As promised, I have my essay entitled The Dubious Historicity of Jesus Christ posted as a pdf.
Viewer feedback greatly welcome, seriously.
Viewer feedback greatly welcome, seriously.
The Affair at the Victory Ball by Agatha Christie
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Young Lord Cronshaw is murdered at a masked ball, and his fiancée dies of a
cocaine overdose later the same evening. Who was wearing which costume? Can
Poi...
1 hour ago
4 comments:
Thank you Jonathan for posting such a very eye-opening article,which indeed exposes a lot of contradictions regarding the birth of Jesus. You know what,my knowledge of the Jesus's birth was confined to the book of Matthew only. I had not read the book of Luke. yes,indeed, there is a lot of controversy. I printed your essay, and I will raise it with the Witnesses who come to my house. Or maybe with one of the Pastors in my area. I will finish reading it, and post a detailed comment on your blog. It's really written by a Black Technocrat!!!
Saru, there is more were that article came from. I find theology very fascinating. For a while now, I have been trying to put together parallels between Biblical tenets and our way of life before the advent of Christianity. Is it not curious that the Bible talks about (i) Sabbath and we have chisi, (ii) azazel the scapegoat and we have mbudzi yokurasirira, (iii) offering of first fruits of harvest and, according to a paper published by Gelfand in the 1960s on the Ceremony of Mashashe, a practice of offering the first leaves of the harvest, to name but three?
I tell you, there are some very intriguing questions when one puts some serious thought into the whole issue of religion and the Zimbabwean culture. Karen Armstrong, a noted religious scholar states that some primitive African tribes have always practiced monotheism. I came across that statement when I read her book, The History of Religion. My first response was that of anger but, thereafter, I felt I needed to find out what other primitive practices my primitive forbearers engaged that are parallel to the popularized Middle Eastern theologies. The more I read, the more questions I have.
Where did we get these ideas even though there was no Bible? Is it by sheer coincidence that ancient Egyptians embalmed/ mummified their kings for burial in pyramids and we used to embalm/dehydrate our chiefs for burial in caves (read Tambaoga)? When we bury our dead, we place items like utensils and blankets in the grave akin to what the Egyptians did. Is there a common link there? When Abraham left Egypt, he and his family and flock of animals went home southwards. Where was home for Abraham, Gaza or the Sudan/Ethiopia?
Daniel, where are you? You see, your disappearance is not that different from the proselytizers that come knocking at my door. They are always welcome with open arms as long as they do not engage in a theological monologue.
Of all the religious groups that I come into contact with, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are the most intellectually enlightened. On the other end of the spectrum are the Pentecostal lot that claims to speak in tongues. The twice-born Pentecostal yammerers are invariably theologically arrogant and incredibly ignorant of scriptures, even the Sunday school variety.
Since you are from the former group, I had hoped to learn a few things from you but, alas, it seems it will not come to pass.
Jonathan! I did reply to your comment on the site where you made your original post! Why didn’t you check there? Thank you for the compliment though. Here is my reply, again:
Hi again Jonathan.
I’m sorry it took so long to get back to you. The first thing we need to realize is that the genealogies given in Matthew and Luke are the inspired record of Jesus lineage, so the names given are the ones The Almighty wanted in there. Again, maybe to weed out undesirables. Calling Hedi Joseph father had something to do with the attitude toward woman in those days. The information came from our reference work, Insight On The Scriptures.
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