Este post foi escrito por Jim West, o mais animado biblioblogueiro

The Dis-Integration of the “Biblioblogging” Community

Será que Jim tem razão? Leia o texto. Vamos debater.

…The “biblioblogging” community qua community is either dead or breathing its last. Mind you, I don’t think biblioblogging itself is dead. Quite the contrary – there are many bloggers interested in Biblical Studies. But qua community, as an inter-related, convivial, dialoguing entity – it has ceased to be. Why? (cont.)

O Evangelho de Judas e O Código Da Vinci: uma dupla do barulho

“Código Da Vinci” é obsessão pela verdade, diz Hanks

“Demônio” está por trás de filme “Código Da Vinci”, diz cardeal

Gospel of Judas Again

More Details on the Discovery of the Gospel of Judas from the New York Times

Presidente da CNBB fala sobre O Código Da Vinci – leia na Folha de S. Paulo.

O Novo Testamento foi escrito por pessoas humildes

The Archbishop of Canterbury: the NT was written by people who made themselves less powerful, not more

 

Easter Day Sermon 2006 – Conspiracy Theories Don’t Match Up to the Truth of the Gospel

Sunday 16th April 2006

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has dismissed claims that newly-discovered ancient texts and fascinating conspiracy theories can undermine the truth of the Gospel.

In his Easter Sunday sermon, delivered at Canterbury Cathedral this morning, Dr Williams says that the discovery of the Coptic text of a ‘Gospel of Judas’ and the excitement generated by the publication of The Da Vinci Code might appeal to people’s sense of mystery but don’t match up to the real challenges posed by the truth of the resurrection or the evidence of transformed lives across the world.

“The Bible is not the authorised code of a society managed by priests and preachers for their private purposes but the set of human words through which the call of God is still uniquely immediate to human beings today; human words with divine energy behind them.”

“The disciples really meet Jesus as he always was, flesh and blood – yet at first they don’t recognise him, and he’s something more than just flesh and blood. At the moment of recognition, when bread is broken, when the wounds of crucifixion are displayed, he withdraws again, leaving us floundering for words.”

Conspiracies have their appeal, he says, and people have become used to asking cynical questions:

“We have become so suspicious of the power of words … the first assumption we make is that we’re faced with spin of some kind, with an agenda being forced on us. So that the modern response to the proclamation ‘Christ is Risen!’ is likely to be, ‘Ah, but you would say that, wouldn’t you? Now what’s the real agenda?'”

“Anything that looks like the official version is automatically suspect. Someone is trying to stop you finding out what ‘really’ happened, because what really happened could upset or challenge the power of officialdom.”

The New Testament account doesn’t fit this model he says:

“It was written by people who, by writing what they did made themselves less powerful, not more. They were walking out into an unmapped territory, away from the safe places of political and religious influence … it was written by people who were still trying to find a language that would catch up with a reality bigger than they had expected.”

“Whatever this is, it is not about cover-ups, not about the secret agenda of power; it may be nonsense to you, it may be unreal to you, but don’t be deceived about the nature of the message and those who lived it out in the days when the New Testament was being written.”

Dr Williams adds that praying and suffering Christians across the world are a continuing testament to the truth of the resurrection.

“If we want to know what it is about today, we need to turn to the people who are taking the same risks, struggling with the same mystery. We need to look at the martyrs and the mystics. There are still those who tell us about God in Jesus Christ by lives of intense and mostly wordless prayer.”

“Still more important there are those who tell us about God in Jesus Christ by putting their lives at risk. There are places in our world where conversion to Christianity is literally a matter of putting your life on the line. We have all been following the story of Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan and we know that his story is not unique. We can say with absolute certainty that whatever the gospel means in circumstances like that, it isn’t a cover-up for the sake of the powerful.”


