PARTINGIt is an exceptionally rare event when a good book about the Gospels comes out (and it will be an even rarer event if such a book ever has an impact on the scholarly world), but Julie Galambush's "The Reluctant Parting" (2005) gets just about everything right. While it is not about the historical Jesus (which is what I am always looking for), it does cover very well the Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1133035827672682182005-11-26T11:56:00.000-08:002005-11-26T12:10:27.690-08:00A BOOK FOR IDIOTS BY AN IDIOT(a premature advertising campaign)Everyone knows that Judas betrayed Jesus. Everyone knows that Jewish leaders considered Jesus a troublemaker and turned him over to Rome to be executed. Everyone knows the Gospels are terribly anti-Jewish and have nothing more to tell us.Who else but an idiot would challenge all this "knowledge"? Who would demand a closer look at the Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1131216926280237392005-11-05T10:14:00.000-08:002005-11-08T08:35:49.520-08:00A TIME TO DESPAIR? A TIME TO HOPE?It fascinates me that there is so little interest in the historical Jesus. Both among scholars and the general public. I say "fascinates" only because I need this intellectual distance to keep from giving in to full despair.And, of course, I mean genuine interest in genuine history. Most of what passes for historical interest is merely an attempt to assert Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1128892627646056572005-10-09T14:07:00.000-07:002005-10-09T14:17:07.686-07:00NO TIMEIt's a lot of work getting my book into final shape for publication. So I don't have much left over for blogging. I will say this here. I think there is extremely little genuine interest in the historical Jesus. Partly, it is out of fear that history is a threat to faith. Partly, it is the feeling that scholars keep saying the same things over and over again, and that same thing Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1125172933829908192005-08-27T12:51:00.000-07:002005-08-27T13:02:13.836-07:00JOSEPHUSI think Josephus is a fairly good historian of Jewish culture and Jewish-Roman relations in the first century. I believe he is mostly trustworthy, even though scholars frequently debate whether he was prejudiced in favor of the Romans or Jews, or in favor of Sadducees or Pharisees. Definite answers can be given on a case by case basis.But for centuries, it was mainly Christians who Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1122321155103074242005-07-25T12:41:00.000-07:002005-07-25T12:54:45.463-07:00RELIGION AND SCIENCEIf you have an interest in the relationship between science, religion, and morality, check out the "Religion and Science" link at right. It will take you to my friend Mark's blogspot.He asks some very provocative questions about these two branches of human endeavor. Could science use more spirituality? Could religion become as empirically and logically well-founded as science Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1120181671745459622005-06-30T18:18:00.000-07:002005-06-30T18:34:31.763-07:00THREE BOOKSNo time to do any blogging. Too busy getting my book ready for publication.I will just quickly recommend Paula Fredriksen's "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" (1999) and Hyam Maccoby's "Jesus the Pharisee" (2003). Both authors are Jewish and do a very good job on certain aspects of Jesus' Jewishness. As Maccoby notes, Jesus as a Pharisee is still out of bounds for most Christian Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1117476783534925092005-05-30T10:42:00.000-07:002005-05-30T11:13:03.556-07:00ELISABETH SCHUSSLER FIORENZAHere is my once-a-month book recommendation. It is Schussler Fiorenza's "Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation" (2000).If you are not fond of books that challenge mainstream scholarship, you will not like this book. If you do not like any sort of feminist critique of scholarship, you will not like this book. One critic found this book too harsh.On the other hand,Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1114832122822717382005-04-29T19:53:00.000-07:002005-04-29T20:35:22.826-07:00ON THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITYAs I thought, I'm pretty busy rewriting my book for publication, so I hardly have any time for even an occasional blog. But I thought that, perhaps once a month, I'd post something, maybe a book recommendation.This month: John Howard Yoder's "The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited" (2003). It's a collection of essays (most of which seem to be based on lectures or Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1112210259114825662005-03-30T11:14:00.000-08:002005-03-30T11:17:39.113-08:00CONTENTS FOR MARCHSince I seem to be on the way to publishing a book and have a lot of work to do, I am not sure how much time I will have for blogging but I will try to put up something occasionally.3/30 -- Particular Cases of Holocaust Rescue Efforts3/9 -- Some of the complicating factors of rescue effortsLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1112209638072368562005-03-30T10:27:00.000-08:002005-03-30T11:13:02.473-08:00PARTICULAR CASES OF HOLOCAUST RESCUE EFFORTS There is a lot to tell. I will relate only a couple here. Nechama Tec's "When Light Pierced the Darkness" (1986) is filled with examples. Given how many she tells, it's odd that one would stand out in my memory. We are all struck by different things.On the first page of Chapter 9 of her book, Tec mentions