DOCSLIB.ORG

Secular Humanism Is Said to Depend on Five

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Secular Humanism Is Said to Depend on Five REVIEWS that Kurtz's "godless" ideal can only unaware of its existence? of church and state" meant only a bar lead to amorality, yet never discuss the In Mind Siege, secular humanism is on establishing a national religion. It's a fully realized humanist code of ethics said to depend on five principles— breath-taking compendium of all the and moral behavior that inform Kurtz's Atheism, Evolution, Amorality, Auton- pseudo-historical doublespeak Relig- voluminous writings. LaHaye and omy, and Globalism—each of which ious Right ideologues have flung since Noebel base their gross misinterpreta- LaHaye and Noebel subject to a simplis- organized prayer and Bible reading tion of secular humanism on an incom- tic attack. The authors belittle evolution- were evicted from public schools in the plete reading—and a dishonest analy- ary theory by suggesting it is only a con- early 1960s. sis—of a handful of its texts. They call venient tool to help atheists justify their LaHaye and Noebel yearn for a future America where abortion is illegal, where homosexuals cannot marry or adopt, where evolution is replaced by creation- Secular Humanism is said to depend ism, and where the immoral teachings of the Old and New Testaments become the on five principles—Atheism, Evolution, law of the land—in other words, a theoc- racy so vile as to make the ones early Amorality, Autonomy, and Globalism. Americans fled from seem downright democratic. In the end, is it really so important what one very popular evangelist author the three Humanist Manifestoes "the nonbelief in God. About amorality, the and his literary sidekick du jour have Bibles of humanism" and claim they authors warn, "If you believe that man is to say? Will Mind Siege influence many are binding on every secular humanist. an animal, you will expect him to act like minds? Secular humanists dare not In fact, Humanist Manifesto (HM-I) one." Unfortunately they never talk underestimate that possibility. No less (1933), Humanist Manifesto II (HM- about the fact that humans, under alle- disconcerting, some of the minds influ- II) (1976), and Humanist Manifesto giance to this or that God or religion, enced by Mind Siege might themselves 2000 (HM-2000) were each composed have murdered countless members of command great influence already. Mind as documents for their time, and some- their own species and others over the Siege's dust jacket quotes two of times offer conflicting recommend- millennia. They do not mention that them: U.S. Senator Tim Hutchinson of ations. In any case, most real-world human morality and ethics developed Arkansas ("the struggle with the humanists barely know what's in any of long before modern religions were born. Secular Humanism for the soul of the them! LaHaye and Noebel quote inter- Likewise, the authors' attacks on auton- American culture is as real as ever") changeably from all three Manifestoes, omy and globalism—two ideals surely and Congressman Mark Souder of yet never mention A Secular Human- required if we are to survive the next mil- Indiana ("We are now at the barricades ist Declaration (1980). Like HM-II and lennium—seem little more than veils for in what may be the last days of the HM-2000, the Declaration was draft- authoritarianism, jingoism, and bigotry. moral values upon which our nation is ed by their favorite antagonist, Paul Next comes a purposely distorted anchored"). Unpack that mixed meta- Kurtz. Like HM-2000, it was publish- review of American history designed to phor later, but read Mind Siege for a ed by the Council for Secular Human- show that the Founding Fathers were revealing glimpse into the minds of our ism. Why do LaHaye and Noebel seem uniformly religious and that "separation opponents. f 8 The host recommended the book to AQUARIAN SKEPTIC viewers along with Earl Doherty's mas- terful The Jesus Puzzle and Acharya S's THE CHRIST The Christ Conspiracy. CONSrIRACY The i.rcatc„ tta,+, Robert M. Price "Acharya S" is of course a pseudo- ~r nym. The author's original name (to be The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold, by Acharya S used throughout the rest of this review since otherwise I wind up playing her (Adventures Unlimited Press, 1999, ISBN 0-932813-74-7) 431 pp. Paper game) is D. Murdock. "Acharya" means $14.95. Robert M. Price is director of the Center hose of us who uphold any ver- chagrin to be lumped together with cer- for Inquiry New Jersey/New York City, sion of the controversial Christ tain writers with whom we share the professor of biblical criticism at the TMyth theory find ourselves imme- Christ Myth but little else. For instance, Center for Inquiry Institute, and chair diately the object not just of criticism, recently I was interviewed on television of the Committee for the Scientific but even of ridicule. And it causes us about my book Deconstructing Jesus. Examination of Religion. free inquiry http://www.secularhumanism.org preceptor, teacher, guru. the blue-skinned Krishna, and Dionysus. want it to be too easy for them. It will surprise no one that a book Is there any basis to these claims, which When Murdock speaks of the "Christ which uses words like plagiarize and Murdock just drops like a ton of bricks? Conspiracy," she means it. She really pilfer to describe biblical borrowings Again, she does not explain where they believes that "people got together and from ancient mythology, and which cas- come from, much less why no available cooked up" early Christianity like a net- tigates all the early Christian theolo- book on Buddha, Krishna, or Dionysus