A transcript of the Sermon follows:

Easter Day Sermon at Canterbury Cathedral

One of the ways in which we now celebrate the great Christian festivals in our society is by a little flurry of newspaper articles and television programmes raking over the coals of controversies about the historical basis of faith. So it was no huge surprise to see a fair bit of coverage given a couple of weeks ago to the discovery of a ‘Gospel of Judas’, which was (naturally) going to shake the foundations of traditional belief by giving an alternative version of the story of the passion and resurrection. Never mind that this is a demonstrably late text which simply parallels a large number of quite well-known works from the more eccentric fringes of the early century Church; this is a scoop, the real, ‘now it can be told’ version of the origins of Christian faith.

You’ll recognise the style, of course, from the saturation coverage of the Da Vinci Code literature. We are instantly fascinated by the suggestion of conspiracies and cover-ups; this has become so much the stuff of our imagination these days that it is only natural, it seems, to expect it when we turn to ancient texts, especially Biblical texts. We treat them as if they were unconvincing press releases from some official source, whose intention is to conceal the real story; and that real story waits for the intrepid investigator to uncover it and share it with the waiting world. Anything that looks like the official version is automatically suspect. Someone is trying to stop you finding out what really happened, because what really happened could upset or challenge the power of officialdom.

It all makes a good and characteristically ‘modern’ story – about resisting authority, bringing secrets to light, exposing corruption and deception; it evokes Watergate and All the President’s Men. As someone remarked after a television programme about the Da Vinci Code, it’s almost that we’d prefer to believe something like this instead of the prosaic reality. We have become so suspicious of the power of words and the way that power is exercised to defend those who fear to be criticised. The first assumption we make is that we’re faced with spin of some kind, with an agenda being forced on us – like a magician forcing a card on the audience. So that the modern response to the proclamation, ‘Christ is risen!’ is likely to be, ‘Ah, but you would say that, wouldn’t you? Now, what’s the real agenda?’

We don’t trust power; and because the Church has historically been part of one or another sort of establishment and has often stood very close to political power, perhaps we can hardly expect to be exempt from this general suspicion. But what it doesn’t help us with is understanding what the New Testament writers are actually saying and why. We have, every Easter, to strip away the accumulated lumber of two thousand years of rather uneven Christian witness and try to let the event be present in its first, disturbing, immediacy.

For the Church does not exist just to transmit a message across the centuries through a duly constituted hierarchy that arbitrarily lays down what people must believe; it exists so that people in this and every century may encounter Jesus of Nazareth as a living contemporary. This sacrament of Holy Communion that we gather to perform here is not the memorial of a dead leader, conducted by one of his duly authorised successors who controls access to his legacy; it is an event where we are invited to meet the living Jesus as surely as did his disciples on the first Easter Day. And the Bible is not the authorised code of a society managed by priests and preachers for their private purposes, but the set of human words through which the call of God is still uniquely immediate to human beings today, human words with divine energy behind them. Easter should be the moment to recover each year that sense of being contemporary with God’s action in Jesus. Everything the church does – celebrating Holy Communion, reading the Bible, ordaining priests or archbishops – is meant to be in the service of this contemporary encounter. It all ought to be transparent to Jesus, not holding back or veiling his presence.

Yes, the sceptic will say, all very well, but why on earth should I believe that? Especially when it comes from the mouth of a figure who clearly has a bit of a vested interest in getting me to believe it, or from an institution that doesn’t always look like a model of transparency? Well, all any preacher can do is point to how the text of the New Testament actually works. Two points at least are worth bearing in mind. First, it was written by people who, by writing what they did and believing what they did, were making themselves, in the world’s terms, less powerful, not more. They were walking out into an unmapped territory, away from the safe places of political and religious influence, away from traditional Jewish religion and from Roman society and law. As the Gospels and Paul’s letters and the difficult, enigmatic letter ‘to the Hebrews’ all agree, they were putting themselves in a place where they shared the humiliation experienced by condemned criminals going naked in public procession to their execution.

Second, the New Testament was written by people who were still trying to find a language that would catch up with a reality bigger than they had expected. The stories of the resurrection especially have all the characteristics of stories told by people who are struggling to find the right words for an unfamiliar experience – like the paradoxes and strained language of some of the mystics. The disciples really meet Jesus, as he always was, flesh and blood – yet at first they don’t recognise him, and he’s something more than just flesh and blood. At the moment of recognition, when bread is broken, when the wounds of crucifixion are displayed, he withdraws again, leaving us floundering for words. He gives authority and power to the disciples to proclaim his victory and to forgive sins in his name, yet he tells Peter that his future is one in which he will be trussed up and imprisoned and hustled away to death.

