Search results

Many feel that God is real. I have my own reasons for feeling that s/he is. I do feel, though, that whenever this Santa V God question is posed -- and I've seen it elsewhere -- it is not necessarily meant slightingly but can sometimes denote a genuine interest by a nonbeliever in the essence...

And might one argue that the civilization that Socrates started was Academia, and that his holy book is the Dialogues of Plato? Sincerely, Operacast

I agree that this scholarship has -- recently -- been pursued in a sometimes arbitrary way. What I mean when I refer to Q is simply that batch of texts, sayings, interchanges, etc., that both Matthew and Luke have uniquely in common, and that is presented in each text in a textually similar...

I can't speak for anyone else, but my guess has always been that any concept of sin we have is generated from evolution, and whether that civilizing aspect of evolution comes from God or is generated in some other way is the big question. This is all pretty much a paraphrase of something I...

This seems to me a worthwhile query, and I'd be curious as to any response. It occurred to me this might occasion a useful discussion if I start with a distinction that I read on another board from another writer: "For humanity to know about its creation, its reality as spiritual beings...

To those conversant with current Jesus Seminar studies -- Something that's tantalized me for a while has been the number of casual references, in past retrospectives, at varied specialty levels, to detailed studies of the changing styles and idioms in written Greek during the first century C.E...

I would agree that something new needs to emerge in these desperate times. In fact, I might add that the current Presidential election season has made me even more ready to contemplate the very real possibility that not just humanity but all the other species on Earth could all go extinct...

Now that really intrigues me. Could you please describe some of your study of the pre-Christian religions that facilitated these new perspectives? Many thanks, Operacast

Thanks for saying so. Actually, it occured to me that, since I first submitted these passages a few pages back, it might be difficult for readers here to keep in mind and keep track of the many verse numbers I'm dealing with here!:-); so I'm once more enclosing the pertinent verses here, but...

O.K., I guess it's time for me to drop the other foot. Look, while there's a great deal of worthwhile scholarship of two or so generations past that does seem conscientious and reasonably unbiased, more recently there have been one or two sweeping pronouncements from the Jesus Seminar, a...

Thanks for the follow-up. Hope to follow this up myself at some point very soon after the holiday -- time issues, I'm afraid!:-) BTW, any thoughts on the other Thomas passage? Many thanks, Operacast

Thanks much. Any thoughts on the two Thomas passages? Cheers, Operacast

So then, what do you take away from the three, re Jesus's own apparent perspective? Best, Operacast

No question there are many such passages. At the same time, since the linguistic/philological research that predates the Jesus Seminar by roughly a generation or two seems less axe-grinding than (some of) the Seminar's work, I take pretty seriously that earlier scholarship that singles out...

I was somewhat surprised at no one's attempting to grapple with the five Jesus remarks taken from -- arguably -- the earliest textual strata in the various Gospels, canonical and non-canonical. I do appreciate that it may entail some pretty close reading of some pretty knotty passages. Still...

As a believer myself, I also believe in the experiences and utterances of clearly exceptional humans who have lived their lives solely for others (Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, and so on). Such people have probably experienced the divine in some very direct way that others haven't. So what they say...

I thought of that, so I applied to two or three Sanskrit specialists, including the leading Sanskrit specialist at the New York Public Library. The translation of #3 that I was using actually soft-pedaled the extreme self-orientation of the sentiment. You already see above the idiomatic...

Sentiments like these (from the very earliest extant text of direct quotes of this ancient thinker) -- "The pleasure of invitations to dinner are devised by indigent people with stomachs lean with hunger. "The building of temples, houses for water-supply, tanks, wells, resting places, and the...

Since this thread has been quiet for a while, I figured I should shed my own laziness and share my own (provisional) choices as well. There are six in all: Digha Nikaya 13 Tevijja Sutta On Knowledge Of The Vedas Digha Nikaya 22 Maha-satipatthana Sutta The Great Frames of Reference Plato's...

This has certainly been a huge exchange, and I recognize I'm coming in at the end of it. Someone suggested it may be time to confine additions to this discussion to new points/material only, so I'm submitting this as information only without really attempting to argue a point of view: First...