Word: gospels
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When Jesus posed this question to his disciples in Matthew's Gospel, Peter emphatically and faithfully replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And what might the answer be today? Three newly published scholarly books put forward a startlingly revisionist reply. While Jesus may have been a carpenter, that probably meant he was illiterate and belonged to a low caste of artisans. He did not preach salvation from sin through sacrifice; he never said "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God"; neither did he say "Blessed are the pure in heart...
...universities and write in the journals and say anything you want." Now, he says, "the scholars are coming out of the closet," demanding public attention for the way they think. Among the latest such works are Crossan's Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (HarperSanFrancisco; $18), Burton Mack's The Lost Gospel (HarperSanFrancisco; $22) and The Five Gospels (Macmillan...
Mack agrees with most of Crossan's reconception of Jesus' life. But the main purpose of The Lost Gospel is to propagate The Book of Q, a back-to-basics teaching of the original Christians that was teased out of ancient texts by scholars who believe that it predates the Gospels. (Q stands for the German Quelle, which means "source.") The Book of Q has no narrative; rather it is a collection of sayings and aphorisms. Mack says the "Jesus people" were attracted to his teachings because he preached the holiness of the simple life. Thus verses like "Turn...
...late 20th century, a period of more casual clothing but equal bitterness between haves and have- nots. For that matter, there's nothing in the essence of Dickens' story to preclude glimpses of fast-food workers and airline pilots, or riffs of rap and gospel music, and it's reasonable enough to have an urban American Tiny Tim (T.T. to his kin) be a victim of a random shooting instead of a mysterious wasting disease. If the ghost of Christmas present dresses like Santa and quotes Diet Pepsi commercials, that doesn't keep him from making the eternal case...
...Except, in this tub lies a neurotic asylum patient, playing Marat. And all around him, the large cast of almost 20 twitching, dead-eyed, asylum inmates shuffle about, dressed in dirty white rags, talking to themselves and to their invisible friends. The four-member orchestra looks like heaven's gospel choir, dressed in white bedsheets. They should have worn wings...