So the New Testament is not a collection of books with a single tight agenda that works on behalf of a powerful elite; it is the product of a community of people living at great risk and doing so because they sense themselves compelled by a mystery and presence that is completely authoritative for them – the presence of Jesus. They have been convinced that being in the company of Jesus is the way to become fully and effectively human. They are discovering how to live together without greed, fear and suspicion because of his company. They believe that they’ve been given the gift of showing the world what justice and mutual service and gratitude might look like in a world that is a very dangerous place because of our incapacity for these things. They take the risks because they believe they have been entrusted with a promise.

Whatever this is, it is not about cover-ups, not about the secret agenda of power; it may be nonsense to you, it may be unreal to you, but don’t be deceived about the nature of the message and those who lived it out in the days when the New Testament was being written. And that’s why if we want to know what it is about today, we need to turn to the people who are taking the same risks, struggling with the same mystery. We need to look at the martyrs and the mystics. There are still those who tell us about God in Jesus Christ by lives of intense and mostly wordless prayer; how very powerfully God was to be seen in last year’s extraordinary television series, ‘The Monastery’, where we saw some very ordinary human beings faced with the demands of a life in which you had to be truthful, where you had to be silent, where you had to search for reconciliation at all costs. But still more important, there are those who tell us about God in Jesus Christ by putting their lives at risk. There are places in our world where conversion to Christianity is literally a matter of putting your life on the line; we have all been following with agonised attention the story of Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan, and we know that his story is not unique. We can say there with absolute certainty that whatever the Gospel means in circumstances like that, it isn’t a cover-up for the sake of the powerful.

But there are also places where what brings down the violence and the murderousness is simply a willingness to make reconciliation real. Nearly three years ago, during the bloody civil war in the Solomon Islands, a major part was played in peacemaking by the local Anglican religious order known as the Melanesian Brotherhood, a community of local men committed to a common discipline of praying and teaching and spreading the gospel as they travel round the villages by drama and song and preaching. Seven of them were held hostage and killed in cold blood by a rebel group. The shock of that act of gratuitous butchery jolted almost everyone involved into beginning a peace process; the brothers continue to be involved at every level in that work.

Last summer, a number of the brothers visited England, taking their songs and their drama into churches and schools in a number of areas. Everyone who has seen them at work will remember it all their lives. One of the things they did was to perform a passion play; and this is what one of them wrote about it.
“This passion was our own testimony to our seven brothers who were murdered in 2003. For Christ-like they became the innocent victims of the violence they had worked so hard to stop. They were beaten and mocked and tortured and recorded on tape recorders in the sickening mockery of a trial before their murderers…They were put to death for the sins of the people. And they live on. I wish I could show you these men and their goodness and their innocence. And when we see real evil we must recognise it too: the opposition, the true sin of our world where brutality of this nature becomes a cause to be justified.”

“…Our story of the Passion of Christ took place 2,000 years ago but it is still taking place throughout our world today. But we have been changed. We did not travel from the other side of the world to preach a death but to preach a resurrection. For we know where we stand and we know who we belong to. And we believe there is a choice in all this, a choice to belong to the life giver.”

‘We know where we stand and we know who we belong to’. Beyond all the history of confusion and betrayal that surrounds a lot of the Church’s history, beyond the power games that we still play in the churches, this one rocklike conviction remains, the conviction that drove the writing of every word of the New Testament. Nothing to do with conspiracies, with the agenda of the powerful; everything to do with how the powerless, praying, risking their lives for the sake of Christ and his peace, are the ones who understand the Word of God. And to accept that is not to sign up to the agenda of a troubled, fussy human society of worried prelates and squabbling factions. It is to choose life, to choose to belong to the life-giver.

© Rowan Williams 2006

Bagdá em Chamas: blog iraquiano ou invenção americana?

