Tag: Resurrection
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The Gospels as Literature
Looking at the Gospels as works of literature, for me, diminishes neither their intellectual and emotional impact, nor their spiritual and cultural value. Myth, legend and folktale; imagination, symbol and metaphor, deepen rather than detract from meaning and significance. The crucifixion I regard as historical fact. The reason for Jesus’ execution was pinned to his…
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Jonah – A Good-Fun Read (iii)
We lost sight of Jonah when, on our hero’s uncompromising insistence, the good-hearted sailors very reluctantly tossed him into the sea. At once the inestimable power of Jonah’s God was demonstrated, in the immediate and complete calming of what had been an overwhelmingly tempestuous sea. No great surprise then, that in the New Testament, Jesus…
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What a Tangled Web …
Around the year 30, in a provincial backwater in the Roman Empire called Judea, on the banks of the Jordan, a young man appeared. He came under the spell of the fiery preaching of John the Baptiser, threw in his lot with him, and was immersed in the river. It wasn’t long before he became…
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Mahler and Life and Death
I haven’t blogged for a good few days because I’ve been too ‘re-absorbed’ in the music of one of my three favourite composers, Gustav Mahler, and now I’d like to write something about Mahler and death. I hope you haven’t fled away from that last word, because it’ll catch up with you regardless so, if…
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Myth and the Gospels
In my previous post, I wrote about myths in the Hebrew Bible, and also about contemporaneous Greek myths. There are also what we can call myths, I believe, in the Gospels, and here I’m suggesting an example in John’s gospel. By ‘myths’, I mean imaginative stories which include supernatural beings and events. The fourth gospel,…
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Rethinking Jesus (11) Raised from the dead?
No one can definitively prove, or disprove, that Jesus was raised from the dead. It’s a matter of personal belief, not historical fact. To me, without doubt, some of his followers believed they’d seen him alive again, otherwise he’d most likely have disappeared into the small print of history. Socrates said “an unexamined life is…
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The Gospels (13) ‘Raising the Dead’
We’ve reached the last ‘sign’ in John’s Gospel, and it’s a big one! These ’signs’ were included to ’prove’ the divine origin, nature and mission of Jesus. What greater ‘proof’ could there be than an ability to raise the dead? Let me lay my cards on the table. Do I believe that if I’d been…
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And Death shall have No Dominion (Dylan Thomas)
This is one of Dylan Thomas’s earliest poems, and one that he loved to speak out loud (loud meaning loud). It’s about what, if anything, is likely to happen to us after we die. There are two Biblical references. One of these gives us the title, and the 1st and 9th lines of each of…
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Jesus – His Developing Resurrection
Some of the earliest followers of the executed Jesus of Nazareth, (who died around 30 CE), firmly believed they’d seen him alive again. To say more, we need to understand that the New Testament is like an archeological dig. There’s earlier and later material built on each another, a process of development reflecting ever-ongoing thinking,…
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