tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-146183364287787287.post3810469959467953174..comments2024-01-24T23:01:01.168+10:00Comments on Painting Fakes: More Lives of Jesus 1: The "Real" MessiahJonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11272544252649766985noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-146183364287787287.post-50869968550903464762011-09-21T18:12:03.058+10:002011-09-21T18:12:03.058+10:00I am always happy when people even bother to make ...I am always happy when people even bother to make reference to my rather speculative work. Thank you so much. There are some ideas which just float around in your head for so long that one feels compelled to write a book about them. The important thing that people have to be aware of is the juxtaposition which continues to show up throughout the debates between Jews and Christians about the messiah throughout the medieval period. The book doesn't make sense without that. <br /><br />Agrippa has always been the Jewish messiah, implicitly or explicitly, even if the vast majority of Jews and Christians don't recognize it. Luther, Calvin and many others have made reference to this strange juxtaposition between Jesus and Agrippa. It is most curious and it hinges upon both Daniel's Seventy Week prophesy and Genesis 49:10, neither of which were originally connected with Jesus in any meaningful way. <br /><br />I am not going to argue against your negative impressions of the book. I am merely pointing out that if the reader is unfamiliar with the Samaritans and their dependence on an individual named Mark as their founder, and the same thing being at work in the Alexandrian community, no less than the role of the last king of the Jews who also happened to be named Mark (and his role at the heart of the Hebrew version of Josephus), the book can't be persuasive to people. The purpose was to just throw it out there and get people to become aware of these marginalized religions. <br /><br />To some extent Thomas C Oden's recent book on the African tradition of Mark is helpful. Yet I don't deny that the main difficulty that the book has to overcome is finding an erudite readership which would tolerate the popularized treatment that topic gets in the book. In any event, it is wonderful that I keep meeting people that have exposed to the silly ideas that float around in my head. <br /><br />I appreciate the time it took to write the review.Stephan Hullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07712300237611095445noreply@blogger.com