Varghese Pamplanil writes to the Editor – BEYOND GODS & SCRIPTURES
Letter to the Editor
on the Book
BEYOND GODS & SCRIPTURES
I have read the readers' comments on the the above-titled book written by Mr. Joseph Mani. I have been deliberately avoiding giving my take in the matter. Joe is known to me from 1990. I have a reasonable idea about his calibre, which I admire.
I have gone through the book thoroughly, word by word, every page (as was recommended by Isaac Gomes, who did the Book Review). Joe has written a rare ane well-researched book dealing with the subject from a scientific and historical perspective. The findings in the book are consistent with the views arrived at by eminent theologists, scholars and researchers on God, Bible, Christian religion, its theology and approach to the world.
About the lineage of Jesus from the House of David, let me quote from the “ Abridgement of Volumes I – IV” by D. C. Somervell of “A Study of History” by Arnold J. Toynbee – pages 484-485.
“ …when the Maccabbees changed, before the close of the second BCE, from being militant champions of the Jewish religion against a forcible Hellanization into being the founders and rulers of one of the successor states of the Seleucid Empire, these violent resisters of prosecution became prosecutors in their turn, and set themselves to impose Judaism on the non-Jewish peoples whom they conquered. This policy succeeded in extending the domain of Judaism over Idumaea and over “Galilee of the Gentiles” and over a narrow Transjordanian Peraea. Even so, this triumph of force was narrowly circumscribed; for it failed to overcome either the particularism of the Samaritans or the civic pride of two rows of Hellenized city-states which flanked the Maccabees’ dominions of both sides, one row along the Mediterranean coast of Palestine and the other along its desert border in the Decapolis. In fact, the gain through the force of arms was inconsiderable, and as it turned out, it was to cost the Jewish religion, the whole of its spiritual future. For it is the supreme irony of Jewish history that the new ground captured for Judaism by Alexander Jannaeus (102-76 BCE) brought to birth, within a hundred years, a Galilean Jewish prophet whose message was the condemnation of all previous Jewish experience and this inspired Jewish scion of forcibly converted Galilean Gentiles was then rejected by the Judaean leaders of Jewry of his own age”. My simple question is as the forefathers of Jesus were non-Jews, how come he hailed from the house of David? My suggestion is cast off the blinkers of faith and make judgements on the strength of historical evidence.
As I understand the Christian God, as is the case of any other God, is born from ancient myths.
My views on the Christian religion, which I could elucidate through, by the courtesy Church Citizens Voice, since July 2015, are consistent with the knowledge gained by reading books written by eminent authors listed below. (The list is not exhaustive)
- Hans Kung
- Ute Ranke – Heinemann
- Bart D. Ehrman
- James D. Tabor
- Michael Walsh
- Edward Burman
- John & Kathleen Court
- Hyam Macoby
- Graham Philips
- Lawrence Gardiner
- Elaine Pagels
- Mark Allen Powel
- John P. Meir
- Burton Mark
- E. P. Sanders
- Barbara Thiering
- Michael A. Smith
- Edward Stourtan
- Colin Buchnan
- David F. Wright
- A. N. Wilson
- Giles Kepal
- Geza Vernes
- Seth D. Kunan
- Stephen M. Mecier & Robert Vitibar
- John Macquare
- Douglas J. Davis
- Michael Grant
- Hugh Mc Gregor Ross
- Dr. David Chidster
- Barbara Sprout
- Mircea Elide
- Karen Armstrong
- Robin Lane Fox
- Dr. Roy Willis
- Dr. Robert Winston
- Michel Coogan
- David Rohl
- Sam Harris
- Peter Brooksmith
- Thomas L. Thomson
- Bamber Gascoigne
- Michael Burleigh
- Jenny Roberts
- Timothy Yates
- Joachim Jermeas
- Robert Graves
- Stephen To kind
- Jo Forty
- Evan Lunsing
- Tom Sorbel
- Philip Rousseu
- Richard Dawkins
- J. Anderson Thomson Jr. .M D
- Christopher Hit hind
- Mary Geard
- Geoffrey Ashe
- Louis A.
- Tobias Churton
- Linda Woodhead
- Dr. S. Radhakrisnan
- S. T .Joshi
- Cyrus Shahrad
- Robert Wright
- Barrie Wilson
- J. G.Frazer
- Eamon Duffy
- Marvin Meyer
- Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
- Oxford History of Christianity
- Oxford Dictionary of Popes
- Webster’s Encyclopaedia.
- The Gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Philip etc.
Varghese Pamplanil