Painting Fakes

I'm late to the party as usual but I've just finished reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, originally published in 2005, thanks to a tip-off from my clever niece Alisha . The bombing of the World Trade Centre is becoming old news, but its effects are still with us and even more so still with our Islamic communities.  Last night I went to the launch of my friend Dave Andrews' book The Jihad of Jesus  which deals with dialogue and common ground between Christianity and Islam.  That's a whole other subject, but  Dave's friend and local Islamic community leader Nora Amath shared her own story of how, in the wake of that event, she and her friends and family in Australia experienced increasing suspicion and aggression as they went about their daily lives.  They had nothing to do with it and were as horrified as everyone else, but were still blamed and vilified - and continue to be to this day. How can we see this event in perspectiv...

The important thing about Jesus' miracles is not their factuality but their meaning .  Jesus' miracles illustrate and reinforce his teaching about the Kingdom of God .  The same goes for the resurrection.  Having summarised what I think the resurrection stories are describing , I'd like to talk a little about how the apostles used the story and what they made of it. Whole books have been written about this.  I'm just going to give you the highlights under three headings - vindication of Jesus' life and message, a new life for his followers here and now, and a future hope. Vindication In Acts 2, Luke reports a sermon by Peter which centres on the following words. “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law...

A while ago I wrote a series of posts about Jesus' miracles.  Without wanting to go over old ground, the general drift was that the miracles are teaching incidents.  They are not intended as displays of divine power, but as illustrations of the nature of the Kingdom of God coming among us.  Did they happen?  Not sure, I don't dismiss them but I hold their factuality relatively lightly. Anyway, I kind of hinted then that I would do a separate post on the Resurrection, but it's taken me a while to get around to it.  It's a difficult subject and not one to be taken on lightly.  However some of my recent reading, including William Lane Craig , Paul Barnett and Geza Vermes , has helped to crystallise my thinking about the question in a way I think is worth telling you about.  I'll do it in two parts, otherwise it would be too long - this one looks at the evidence for the resurrection as an historical phenomenon, the next will look at what it meant fo...

There is a stunning amount of scholarship and pseudo-scholarship about Jesus in circulation, and the flow doesn't show any sign of letting up.  I guess with 2.4 billion people around the world identifying as Christian in some way, there's no shortage of interest in the subject. Unlike the spate of recent writings on the subject, the sources of evidence are strictly finite.  There are documents - the writings of Jesus' first followers, plus scattered (generally brief) references in non-Christian contemporaries like Tacitus, Josephus or Celsus.  There is a wide range of contextual information from historians and archaeologists which can throw light on the meaning of these documents and against which they can be checked. Yet out of this evidence, or out of the silences between the evidence, authors have produced a huge variety of pictures of Jesus - divine being , freedom fighter , charismatic prophet , cynic philosopher , even (as we shall see) a wholly imaginary pe...

Ok, so I've been participating in the debate about same sex marriage, in a desultory sort of way.  I'm for it.  I don't feel that strongly about it, but if people really want it I can't see why they should be refused. I'm not enjoying the debate though.  It seems to be so black and white, as if it was clear what marriage is and it's just a question of who has access to it.  Like cornflakes, or the internet.  I'm longing for a discussion which actually talks about the question in a meaningful way. Recently I got a taxi home from the airport, and the driver was a young Indian man, as most of them are now in Brisbane.  He had just been married over in India, and was hanging out for the day when his wife's visa was approved so they could be together.  He was more than happy to talk about the whole thing at length. Like a lot of Indian marriages, this one had been arranged for him.  His uncle had gone looking, found a girl who he and other rel...

So, I've been too busy to blog lately and it has taken a real piece of political idiocy to draw me out of my cave. No, it's not the controversy about Zaky Mallah and Q&A, although it's related.   Zaky Mallah is a 31-year-old Australian man of Lebanese descent who is currently in the headlines here in Australia for his appearance on an ABC talk show. Back in 2003, at the age of 20, Mallah was charged with terrorism offences after making a video in which he threatened to carry out a suicide bombing on ASIO headquarters.  After two years in remand, he was acquitted of the terrorism charges on the basis that he was incited to make the video by an undercover ASIO agent.  He was convicted of a lesser (non-terrorism) charge of threatening Commonwealth officials.  Two years in jail is a long time for making a stupid video. These days he is an outspoken Islamic activist of independent mind.  He is an firm opponent of Islamic State but also a fierce critic of...

In the wake of Joe Hockey's comments about housing affordability in Sydney there are various memes circulating which suggest he, and the Coalition government in general, are out of touch with ordinary Australians.  I've been wondering if this is what the comments really show. Now, if the question was "did Joe say something foolish and insensitive" then the answer would almost certainly be "yes".  No surprise here.  Joe often says foolish and insensitive things.  But that's not the question.  The question is, is he out of touch? The context was a press conference about an ATO investigation into possible breaches of foreign investment restrictions on real estate.  Apart from the actual subject at hand, Hockey made two key statements about Sydney housing.  The first: "The starting point for a first home buyer is to get a good job that pays good money,"  And the second: "If housing were unaffordable in Sydney, no-one would be buy...