Quick Review of "No Meek Messiah" by Micael Paulkovich

[outhouse]

"The alleged Jesus character allegedly has people writing about him within 2 decades of [his] alleged death"

Like it or not the man has historicity.

You can try and tear it down, but the historical core still stands on its own merit.

I don't see this changing any time soon based on the work those who oppose it are producing.

[MrMacSon]

"The alleged Jesus character allegedly has people writing about him within 2 decades of [his] alleged death"

Like it or not the man has historicity.

... the historical core still stands on its own merit.

What "historical core"? (you keep asserting 'historicity', but never provide a series of propositions to support it)

[outhouse]

http://vridar.org/2014/10/20/bible-scho ... aulkovich/


There is a good article on the OP. Showing this is not a scholarly attempt but a nice little boring polemic.

[outhouse]

What "historical core"? (you keep asserting 'historicity', but never provide a series of propositions to support it)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

There is near unanimity among scholars that Jesus existed historically


Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and most biblical scholars and classical historians see the theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted.[57][59][60][nb 10][77] There is no evidence today that the existence of Jesus was ever denied in antiquity by those who opposed Christianity

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Outhouse,

Thanks for this. Neil Godfrey gives an excellent and very fair review. I agree with just about everything in it.

I did find the book boring at times, primarily because I knew a lot of the history in it, but I can well imagine a lot of people with no or little knowledge of history receiving it excitedly as revelation. It is written in a breezy, upbeat, easy to understand style, a little like Lee Strobel's writings.

Neil describes it as a polemic and I describe it as a sermon. It is fierce, angry, funny, and often silly, but it also contains a lot of general information that I think is interesting and surprising. For example, I did not know that a treaty in 1929 between the Church and the Mussolini fascist Italian government established Vatican City as a sovereign nation belonging to the Catholic Church. (104).

I really hesitated between giving it three or four stars on Amazon. I wished I could give it 3 1/2. I think if you know what to expect, and don't expect to much or too little, regardless of your religious feelings or non-feelings you'll get something out of it.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

http://vridar.org/2014/10/20/bible-scho ... aulkovich/


There is a good article on the OP. Showing this is not a scholarly attempt but a nice little boring polemic.

[outhouse]

Hi Outhouse,

Thanks for this. Neil Godfrey gives an excellent and very fair review. I agree with just about everything in it.

I did not read the book, nor will I. But compared to the other reviews I agree with you, and your welcome. It was my favorite so I had to bring it up.

[andrewcriddle]

Neil describes it as a polemic and I describe it as a sermon. It is fierce, angry, funny, and often silly, but it also contains a lot of general information that I think is interesting and surprising. For example, I did not know that a treaty in 1929 between the Church and the Mussolini fascist Italian government established Vatican City as a sovereign nation belonging to the Catholic Church. (104).

In context FWIW.

Before 1870/1871 greater Rome (the city and its outskirts) was a sovereign nation belonging to the Papacy. (Earlier most of central Italy was a sovereign nation belonging to the papacy who apparently governed it badly.)
Rome was seized (without actual violence) from the Papacy as part of the establishment of a united Italy with Rome as its capital.

The papacy denounced this as an illegal act (technically they had a case). For over a generation the Vatican and the state of Italy were in dispute over this issue, Under Mussolini the papacy gave up its claim to the city of Rome in return for the Italian government accepting the claim of the papacy to Vatican city.

Andrew Criddle

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Andrewcriddle,

Thanks for this. I think the position of the Catholic Church in signing the Lateran Treaty is understandable. It had been pursuing its claims for control over Rome for 59 years with numerous Italian governments without success, and it had practically no hope of success, until the illegal fascist government came to power in 1922. Having sovereignty over Vatican City at least gave it some political authority rather than the none it had.

From the Fascist government's point of view it was a small bribe in return for the support of millions of Catholics.

One should have expected that the Catholic-Fascist Treaty should have been declared null and void after the overthrow of the fascist government at the end of World War II. However the war against fascism immediately morphed into the Cold War against Communism, so the U.S. controlled Italian governments upheld the Fascist-Catholic treaty to win support from Catholics for the Cold War against communism.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Neil describes it as a polemic and I describe it as a sermon. It is fierce, angry, funny, and often silly, but it also contains a lot of general information that I think is interesting and surprising. For example, I did not know that a treaty in 1929 between the Church and the Mussolini fascist Italian government established Vatican City as a sovereign nation belonging to the Catholic Church. (104).

In context FWIW.

Before 1870/1871 greater Rome (the city and its outskirts) was a sovereign nation belonging to the Papacy. (Earlier most of central Italy was a sovereign nation belonging to the papacy who apparently governed it badly.)
Rome was seized (without actual violence) from the Papacy as part of the establishment of a united Italy with Rome as its capital.

The papacy denounced this as an illegal act (technically they had a case). For over a generation the Vatican and the state of Italy were in dispute over this issue, Under Mussolini the papacy gave up its claim to the city of Rome in return for the Italian government accepting the claim of the papacy to Vatican city.

Andrew Criddle