work sitcom. And who were these con- gians as "psychotics," pure and simple, contains a crucifixion account. spirators? The, er, Masons (pp. 334 ft). will turn out to be sophomoric. That is Suffice it to say her sources confuse It is remarkable how and where some not to say it does not offer the reader a Buddha with both hidra and Kama and people's historical skepticism comes wealth of fascinating information, but count being pinned to a tree by an arrow crashing to a halt. it's all secondhand. Murdock has read as a crucifixion. And Dionysus' title But it gets much, much weirder than widely in the shadowy world of what I "tree youth" has nothing to do with cru- that. We start, in the last chapters, like to call Extreme Biblical Studies, cifixion, but rather with his seasonally reading bits and pieces drawn from books written by mainly nineteenth-cen- renewing the life of trees. If we want to James Churchward, promoter of the tury eccentrics, freethinkers, and know more, we must delve into her foot- imaginary lost continent of Mu; Charles theosophists, kept available today in notes, and then into their footnotes. Berlitz, apologist for sunken Atlantis; coarsely manufactured reprint editions Having done so, I can report that the Zechariah Sitchen, advocate of flying by obscure publishers. These delightful reality is far more ambiguous than saucers in ancient Akkadia; and of books are game preserves of otherwise Murdock thinks. As I try to show in course all that stuff about the maps of extinct theories, some deservedly dead, Deconstructing Jesus, the parallels to the ancient sea kings. The Christ others simply never widely known. the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Conspiracy is a random bag of (main- Murdock's book shares their faults as are much more strongly attested among ly recycled) eccentricities, some few of well as their virtues. She is quick to ancient Middle Eastern and Medit- them worth considering, most danger- state as bald fact what turn out to be, erranean religions (the myths of ously shaky, many outright looney. If once one chases down her sources, Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris). It is one has the time, it is fun trying to sort either wild speculation or complex infer- a matter of urgency with me to draw dis- them out. ence from a chain of complicated data tinctions between the two groups of But no one whose disquiet with tradi- open to many interpretations. alleged parallels, because advocacy of tional Christian faith is based on solid One of the most intriguing claims the tenuous Buddha/Krishna/Dionysus fact or credible theorizing will want to made repeatedly in these books is that crucifixion invites Christian apologists recommend this book, much less appeal among the mythical predecessors of to tar the Tammuz/Adonis/Attis/Osiris to it as justification for one's own Jesus as a crucified god were the Buddha, parallels with the same brush. I don't doubts. f © (Letters tont' from p. 29) doesn't include training death squads as of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 55, no. 6, the United States has done. pp. 42-45) have surveyed publicly avail- Brian Siano able studies and have employed scientif- and enabled this most ruthless element to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ic calculations in an attempt to put the seize power. (Remember that the Left had controversy into perspective. The opposed this bombing in the first place.) detailed calculations were published in And outside of a few fringe Maoist circles, Science and Global Security, vol. 8, no. Pol Pot enjoyed no support from the Depleted Uranium 2 (1999). The results clearly show that American Left in 1975. But from 1978 on, the radioactivity levels due to the use of Pol Pot did receive diplomatic and mater- Dangers DU munitions are far too low to cause the ial support from the Carter and Reagan teratogenic horrors described by Mr. administrations—only after an invasion As a scientist and an Associate Member Raimondo.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Jesus Puzzle.Pdf
    THE JESUS PUZZLE A Novel About the Greatest Question of Our Time by Earl Doherty “As an historian, I do not know for certain that Jesus really existed, that he is anything more than the figment of some overactive imaginations. In my view, there is nothing about Jesus of Nazareth that we can know beyond any possible doubt. In the mortal life we have there are only probabilities. And the Jesus that scholars have isolated in the ancient gospels, gospels that are bloated with the will to believe, may turn out to be only another image that merely reflects our deepest longings.” Robert W. Funk, Jesus Seminar Founder and Co-Chair (From The Fourth R, January-February 1995, page 9) Chapter One 1 The conference room at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa was the size of a basketball court. The 40-odd players in the game being played on this particular day occupied the center space, while spectators were ranged in bleachers around three sides. The hoops, however, were metaphorical, and the balls being bounced across the court were finely-tuned arguments and quotations from scripture. Only one team commanded the court floor: the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar, vanguards in a renewed quest to discover the true nature, the genuine historical words and deeds, of the most influential figure in the history of the world. This was a quest, over the last two centuries, which had had lives as numerous as the many-headed Hydra. When one bit the dust under the slash of new discoveries and the ongoing advance of modern enlightenment, another sprang up in its place.
