A top priest has been forced to quit a bible teaching job thanks to his work of pulpit fiction which denies the existence of Jesus Christ.

Fr Tom Brodie has been removed from his post in Limerick after the publication of his book ‘Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus.’

The Irish Sun reports that the priest was removed from his post at the Dominican Biblical Institute in Limerick which he helped set up.

The paper has gained access to documents which confirm that the scholar was also banned from any lecturing, teaching or writing while a probe is underway.

The report says that Father Brodie has questioned the existence of Jesus since the Seventies but has only made his views public now.

The book, which took 12 years to write, came as a shock to his superiors when it was published last October.

Father Brodie claims in the book that many of Jesus’s acts were a rip-off of the Hebrew Bible or, in some cases, of earlier texts.

Rediscover Jesus as a fresh scripture-based expression of suffering humanity’s deepest strengths and hopes, and thereby rediscover a new sense of the reality we often refer to glibly as God.

The image of a crucified messiah is indeed countercultural, yet, given how biblical writers had long set narratives in opposition to one another and had refashioned older scriptures, it makes sense as part of a fresh synthesis of several Old Testament/Septuagint texts (e.g. Isa. 52.13–15.12; cf. Acts 8:30-35; Lk. 24.25-27) that deal with the tension between suffering and God’s hope. What is especially new about the crucified messiah is not just the seemingly radical contradiction of combining goodness and suffering, hope and despair, messiah and crucifixion, but also the stark image through which that contradiction is portrayed — Roman crucifixion. Yet such a process of adaptation is not new.

When Luke was using the account of the death of Naboth to depict the death of Stephen, he replaced the picture of the old institutions, the monarchy and assembly, with Jewish institutions of the first century — the synagogue and Sanhedrin.

And when he was using the account of the exemplary foreign commander, Naaman, he changed the nationality from Syrian to Roman, Roman centurion.

So when there was a need to express the ancient contradiction of paradox between God-based hope and life’s inevitable sufferings it was appropriate to express those sufferings in a clear contemporary image — Roman crucifixion.

It was doubly appropriate in the context of a rhetorical world that sought dramatic effect and enargeia (graphic presentation) (Walsh 1961: 188). Further issues of historical background belong to another discussion. (pp. 230-231 — my formatting and emphasis)

Clive Durdle wrote:

Rediscover Jesus as a fresh scripture-based expression of suffering humanity’s deepest strengths and hopes, and thereby rediscover a new sense of the reality we often refer to glibly as God.

http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/ ... sus-exist/

He is becoming a gnostic, has read too much Freke and Gandy!

The image of a crucified messiah is indeed countercultural, yet, given how biblical writers had long set narratives in opposition to one another and had refashioned older scriptures, it makes sense as part of a fresh synthesis of several Old Testament/Septuagint texts (e.g. Isa. 52.13–15.12; cf. Acts 8:30-35; Lk. 24.25-27) that deal with the tension between suffering and God’s hope. What is especially new about the crucified messiah is not just the seemingly radical contradiction of combining goodness and suffering, hope and despair, messiah and crucifixion, but also the stark image through which that contradiction is portrayed — Roman crucifixion. Yet such a process of adaptation is not new.

When Luke was using the account of the death of Naboth to depict the death of Stephen, he replaced the picture of the old institutions, the monarchy and assembly, with Jewish institutions of the first century — the synagogue and Sanhedrin.

And when he was using the account of the exemplary foreign commander, Naaman, he changed the nationality from Syrian to Roman, Roman centurion.

So when there was a need to express the ancient contradiction of paradox between God-based hope and life’s inevitable sufferings it was appropriate to express those sufferings in a clear contemporary image — Roman crucifixion.

It was doubly appropriate in the context of a rhetorical world that sought dramatic effect and enargeia (graphic presentation) (Walsh 1961: 188). Further issues of historical background belong to another discussion. (pp. 230-231 — my formatting and emphasis)

The Library at Alexandria did something very interesting for centuries - they rewrote Homer continually for their modern times.

It has always puzzled me why anyone thinks the New Testament is based on oral traditions, when it is obvious it is based on literary texts, primarily the Hebrew Bible. The xian sect I was brought up prided itself on looking for these connections - as evidence it is the word of god and the Hebrew Bible foreshadowed the coming of Christ. And they were utterly correct, but looking the wrong way down the telescope! The New Testament is a creation from the Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha and some other stuff like Mark's use of Homer!

The walls of Jericho they are a tumbling down!

(Not sure if this thread should be merged with another one. More persecution of mythicists!)

proudfootz wrote:

Clive Durdle wrote:

I suppose this thread could be about whether institutions which enforce dogmatism should be considered academically respectable...