Hello, welcome back! And thank you for your thoughts!
Austin... my goodness, you have missed a few posts, haven't you? I've been back from Austin for over a month now, it was a very good vacation but there are no prospects at this moment for my moving there or leaving New Orleans.
This will probably be in two or more parts, as I collect my thoughts and reply to everything you've posted.
my problem with him is that he is therefore always writing as an ideologue, reducing complex questions to simple answers on the side he wishes to stress
I too have noticed this tendency throughout what I have read of Spong's work in general -- although I think that his tendency to make himself a "lightning rod" might be more problematic in the long run.
The difficulty I think when writing about these topics in general is that all such writings should come with an explicit caveat, that "no one book is going to present the one and final answer" to these questions. One reason the Gospels have been so enduring is the fact of their multidimensional mystery, and a "monolithic" declaration -- for example, that they reflect an entirely midrashic (or mythological, if you will) viewpoint -- is bound to overlook many deeper aspects of the mystery therein.
But this is the difficulty one must face if one is to say anything of substance about the Gospels at all.
If things must indeed be "said" about that which is inherently mysterious -- which is another question for another post...
Re: history+ York and Robinson
Austin... my goodness, you have missed a few posts, haven't you? I've been back from Austin for over a month now, it was a very good vacation but there are no prospects at this moment for my moving there or leaving New Orleans.
This will probably be in two or more parts, as I collect my thoughts and reply to everything you've posted.
my problem with him is that he is therefore
always writing as an ideologue, reducing complex
questions to simple answers on the side he wishes
to stress
I too have noticed this tendency throughout what I have read of Spong's work in general -- although I think that his tendency to make himself a "lightning rod" might be more problematic in the long run.
The difficulty I think when writing about these topics in general is that all such writings should come with an explicit caveat, that "no one book is going to present the one and final answer" to these questions. One reason the Gospels have been so enduring is the fact of their multidimensional mystery, and a "monolithic" declaration -- for example, that they reflect an entirely midrashic (or mythological, if you will) viewpoint -- is bound to overlook many deeper aspects of the mystery therein.
But this is the difficulty one must face if one is to say anything of substance about the Gospels at all.
If things must indeed be "said" about that which is inherently mysterious -- which is another question for another post...