    [Show full text]
  • Casey's Superfluous
    Chapter 3 Casey’s Superfluous ‘Scholarship’ Ehrman’s book arguing for what is already the consensus view is so under- whelming that the now late Maurice Casey found it necessary to also weigh in on the debate, with what would be his last book, Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? Casey added nothing useful to the discussion, but for com- pleteness, the only other book of recent times written by a secular New Testa- ment specialist arguing for the Historical Jesus ought to be considered. With this book published in 2014, Casey acknowledges Ehrman’s “bold attempt”, but alluded to the latter’s “regrettable mistakes”.1 Casey aims to primarily “set out the main arguments for the existence as a historical figure of Jesus”, and secondarily, to refute the claims of the opposing mythicists.2 Regrettably, he completely misrepresents mythicism, mythicists, and mythicist approaches, and, like Ehrman, seems to completely overlook the more defensible agnostic position. Beginning rather poorly, Casey fails to outline his own method, and, like Ehrman, he also relies heavily on hypothetical sources. He defends against the problem of Paul, though somewhat unnecessarily, as he argues for the Gospels’ primacy by employing radically unorthodox dating methods. Casey finally at- tempts to engage with mythicist claims, though he focuses on the more ama- teurish mythicists, with barely a coherent word about Earl Doherty, who at the time had presented one of the most convincing cases for mythicism thus far (despite technically being an amateur himself). The tone of Casey’s work is also unprofessional and, at times, quite crude.
    [Show full text]
  • The ZEITGEIST Sourcebook Part 1: the Greatest Story Ever Told
    The ZEITGEIST Sourcebook Part 1: The Greatest Story Ever Told Peter Joseph and D.M. Murdock Preface As one of the main sources for the religion part of the first ―ZEITGEIST‖ film, which has been viewed evidently over 100 million times worldwide, I have spent the past several years defending this ―Part 1‖ and bringing forth its sources into the light of day. I have written not only a number of articles and ebooks but also a nearly 600-page book, Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection, elucidating upon these sources, highlighting the very profound correspondences between Christianity and the ancient Egyptian religion. I have also done a number of videos and audio recordings on this subject as well. When Peter Joseph asked me to help out on this lengthy project, I readily agreed, even though the material contained herein had already been validated repeatedly in my other efforts. In this day and age, it is obvious that many people are not inclined or available time wise to read large tomes of scholarly writings in order to ―figure it all out.‖ This fact of time-constraint as well as difficulty in subject matter is the major reason ―ZEITGEIST‖ was so successful in the first place, as it provided a short and easily digestible summary of the issue at hand: To wit, the origins of some of our most cherished religious ideas. So, here we have put together a resource that is hopefully more readily available to all who are interested but find it difficult and time- consuming to wade through huge chunks of information.
