Word: kingdoms
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...artistry of War and Peace and Anna Karenina translates into many languages, but Leo Tolstoy the social phenomenon is strictly Russian. Most biographers take this fact for granted. A.N. Wilson spells it out in his descriptions of that vast, isolated kingdom of the 19th century in which the roles of writer and prophet were frequently indistinguishable. Martine de Courcel strikes a deeper Slavic chord when she says that Tolstoy's aim was to become a Fool of God. Count Leo was, of course, no fool, although many of his truths never got off the ground. His moralizing often seems...
...Jesus to be understood? Did he stride out of the wilderness 2,000 years ago to preach a gentle message of peace and brotherhood? Or did he perhaps advocate some form of revolution? Or did he instead look for heavenly intervention to establish the kingdom of God? What did it mean for Jesus to be tempted by sin? When did he realize that his mission would end with death upon a cross? Did he view himself as the promised Messiah? Did he understand himself to be both God and man, and what imponderable struggles of the soul would that have...
...History suggests that the Romans regularly rounded up dissidents and executed them without trial. Jesus may "accidentally" have been caught in one of these periodic sweeps, suggests the Rev. Burton Mack, a Presbyterian at the School of Theology at Claremont, Calif. "Maybe he was trying out one of his kingdom of God ideas in the company of some boisterous Galileans -- a bad idea at that time...
...cultural mix," with Roman and Hellenistic influences colliding with Jewish thought. The cultural upheaval, he argues, gave rise to questioning cynics, rather like the hippies of the '60s. He theorizes that Jesus' message was concerned with a general malaise that afflicted the land. When he spoke of the coming kingdom of God, he was not warning of the apocalypse but, in true Hellenistic fashion, urging more natural and just relationships among people of all social classes...
Some of those who subscribe to this image emphasize the dozens of places in the Gospels where Jesus refers to the forthcoming kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven, in which righteousness and peace would prevail. In some instances he directly relates the role of king to himself, in the most famous passage telling Pilate at his trial that "my kingship is not of this world...