Yes. Room to discuss. Beyond the kind of bumpersticker sentiments (“God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”) that are swallowed and then regurgitated so readily.
The Fundamentalist side is so decided on everything that there is no room for discussion. Things are either black or white, right or wrong. And all my perceptions of shades of gray are dismissed or feared.
So I’m knitting a pair of gray striped socks, with a purple stripe in the middle, for my black-and-white Fundamentalist father. Maybe he’ll start seeing in color?.. but I don’t have my hopes up.
Go Spong. And all those who question his questions, or his answers.
Jennie
There’s a ninth edition out that I haven’t read yet, but in scanning the reviews, it looks promising and even better than the earlier edition. The Ninth Edition added new case studies from the New World: the Maya and the Cherokee, and further expanded materials dealing with women in world religions.
A History of the Worlds Religions, 9th Ed.
David S. Noss, Heidelberg College, and the late John B. Noss
Table Of Contents:
I. SOME PRIMAL AND BYGONE RELIGIONS.
Religion in Prehistoric and Primal Cultures.
Bygone Religions That Have Left Their Mark on the West.
II. THE RELIGIONS OF SOUTH ASIA.
3. Early Hinduism: The Passage from Ritual Sacrifice to Mystical Union.
4. Later Hinduism: Religion as the Determinant of Social Behavior.
5. Jainism: A Study in Asceticism.
6. Buddhism in Its First Phase: Moderation in World Renunciation.
7. The Religious Development of Buddhism: Diversity in Paths to Nirvana.
8. Sikhism: A Study in Syncretism.
III. THE RELIGIONS OF EAST ASIA.
9. Native Chinese Religion and Daoism.
10. Confucius and Confucianism: A Study in Optimistic Humanism.
11. Shinto: The Native Contribution to Japanese Religion.
IV. THE RELIGIONS OF THE MIDDLE EAST.
12. Zoroastrianism: A Religion Based on Ethical Dualism.
13. Judaism in Its Early Phases: From Hebrew Origins to the Exile.
14. The Religious Development of Judaism.
15. Christianity in Its Opening Phase: The Words and Work of Jesus in Apostolic Perspective.
16. The Religious Development of Christianity.
17. Islam: The Religion of Submission to God: Beginnings.
18. The ShTah Alternative and Regional Developments.
I disagree. Many (most?) of the worlds religions are related to one another, or have similar or identical origins (such as Islam, Judaism and Christianity) and that alone requires at least basic knowledge of the other faiths - things tie in in more areas than many people realize. The similarities are often much more significant than the differences.
Well, we keep hoping, but so far he seems determined to stick around, even though he’s supposedly retired. What I can’t figure out is why he’s never been given the boot, or at least required to write as an individual rather than slugging all his books with “a bishop speaks out on…”. The latter gives the impression that he’s offering the stance of the church on these issues, which he most emphatically is not.
The book is loaded with historical facts behind the creation of a religion. Just to give you an idea of how thick it is–chapters 14, 15, and 16 [Judaism-Christianity] is nearly 200 pages long in the 6th edition…with small print and large pages. Many pictures of original documents also. It’s a university level text book, but still very readable and enjoyable. Every chapter has a section called Suggestions for Further Reading, which includes the author, the book, where and when it was printed. Chapter 16 alone lists nearly 50 other books for further reading.
I’m sure the 9th edition [1994] includes many more of the latest books. Lots of related books have been written since the 1980, 6th edition.
I was never a Baptist (an extraordinarily diverse group of denominations, btw), but I hold that Scripture is to be understood in the light of Faith, Tradition, and Reason.
The scholors of the JS are exceptionally great thinkers in a Voltaire kind of way.
I’ve read three of Crossan’s books and I’ve enjoyed them all. Yet he falls short of simple faith that Jesus was what he claimed to be. To bad, because he opened my eyes to aspects of the living human Jesus I had never thought of. I’d also like to read Spong’s book on the Jewishness of Jesus.
Be that as it may, the Jesus Seminar is about discrediting as much as possible based on as much of their own dogma as any 2000 year old tradition.
They throw out anything in the Bible dealing with miracles, divine inspiration, atoning sacrifice, salvation through faith/grace and basically anything that isn’t scientific or doesn’t fit their sense of logic. They leave nothing to faith. They do an excellent job of capturing what might be the reality of the human Jesus of Nazareth but dismiss any possibility of a divine Christ.
And contrary to what many may believe, this isn’t anything new or groundbreaking. It’s as old and tiresome as a M.A.S.H rerun.
I said I’d send the Yancy book. You don’t have to dismiss everything to weed out the garbage that’s accumulated over the years.
I think that’s a bit misleading. The method the Jesus Seminar uses to “decide” what Jesus said or didn’t say is that they vote. That’s not exactly research. Now, it is true that they are all Bible scholars and the research all of them have participated in impacts how they vote.
The JS is largely out of the mainstream of Biblical scholarship. The mainstream of Biblical scholarship is NOT about the business of supporting the idea that Jesus literally and specifically said and did everything attributed to him in the Gospels. But, I think most would regard the JS as being highly motivated by the idea that the Church has distorted Christ, and, accordingly, particularly lacking in objectivity. Many of the critics of the JS have also suggested that they are fairly publicity-hungry