    [Show full text]
  • The Fabrication of the Christ Myth #Harold Leidner
    The Fabrication of the Christ Myth #Harold Leidner Harold Leidner #Survey Books, 1999 #The Fabrication of the Christ Myth #1999 #0967790107, 9780967790107 # file download zyg.pdf 1926 #ISBN:0879758503 #150 pages #In these three classic essays--"The Forgery of the Old Testament", "The Myth of Immortality", and "Lies of Religious Literature"--ex-priest Joseph McCabe exposes the #Religion #Joseph McCabe #The Forgery of the Old Testament, and Other Essays Myth The Fabrication of the Christ Myth pdf file Tim C. Leedom #446 pages #Religion #Jan 1, 1993 #ISBN:0939040158 #The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read download Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth #29 pages #John G. Jackson #Jun 1, 1985 #Religion #NWU:35556016927394 ISBN:0968601405 #Earl Doherty #1999 #380 pages #Fiction #Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? #The Jesus Puzzle pdf file The Fabrication of the Christ Myth pdf download The Christ Myth #First published in 1910, The Christ Myth drew violent criticism from theologians, the press, and the public. Eminent German philosopher Arthur Drews (1865-1935) reacts to the #1911 #Arthur Drews #304 pages #ISBN:9781615924530 #Religion the Lerone Bennett #Abraham Lincoln's White Dream #652 pages #Forced Into Glory #2000 #ISBN:0874850851 #History #Offers an alternative view of Abraham Lincoln's views of race, arguing that Lincoln believed in white supremacy and opposed the basic principle of the Emancipation Proclamation Lewis Spence #Superb, in-depth survey explores animism, totemism, fetishism, creation myths, Egyptian priesthood, numerous deities, alchemy, Egyptian art and magic, other fascinating topics #Ancient Egyptian Myths and Legends #Social Science #369 pages #1990 #ISBN:0486265250 The ISBN:9781770642737 #Finding The Still Point (Hardcover) 444 pages #Chinese Traditions & Universal Civilization #ISBN:0822320479 #Lionel M.
    [Show full text]
  • O Último Livro
    Crítica as Religiões 1 CRÍTICA AS RELIGIÕES Copyright © 2020 by José Pedro Cariboni Moreno Todos os direitos reservados. Nenhuma parte desta obra poderá ser reproduzida ou transmitida por qualquer forma e/ou quaisquer meios (eletrônico ou mecânico, incluindo fotocópia e gravação) ou arquivada em sistema ou banco de dados sem a permissão, por escrito, do autor. Depósito legal: Biblioteca Nacional ISBN: 978- 85-540442-6-8 Criação de capa e diagramação de miolo: José Pedro Cariboni José Pedro Cariboni Moreno - Jopeu Crítica as Religiões 2 Crítica as Religiões Para compreender a História 1a edição Rio de Janeiro, RJ Primavera de 2020 Dedico este livro minha esposa Renata. Que com sua dedicação brindou-me a paz e tranquilidade que fizeram possível escrevê-lo. José Pedro Cariboni Moreno - Jopeu Crítica as Religiões 3 Índice Crítica as Religiões.............................................................5 A Contradição que te impede de ver a Deus.............9 As Religiões.............................................................11 A Religião Cristã...........................................................13 História do Cristianismo...............................................14 O Primeiro Crime.....................................................14 Papas Criminosos - Fraudadores............................17 A Inquisição do Cristianismo....................................21 A Noite de São Bartolomeu......................................28 Os Hussitas..............................................................29 Francisco de Assis...................................................31
    [Show full text]
  • On the Historicity of Jesus
    On the Historicity of Jesus By Richard Carrier © 2014 Section-by-Section Bibliography for Text-to-Speech Rendering to Assist the Visually Impaired - - - For each section of the book you will find below the sources and scholarship relied upon, stripped out of the book in sequential order. Not included are the following works of mine that I referenced often enough that they should just be consulted in their entirety (heeding my remark that my views or conclusions on some points may have changed): Richard Carrier, Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2012). Richard Carrier, Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn’t Need a Miracle to Succeed (Raleigh, NC: Lulu.com, 2009). Other than that, everything that follows is divided by section of the book in which it received a footnoted reference. Note that sometimes Bible verses are cited as evidence in the text and not the footnotes. Those won’t be reproduced here, and might not have been read out in the audio either. - - - Chapter 1, Section 1: Mark Goodacre, The Case against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 2002). Page !1 of !131 Richard Carrier, ‘Flash! Fox News Reports That Aliens May Have Built the Pyramids of Egypt!’, Skeptical Inquirer 23 (September–October 1999) (see www.csicop.org/si/9909/ fox.html). Richard Carrier, ‘Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahistoricity’, The Secular Web (2002) at www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/jesuspuzzle.html. - - - Chapter 1, Section 2: Robert Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans: 2000).