an old Polish Catholic peasant who had beenLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1110430012997679892005-03-09T19:36:00.000-08:002005-03-12T10:42:25.583-08:00RESCUE EFFORTS DURING THE HOLOCAUSTAnything that happens during wartime, including the rescue of Jews during WWII, is immensely complicated. It's a pressure cooker situation. People are forced to make choices they wouldn't face in ordinary life. There are some successes, some failures, and a whole lot of ambiguous cases in between -- maybe more than we realize.Some people think that we should Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1109543042328315272005-02-27T14:20:00.000-08:002005-02-27T14:24:02.330-08:00CONTENTS FOR FEBRUARY2/21 -- Further Thoughts on Christianity and the Holocaust2/12 -- The Holocaust and the Religious Connection2/4 -- The failure to look for the Jewish Jesus and the HolocaustThe first post in March, hopefully in a few days, will be on the efforts to rescue Jews during World War II.Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1109008345776961862005-02-21T08:23:00.000-08:002005-02-27T14:19:50.116-08:00FURTHER THOUGHTS ON CHRISTIANITY AND THE HOLOCAUSTFor the past two posts, I've been discussing some of the failures of Christianity towards Jews. The successes of Christians, particularly during the Holocaust, need to be discussed too. I'll save that for the next post. Here, I want to add a few remarks to what I've said before.Two posts back (Feb. 4), I stated my belief that if Christian Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1108237594954225622005-02-12T10:22:00.000-08:002005-02-15T09:52:14.723-08:00THE HOLOCAUST AND THE RELIGIOUS CONNECTIONThis is a follow-up to the previous post where I indicated that some people are so uncomfortable with the idea that religion had anything to do with the Holocaust that they proclaim the Holocaust was strictly a secular event. Their strongest case for this is that the extreme violence was not caused by religion. The Nazis felt that they had broken free Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1107538446000723422005-02-04T08:58:00.000-08:002005-02-04T09:34:06.000-08:00DID THE FAILURE TO SEARCH FOR THE HISTORICAL, JEWISH JESUS CONTRIBUTE IN ANY WAY TO THE HOLOCAUST?
It's a tough question, isn't it? It will make many people cringe. I admit it's open to a lot of speculation. There may not be one definitive answer. But it has to be explored.
What makes me ask it are the following what-ifs: What if 19th century scholars had taught people not to be afraid of Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1107120598491948052005-01-30T13:28:00.000-08:002005-01-30T13:29:58.490-08:00CONTENTS FOR JANUARY
1/23 -- What does John mean by "Ioudaioi"?
1/6 -- Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew (1380)Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1106505242887196302005-01-23T10:01:00.000-08:002005-01-23T10:34:02.886-08:00WHAT DOES JOHN MEAN BY "IOUDAIOI"?
"Ioudaioi" is usually translated as Jews, but it can also mean Judeans. John uses it more than any other Gospel and about the same amount as Acts -- i.e., about 70 times. In John, it is almost a pejorative term. He seems to demonize "Ioudaioi" ("You are of your father the devil", Jn 8:44) and constantly portrays them as extremely hostile towards Jesus.
It Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1105033592883483802005-01-06T09:00:00.000-08:002005-01-06T09:51:23.210-08:00SHEM-TOB'S HEBREW MATTHEW
In 1380, Shem-Tob ben-Isaac Shaprut, a Spanish-Jewish writer, wrote a polemical treatise against Christianity. In it, he preserved a Hebrew version of Matthew. Georger Howard has published the Hebrew text along with an English translation in "Hebrew Gospel of Matthew" (1995). He also has a later article on this, "Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew and Early Jewish Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1104529355911651572004-12-31T13:38:00.000-08:002004-12-31T13:42:35.910-08:00CONTENTS FOR DECEMBER
(The first week in January, I will probably post something about George Howard's work on the Shem Tob Matthew. This is a Hebrew version of Matthew from the 14th century, but probably much older.)
12/22 -- Time Machine - Would you want to travel back in time to meet the historical Jesus, if it were possible?
12/10 -- What We Don't Know About JesusLeonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1103775301302281752004-12-22T19:37:00.000-08:002004-12-22T20:15:01.303-08:00TIME MACHINE
Being this close to Christmas and New Year's, it seems as good a time as any to think about time travel. If a time machine were invented (or a window into the past whereby we could see what happened without interfering with anything), would you want to travel back to see the historical Jesus? I think the majority of churches would be vehemently opposed to doing any such thing. Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505942.post-1102702125976465512004-12-10T09:32:00.000-08:002004-12-10T10:08:45.976-08:00WHAT WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT JESUS
Many people think we know, if not everything about Jesus, at least all the essentials. I somehow doubt that. There have to be missing pieces. If his disciples knew him for only six months, there had to be some things he said that were left out. That is not six months worth of sayings we have in the Gospels, let alone a year's worth.
Imagine if any one Gospel Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309421171161805736noreply@blogger.com