Você decide:

Blog de iraquiana concorre a prêmio literário

Iraquiana relata o caos de Bagdá em blog

E quem escreverá o blog Oriente Médio em Chamas? Pois:

Casa Branca já prepara intervenção para derrubar regime iraniano

Ex-conselheiros dos EUA temem resposta do Irã a possível ataque

Irã tem 40 mil suicidas prontos para atacar EUA, diz jornal

Mais um militar pede a renúncia de Rumsfeld

O Mar Morto está morrendo

Mar Morto pode desaparecer até 2050, advertem analistas

Local turístico apreciado por suas virtudes terapêuticas, o mar Morto está ameaçado de morte, numa situação ecológica “catastrófica” que pode levar a seu desaparecimento até 2050, advertiram os analistas.

Os “Amigos da Terra”, uma organização não-governamental do Oriente Médio que reúne ecologistas israelenses, palestinos e jordanianos, advertiram nesta semana sobre o perigo de uma “catástrofe ecológica” no mar Morto, onde desemboca o rio Jordão em meio a uma paisagem austera, queimada pelo sol e carregada de história bíblica.

“Em 50 anos, o mar Morto perdeu um terço de sua superfície e seu nível de água continua diminuindo rapidamente”, declarou Gideon Bromberg, do Amigos da Terra.

Situado a 412 metros abaixo do nível do mar Mediterrâneo, o mar Morto –que passou a ser chamado assim a partir do século 2– tem uma extensão de 50 km e 17 km em sua parte mais larga. É famoso por ter as águas mais salgadas do mundo, com uma salinidade de 33%, que equivale dez vezes a dos oceanos, o que permite a vida apenas de seres unicelulares primitivos, os procariontes, que não têm um núcleo definido.

A importante evaporação de água de sua superfície foi compensada até agora pelas águas do Jordão. No entanto, o desvio do caudal do rio por motivos agrícolas, Mar Mortohidroelétricos ou de consumo humano, além da construção de diques de evaporação para a exploração dos sais minerais ocasionaram uma diminuição do nível da superfície em torno de um metro por ano há mais de duas décadas.

“No momento não se estabeleceu nada de concreto para enfrentar a situação”, explicou Bromberg, enfatizando que o mar Morto perdeu 98% da partilha de água doce do Jordão, que se transformou num “verdadeiro conta-gotas”.

As consequências são especialmente graves para a parte costeira de Israel, ao sul do mar Morto, e palestina, concretamente a Cisjordânia, na parte norte.

Anualmente aparecem novas fendas que obrigam às autoridades proibir o acesso a partes inteiras do litoral, enquanto que os centros de cura e bem-estar que exploram as fontes termais, como o de Ein Gedi, sul de Israel, viram como o mar se afastou cerca de dois quilômetros. “Constatamos 1.650 buracos e fendas, algumas deles de várias dezenas de metros de profundidade”, assegurou o geólogo Eli Raz, especialista em mar Morto.

Quase todos os buracos se encontram em zonas de acesso proibido ao público e, em princípio, não ameaçam a segurança das infraestruturas turísticas e hoteleiras da região. Os buracos e as fendas ocorrem por causa da infiltração da água da chuva que dissolve os sais subterrâneos.

A situação política atual tampouco contribui para a colocação em andamento de medidas de vigilância e proteção. Em julho de 2005, o Banco Mundial anunciou que a Jordânia, Israel e a Autoridade Palestina conseguiram o financiamento de um estudo de factibilidade de um gigantesco projeto para construir um canal de união entre o mar Vermelho e o mar Morto.

Com uma duração prevista de 24 meses e um custo de US$ 15,5 milhões, o estudo obteve financiamento do Japão, Estados Unidos e alguns países europeus como a França, Itália, Noruega e Suécia.

No entanto, a vitória eleitoral do grupo radical palestino Hamas nas legislativas de 25 de janeiro implicaram o corte de qualquer relação entre Israel e a Autoridade Palestina, o que torna praticamente impossível a cooperação israelense-palestina no setor do meio ambiente.