    [Show full text]
  • Class 3A HOW MUCH SKEPTICISM IS WARRANTED? the MYTHICAL VIEW of JESUS
    Class 3a HOW MUCH SKEPTICISM IS WARRANTED? THE MYTHICAL VIEW OF JESUS Outline § Early & Current Mythicists § Reactions to Mythicism by NT Scholars § Mythicism Run Amok § The Basic Mythicist Position § An Initial Rejoinder Early Mythicists § 1791 – Constantin François Volney ú all religions are at heart the same ú Christians invented variant on sun-god tradition (Krishna) § 1795 – Charles-François Dupuis ú a more influential work in the same vein ú Jesus a variant on sun-god theme § 1840-1877 – Bruno Bauer ú A New Testament scholar ú Gospel authors invented Jesus ú Christianity an amalgamation of Judaism and Roman Stoicism 1 Early Mythicists § 1900 – J. M. Robertson ú Jesus like fertility gods ú death and resurrection myths mimic nature cycles ú Jesus may have existed, but he was nothing like the dying-rising Christ that Christians made him § 1909 – Arthur Drews ú Jesus was not a real historical figure ú Lenin was convinced; myth theory popular in Soviet Union Current Mythicists § 2009 – Earl Doherty ú Jesus: Neither God nor Man (2009) • no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed • Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure • the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction • no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition § 2003-2011 – Robert Price ú The Incredible Shrinking Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? (2003) ú The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems (2011) Current Mythicists § 2005 – Thomas L. Thompson ú The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David (2005) • Hebrew Bible scholar and famous “minimalist” • King David and Jesus never existed • Christians invented savior figure from precedents and stories in Jewish scriptures § 2014 – Richard Carrier ú On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (2014) 2 Current Mythicists A Variation on the Thesis Jesus existed, but he was not the founder of Christianity.
    [Show full text]
  • Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories—A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources
    Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies Volume 6 Number 1 Spring 2015 Article 5 2015 Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories—A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources Raphael Lataster University of Sydney Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/imwjournal Recommended Citation Lataster, Raphael "Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories—A Brief Pseudo- Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources." Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies 6, no. 1 (2015). https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/imwjournal/vol6/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 63 IMW Journal of Religious Studies Vol. 6:1 Raphael Lataster is a professionally secular PhD researcher at the University of Sydney (Studies in Religion) and teaches on religion at various institutions. His main research interests include Philosophy of Religion, Christian origins, logic, Bayesian reasoning, sustainability, and alternative god-concepts such as pantheism and pandeism. He is also an avid rock climber. Raphael Lataster: Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories 64 ‡ Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories—A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources1 ‡ There have been recent efforts to introduce Bayes’
    [Show full text]
  • Rompecabezas Jesús
    Frank R. Zindler Earl Doherty Acharya S ¿Existió Jesús de Nazaret? Ensayos en los que se cuestiona la historicidad de Jesucristo Traducidos por Andrés Fco. Jiménez Sánchez. Sobre los autores Frank R. Zindler , antiguo profesor universitario de biología y geología, es ahora un divulgador científico y lingüista especializado en lenguas antiguas, y miembro de la American Association for the Advancement of Science [Asociación Americana para el Avance de la Ciencia ], la New York Academy of Science [ Academia de la Ciencia de Nueva York ], la Society of Biblical Literature [ Sociedad de Literatura Bíblica ], y las American Schools of Oriental Research [ Escuelas Americanas de Investigación Oriental ]. Además, es el director de la editorial American Atheist Press y editor de American Atheist Magazine [La revista del ateo americano] ( N. del T. ). Es autor de numerosos artículos —algunos de ellos disponibles en la dirección http://www.atheists.org/christianity/ — sobre temas relacionados con el ateísmo, el creacionismo, la historicidad de Jesús, los orígenes del cristianismo, el debate ciencia vs. religión, etcétera. También ha escrito varios libros sobre esta temática, destacando una edición especial anotada de la tercera parte de La edad de la razón de Thomas Paine, la colección de aforismos Dial-An- 1 Atheist Greatest Hits from Ohio [ Llama a un ateo . Grandes éxitos desde Ohio ] y The Jesus the Jews Never Knew [ El Jesús al que los judíos nunca conocieron ]. Earl Doherty está licenciado en Historia e Idiomas clásicos y es miembro de la Asociación
    [Show full text]
  • The Bible, Sophia and the Feminine
