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To: alt.religion.christian,talk.atheism,talk.origins,talk.religion.misc From: mls@panix.com (Michael L. Siemon) Subject: Re: Journey of the Magi Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 00:47:54 -0500 In article <59mpiq$id@weld.news.pipex.net>, carrs@dial.pipex.com (Steven Carr) wrote: +You seem to have just insulted hundreds of millions of Muslims. Are +you suggesting that the Islamic account of Jesus breathing life into a +clay bird is ridiculous? Ummmm, with respect to the ill-treatment of Salman Rushdie, I have no hesitation insulting hundreds of millions of Muslims, anymore than I have (as a Christian) insulting a probably even greater number of Christians, with honest comment on pious nonsense. There is *no* good reason why piety should impose an absolute silence on critical thought. Piety (and the avoidance of awkward questions in inappropriate circum- stancces) has some claim in limited contexts (e.g. Sunday School -- though even there I would hope for honesty both in presentation of the material, and *most especially* in addressing questions.) It *does* seem to be the case that Muhammad was operating in the sub- popular reflex of some decidedly peculiar popular enthusiasms of the early Christian movement -- there are scads of things like the bird- thingy picked up in the Koran in the 2nd and 3rd century popular xtian literature (one early example being the Paul and Thecla garbage, others being the numerous magic-infested "gospels" with silly stories about Jesus. The Koranicmentions of Isa are, indeed, relatively chaste in their adoption of these things.) There is nothing in Christianity (or in Islam) that demands one take such silliness as divine truth. Even the rather sloppy critical sense that admitted late epistles as if they were from Paul or Peter was good enough to disdain the romantic-magical crap (that was in popular circu- lation) from the Christian canon. +It would be interesting to know when Thomas was written. Yes, it would. Note that this text is a rather different thing than the romantic crap discussed above (although it has a heavy agenda of its own, dominating in much of the extant material, and no very good reason to take that agenda as particularly early or authentic.) There are no "pretty" miracle stories, for example. What we *have* there is a scattering of 3rd century Greek _logoi_ and a "full" text in Coptic from ~200 years later, which has at least a *claim* of connection to authentic Jesus _logoi_. A claim worthy of note, but not necessarily of the over-eager embrace it has received in some circles (the "Jesus Seminar" for example, which seems to abandon all pretense to critical scholarship in its desire to place a 5th century document on the same level as the gospels. That it *should* enter, as critical control on the gospels, is obvious; there seems often to be a short-circuit from this point in the publications of the JS. I am entirely willing to believe that there is authentic tradition in Thomas -- but how does one extract this from the sectarian [and late!] invention? The problem is the *same* one as that of extracting echt-Jesus from community stuff in the canonical gospels -- with a later text and one that is not as well [if at all!] connected to any known social and ecclesial context. Insofar as the Gospel of Thomas adds -- case by case -- to specific argument about specific points of early Christain belief, or of Jesus' preaching, it is of the similar value [and subject to similar skepticism] as any random verse of the canonical NT. With, as I said above, the added problem of being testimony extant only centuries later than the testimony it must be used with.) Historiography is (or should be) a nearly universal solvent of enthusiasms about documents (like the Gospel of Thomas, equally with its application to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.) -- Michael L. Siemon mls@panix.com Awaslah jabberwok adek, rahang mengigit, kuku tangkap; Awaslah pun burong jubjub, dan ferumi bandersenap.
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