O projeto, além disso, não conta com o beneplácito dos ecologistas, que temem uma perturbação do equilíbrio natural do mar Morto, levando em conta que se proporcionaria água salgada ao invés da doce como a do Jordão.

Por isso, se nos próximos anos não forem tomadas medidas sérias, os especialistas asseguram que o mar Morto estará seco em 2050.

Fonte: Marius Schattner, da France Presse, em Israel – Folha Online: 16/04/2006

Evangelho ou Manipulação? Haaretz critica o frufru criado em torno do Evangelho de Judas

O jornal israelense Haaretz, em sua edição online em inglês, faz severa crítica ao artificialismo marqueteiro que foi criado em torno do escrito gnóstico denominado (impropriamente) de Evangelho de Judas.

Graças a Jim West, tomei conhecimento do artigo Gospel or manipulation? By Benny Ziffer – Apr 14, 2006.

 

Americanism in the bad sense of the word means, inter alia, a kind of simple-mindedness verging on stupidity that makes a documentary television program about Christian theology sound identical in tone to a stewardess explaining to airplane passengers how to fasten their seat belts. Americanism in the bad sense of the word is the striving for maximal clarity and the eradication of nuances that interfere with it, even when the issue under discussion necessitates nuances and contains questions that have not been resolved. These prefatory remarks are a delicate way of expressing the disgust I felt at the National Geographic Channel broadcast (Monday, 23:00), which the whole world anticipated expectantly, about the “Gospel According to Judas” that was supposed to overturn the Christian faith and absolve Judas Iscariot of the blame for betraying Jesus.

This expectancy was fed by a public relations mechanism on behalf of National Geographic and ensured that all the headlines in the Israeli newspapers and on the television news broadcasts reported last weekend on the exciting discovery and prepared the audience for the broadcast in which the full details would be revealed. In Europe, incidentally, there was much less excitement about the matter, and what I managed to see of French television was a few scholars who described the text of The Gospel According to Judas as idiotic, in that it depicts Jesus as a psychopath who orders Judas Iscariot to organize his death. This is to say: Not every ancient text on papyrus found in the sands of the desert is necessarily wise, and if the church shunned it in its day, perhaps there was justification for this.

What we had here, then, was to a large extent much ado about nothing. Or at least – the inflation of an issue that should be of interest to a few experts into a thriller with many participants. When all is said and done, this is a Coptic manuscript that was discovered in Egypt, stolen from an archaeological site and passed around the antiquities market until it came into the possession of an American dealer who decided to make a fuss about it and depict it as a document that would change human history. This dealer appears in the National Geographic television film as a savior figure, as someone who has rescued this sensational and important document from the barbarians who did not recognize its importance. She is interviewed at length in the film, bearing the righteous smile of a Christian saint on her face, and she does not hesitate to say that she feels that divine providence wanted her to find the document that would exculpate Judas Iscariot of blame.

In what way is this dealer less barbaric than the Egyptian antiquities dealer who possessed The Gospel According to Judas before her? The main difference is that she is American. It is important to know that the trade in archaeological antiquities is a dubious profession anywhere because by its very nature it feeds off antiquities theft, excavation robbing and museum looting. The National Geographic film presented, in a kind of infantile show, the Egyptian antiquities robber with whom it all started as a kind of terrifying figure taken from the Hasamba books, thrilling adventures for Israeli children two or three generations ago, who purloins from a cave in the desert a stone coffer containing the manuscript. The Egyptian dealer who eventually receives the coffer is also presented as a villainous and obsequious creature, fat and ugly and bearded, just as a Middle Eastern trader is portrayed in the stereotypical American imagination, and perhaps the Western imagination at large.

Alongside the melodramatic and kitschy – and to a large extent also racist – spectacle of the manuscript’s adventures, National Geographic presents the story of the last days of Jesus, the Last Supper and his capture by the Romans. Jesus and the apostles are portrayed by young, bearded actors wearing Bedouin robes and speaking a kind of Arabic-accented Aramaic. For the sake of piquancy and in order to increase the stimulus for the viewer, the producers added a few horror scenes with a plastic depiction of the cruel tortures that the Romans inflicted on the first Christians.

