Subj : Extent of the Torah
To   : TODD HENSON
From : Frank Masingill
Date : Mon Oct 23 2000 02:43 am

 TH> > -=> TODD HENSON wrote to FRANK MASINGILL <=-

 TH> > > I have stated here many times that I stand with Dr.

 TH> Albert >  > Schweitzer on the question of the historical
 TH> Jesus.  So far, the

 TH> So, fill me in on what he said.

 TH> > C'mon Todd, Scweitzer wrote much and often about this. It's
 TH> > a big burden: an unfair question.

 TH> Nonsensical. I didn't ask Frank to quote the entire works of
 TH> the man, but to give me a description of that he said about a
 TH> particular person.

 TH> > More daring (silly) than Frank I'll attempt an imposibility:
 TH> > Schweitzer said that we cannot know, Scientifically. But
 TH> > enough is known

 TH> True. I know of no direct laboratory experiments that can
 TH> vertify the identity of Jesus.

 TH> > to change the hearts of men, and he dedicated his life in
 TH> > running a hospital in Africa. He was a world-renound Back
 TH> > organist, but gave

 TH> that up >  because he believed in the sayings/teachings of an

 TH> > unhistorically proven Jesus.

 TH> Well, that's not a bad description so far. :-)

 TH> > (Frank! How'd I do?????) :-)

        Beautifully. But you know as well as I do that he wasn't
serious in the first place.   I could easily have said that
Schweitzer in _In Quest of the Historical Jesus_ concluded that in
the mountains of scholarship invested in the search for the
historical Jesus up to the time of his writing there had been hardly
any advancement in knowledge on the subject.  He said that Jesus is
still only the "man who walked by the shores of Galilee calling upon
men to "come follow me!"  [paraphrase quote, of course, but close].

        In the circa 100 years since that scholarship from
1700-1900, about all I've seen has been the mytho-speculation of
Barbara Thiering that has him walking by the shores of the DEAD Sea
rather than the Sea of Galilee and her speculation is not to be
dismissed as worthless, by any means.   The Dead Sea Scrolls,
however, have not advanced our knowledge of the HISTORICAL Jesus
beyond mytho-specualation.  And the learned atheists have failed to
do that as well.  

        How interesting that the Jesus who calls "come follow me"
continues to defy the counter mytho-speculation of the atheists AND
the literalists with their endless arguments about the truth or
fallacy of burning hells and paradisical dreams which they're
determined to substitute for the SUBSTANCE of the Christian
revelation.  What they LOVE to do is pit one spiritual outburst
against another as though Man has any control over any of them.  

        What the misunderstand, constantly, because philosophy is
left out of the equation is the "REASON" in man that IS the divine
in the tension of consciousness, discovered by Plato.  

        According to my critics, the above is all muddled and
practically impossible to understand and for that I must continue to
apologize. 

Frank

--- PPoint 2.07
 * Origin: Maybe in 5000 years (1:396/45.12)

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