    Dr. Keith Lloyd Kent State University Stark [email protected] Mythos consists of the stories, Of all the cultural mythos that words, and surround us, the gendered ones images we seem the most prevalent, powerful, use to fit the facts of and “natural.” the world to experience. The Christian faith emerged within a gendered mythos and its theology We often aren’t and philosophy adapted to and aware of shaped them. our own mythos … Then, and now, believers struggle with how gender and theology can I grew up in a home with pretty strict gender boundaries… work positively together. Dad worked long hours and was the enforcer. Mom taught piano, cooked, and All of this is embodied the figures of cleaned. Sophia and Shekinah. My older sister lorded over me and worried about boys and hair. And me, I didn’t seem to fit… Philo “drew on the figure of Wisdom from Judaism’s own intermediary theology… In some biblical and extra-biblical writings, Wisdom, a personified aspect of God, was an agent of creation and salvation, pre-existent with God in heaven. Philo occasionally makes her mother to the Logos. But such language seems to be symbolic only. Certainly, Philo envisioned no incarnation of this “Son” to earth.” Earl Doherty The Jesus Puzzle Supplementary Article No. 5 TRACING THE CHRISTIAN LINEAGE IN ALEXANDRIA The divine Logos is son of God and Wisdom God for father, who is as well Father of all things, and for mother Wisdom, through whom all things came into genesis; De Prof., § 20; M. i.
    [Show full text]
  • 4.19. Did Jesus Exist?
    Supplement to Introducing the New Testament, 2nd ed. © 2018 by Mark Allan Powell. All rights reserved. 4.19 Did Jesus Exist? The great majority of Jesus historians have one thing in common: they believe that there actually was a historical person behind all the stories and teachings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth in the Bible (and other documents). Even if they question the accuracy of some (or most) of those accounts, even if they believe the historical reality of Jesus to have been quite different than what Christian faith would make of him, they at least believe that there was a historical reality. Not everyone believes this. Around the edges of historical Jesus scholarship there have always been a few individuals who question the basic premise that Jesus existed1 and that position continues to have its advocates today.2 These people are not taken very seriously within the guild of historians; their work is usually dismissed as pseudo-scholarship that is dependent upon elaborate conspiracy theories and rather obviously motivated by anti-Christian polemic.3 Indeed, many of the people who espouse the “Jesus never existed” thesis (e.g., on various websites) are not scholars in the traditional sense; they are self-taught amateurs who sometimes seem unaware of any critical, academic approach to evaluating the historicity of Jesus traditions. They often seem to assume that the only alternative to denying the historical existence of Jesus would be to accept everything the Bible reports about him as straightforward historical fact.4 But “many” is not all—there have been scholars who have Supplement to Introducing the New Testament, 2nd ed.
    [Show full text]
  • Review Article Resurrecting Christianities: Critical Theories and Constructive Postcolonial, Postmodern Christianities
    ATR/87:2 Review Article Resurrecting Christianities: Critical Theories and Constructive Postcolonial, Postmodern Christianities Sharon V. Betcher* Anyone working in constructive theology surely knows the age of epistemological positivism is over, such that something more than qualifying our proofs positive of a historical Jesus is at stake in the teaching of Christology. As Christians we live within the public humil- iation of Christianity—within the decades consequent to its imbrica- tion with racism, sexism, colonialism, and (especially poignant for us in Western Canada) cultural genocide, while currently the public face of Christianity has been assumed as a front for North America’s “war against terrorism.” Given the ways in which each of these structures of exclusion pivoted upon a Christological conviction, critical theories, like the practice of confession, prevent us from simply burying our sins under the insecurities of our present time. Critical theories help us remediate the ways in which our Christologies, our sacred imagi- nals, have been imbricated with structural oppression and the ways in which, without remediation of our symbolic imaginal, we will, among other things, metabolize these Christologies of imperial-colonial power and oedipalized disconnection from sentience. For these rea- sons as well as for reasons of a theologian’s own intellectual integrity and ethical responsibility, the Christological curriculum needs to be brought into conversation with critical theories. But that said, the practice of critical theory can, in the theological classroom, be felt as yet one more, even the final and most vulnerable, challenge to any hope of religious entrustment to life. Theology stu- dents, if not Christians in the world at large, can—given the ingress of modernity and their own desire for ontological security—reach for a foundationalist approach to religion, for biblical positivism or literal- * Sharon V.
    [Show full text]