The great deception in this kind of pretend documentary is in the dangerous mix of scientific hypotheses and New Testament stories, and of historical facts and religious beliefs. The viewer of the National Geographic film is led to think that there is no doubt that Judas Iscariot and the other apostles were historical figures for whom there is historical proof of their existence. This is not the case, as there is not a scrap of historical evidence that the apostles really existed. Even concerning Jesus himself there is hardly any external evidence of the deeds attributed to him in the New Testament. One could expect that a documentary film with scientific pretensions would distinguish between legend and historical truth. This was not done, so as not to detract from the drama of the story or hurt the feelings of believing Christians.

Another deception in the film, which is in its entirety the fruit of that Americanism in the bad sense, concerns the active role of the Jews in Jesus’ crucifixion, as related in the New Testament. This was completely ignored for the sake of political correctness. After all, every sensible person who has read from the New Testament knows that its “anti-Semitism” is based not on the character of Judas Iscariot, but rather on the scene in which the Jews urge the Roman governor Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus. The Catholic Church has expressed its opinion about this in our own times, when it declared officially a few decades ago that today’s Jews do not share their ancestors’ guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus.

But most ridiculous of all – and here it really does seem to me that the film is making a fool of the viewer – is the way in which it proves the gospel is authentic. It is quite possible that the text is indeed authentic, but the proof that was offered to the viewers is ridiculous: What they showed us was a Carbon-14 dating test performed on a bit of the papyrus on which the gospel was written. This is utter nonsense, because forgers have often used ancient and authentic writing materials, be they papyri or ancient inks, whose antiquity was proven by Carbon-14 dating. Another proof of the antiquity of the Coptic text was provided by scholars – who knows who they are? – who were seen bending over bits of the text and then raised their heads and ruled: “Authentic.”

In short, the discovery of The Gospel According to Judas is a nice curiosity that has been inflated into a big balloon. It is an archaeological finding of dubious origin of a heretical text that was rejected in its day from the church canon. The expectation that it will change the attitude of the church toward the figure of Judas Iscariot is absurd. And from some of the sentences that were read aloud in National Geographic’s English translation, it was also not made clear to the viewer what the poetic beauty of the text is. A lot of stereotypes, a lot of racism and an awful lot of shady commercial interests made the film, which the world watched expectantly on Monday, come off mainly as manipulation.

Minorias jogam lenha na fogueira, apesar dos esforços para o diálogo inter-religioso: publicada nova caricatura de Maomé

Revista italiana publica nova caricatura de Maomé

Folha Online: 15/04/2006 – 15h25
da France Presse, em Roma

Um desenho representando o profeta Maomé no inferno, publicado pela revista italiana “Studi Cattolici”, desatou neste sábado protestos de várias associações muçulmanas na Itália. A “Studi Cattolici” de maio inclui uma caricatura na qual aparecem os poetas italiano Dante Alighieri e latino Virgílio à beira de um círculo em chamas, em cujo centro está o profeta muçulmano cortado pela cintura. “Aquele ali não é o Maomé?”, pergunta Virgílio. “Sim, e ele está dividido em dois porque causou a divisão da sociedade”, responde Dante, segundo transcrição da agência Ansa (…) Apesar de ser identificada como ligada à poderosa instituição conservadora católica Opus Dei, a publicação não tem vínculo com a entidade. “A mim parece algo de muito mau gosto”, comentou Mario Scajola, diretor da seção italiana da Liga Mundial Muçulmana. “Apesar de todos os esforços que são feitos no mundo cristão e muçulmano em favor do diálogo inter-religioso, ainda existem minorias que jogam lenha na fogueira”, lamentou Roberto Piccardo, da União das Comunidades Muçulmanas Italianas.



