Varghese Pamplanil writes to the Editor – BEYOND GODS & SCRIPTURES

 

Letter to the Editor

on the Book

BEYOND GODS & SCRIPTURES

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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)

 

  1. Hans Kung
  2. Ute Ranke – Heinemann
  3. Bart D. Ehrman
  4. James D. Tabor
  5. Michael Walsh
  6. Edward Burman
  7. John & Kathleen Court
  8. Hyam Macoby
  9. Graham Philips
  10. Lawrence Gardiner
  11. Elaine Pagels
  12. Mark Allen Powel
  13. John P. Meir
  14. Burton Mark
  15. E. P. Sanders
  16. Barbara Thiering
  17. Michael A. Smith
  18. Edward Stourtan
  19. Colin Buchnan
  20. David F. Wright
  21. A. N. Wilson
  22. Giles Kepal
  23. Geza Vernes
  24. Seth D. Kunan
  25. Stephen M. Mecier & Robert Vitibar
  26. John Macquare
  27. Douglas J. Davis
  28. Michael Grant
  29. Hugh Mc Gregor Ross
  30. Dr. David Chidster
  31. Barbara Sprout
  32. Mircea Elide
  33. Karen Armstrong
  34. Robin Lane Fox
  35. Dr. Roy Willis
  36. Dr. Robert Winston
  37. Michel Coogan
  38. David Rohl
  39. Sam Harris
  40. Peter Brooksmith
  41. Thomas L. Thomson
  42. Bamber Gascoigne
  43. Michael Burleigh
  44. Jenny Roberts
  45. Timothy Yates
  46. Joachim Jermeas
  47. Robert Graves
  48. Stephen To kind
  49. Jo Forty
  50. Evan Lunsing
  51. Tom Sorbel
  52. Philip Rousseu
  53. Richard Dawkins
  54. J. Anderson Thomson Jr. .M D
  55. Christopher Hit hind
  56. Mary Geard
  57. Geoffrey Ashe
  58. Louis A.
  59. Tobias Churton
  60. Linda Woodhead
  61. Dr. S. Radhakrisnan
  62. S. T .Joshi
  63. Cyrus Shahrad
  64. Robert Wright
  65. Barrie Wilson
  66. J. G.Frazer
  67. Eamon Duffy
  68. Marvin Meyer
  69. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
  70. Oxford History of Christianity
  71. Oxford Dictionary of Popes
  72. Webster’s Encyclopaedia.
  73. The Gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Philip etc.

 

Varghese Pamplanil

 

 

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