by Ed Pettibone » Fri May 09, 2014 3:02 pm
Ed: Sandy as so often is the case, when reading your last two post and starting to think, well Sandy has it right this time and then I get to the disparagement of Fox in the first version and then in the second you sound quite arrogant in your critique of Biblical scholars of non Christian traditions, when you say " It is quite clear that the idea of turning an itinerant, non-conformist Rabbi Jesus into the Messiah, savior and Son of God, could not have developed during the twenty years or so between the occurrence of the events, and the writing of the first gospel account, probably the Q document. Pushing that view into a discussion, and calling it genuine dialogue is nothing more than warmed over tripe. To call that a scholarly discussion is to defame the term "scholarly."
The article only defames those Christian students of scripture who are unwilling to rationally discuss the subject except on their own terms. A non christian and some Christians will read your "It is quite clear that the idea of turning an itinerant, non-conformist Rabbi Jesus into the Messiah, savior and Son of God, could not have developed during the twenty years or so between the occurrence of the events,..." and call it wishful thinking and move on with out you, unless and until you make a creditable case for it being "imposable" for it to have occurred as they believe. Note that I make a distinction between students of Scripture and Scholars who study Scripture.
Far to often we Christians ( note: I include myself) want to quote our spiritual "Cliff Notes" and declare them to override what ever objections to our belief system that come our along. A strong problem to that approach is that the Scholars we attempt to persuade, too often have already read those same Cliff Notes.