Islam, Vignetta di Maometto all’inferno su ‘Studi Cattolici’

Ansa.it – 15/04/2006 17:50

Una vignetta satirica pubblicata da “Studi Cattolici” spedisce Maometto dritto dritto all’Inferno. “Ho inaugurato la serie delle vignette politicamente scorrette, ma ogni tanto una vignetta politicamente scorretta fa bene” afferma il direttore Cesare Cavalleri, membro dell’Opus Dei che aggiunge: “si tratta solo della raffigurazione di un passo tratto dalla Divina Commedia, dal canto XXIII”. L’illustrazione satirica firmata da Guido Clericetti mostra Dante e Virgilio sull’orlo di un girone lambito dalle fiamme, mentre tutt’attorno a loro svolazzano diavoli armati di forcone. “Quello là diviso a metà dalla testa alle chiappe non è Maometto?” chiede il Sommo Poeta alla sua guida. Risposta: “Si, ed è diviso perché ha portato la divisione nella società. Mentre invece quella là con le brache calate è la politica italiana riguardo all’Islam”. A chi chiede a Cavalleri se non abbia il timore di provocare il mondo islamico, dopo l’incendio delle ormai famigerate ‘vignette satiriche’ danesi, risponde: “Spero solo che l’aver pubblicato questo disegno non produca attentati, perché se ciò avvenisse confermerebbe solo le posizioni idiote” dell’islam radicale (cont.)

James Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty: mais um polêmico livro sobre o Jesus Histórico

Saiu na semana passada mais um polêmico livro sobre o Jesus Histórico e as origens do cristianismo. Escrito por James D. Tabor, professor da UNC- Charlotte, USA.

TABOR, J. D. The Jesus Dynasty : The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006, 384 p. – ISBN 9780743287241

Veja uma biografia do autor e um post de Mark Goodacre no seu Mark Goodacre’s NT Blog, publicado no dia 11.

 

Diz a apresentação da obra:

TABOR, J. D. The Jesus Dynasty : The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006Based on a careful analysis of the earliest Christian documents and recent archaeological discoveries, The Jesus Dynasty offers a bold new interpretation of the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity. The story is surprising, controversial, and exciting as only a long-lost history can be when it is at last recovered.In The Jesus Dynasty, biblical scholar James Tabor brings us closer than ever to the historical Jesus. Jesus, as we know, was the son of Mary, a young woman who became pregnant before her marriage to a man named Joseph. The gospels tell us that Jesus had four brothers and two sisters, all of whom probably had a different father than his. He joined a messianic movement begun by his relative John the Baptizer, whom he regarded as his teacher and a great prophet. John and Jesus together filled the roles of the Two Messiahs who were expected at the time: John, as a priestly descendant of Aaron, and Jesus, as a royal descendant of David. Together they preached the coming of the Kingdom of God. Theirs was an apocalyptic movement that expected God to establish his kingdom on earth, as described by the Prophets. The Two Messiahs lived in a time of turmoil as the historical land of Israel was dominated by the powerful Roman Empire. Fierce Jewish rebellions against Rome occurred during Jesus’ lifetime. John and Jesus preached adherence to the Torah, or the Jewish Law. But their mission was changed dramatically when John was arrested and then killed. After a period of uncertainty, Jesus began preaching anew in Galilee and challenged the Roman authorities and their Jewish collaborators in Jerusalem. He appointed a Council of Twelve to rule over the twelve tribes of Israel, and among the Twelve he included his four brothers. After Jesus was crucified by the Romans, his brother James — the “Beloved Disciple” — took over leadership of the Jesus dynasty. James, like John and Jesus before him, saw himself as a faithful Jew. None of them believed that their movement was a new religion. It was Paul who transformed Jesus and his message through his ministry to the Gentiles. Breaking with James and the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, Paul preached a message based on his own revelations, which would become Christianity. Jesus became a figure whose humanity was obscured; John became merely a forerunner of Jesus; and James and the others were all but forgotten. James Tabor has studied the earliest surviving documents of Christianity for more than thirty years and has participated in important archaeological excavations in Israel. Drawing on this background, Tabor reconstructs for us the movement that sought the spiritual, social, and political redemption of the Jews, a movement led by one family. The Jesus Dynasty offers an alternative version of Christian origins, one that takes us closer than ever to Jesus and his family and followers. This is a book that will change our understanding of one of the most crucial moments in history.