Comments on: Cross Currents

By: mil

mil — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:40:35 +0000

Its as Chesterton says in The Everlasting Man: “The other day a scientific summary of the state of a prehistoric tribe began…’They wore no clothes.’Not one reader in a hundred probably stopped to ask himself how we should come to know whether clothes had once been worn by people of whom everything has perished except a few chips of bone and stone. It was doubtless hoped that we should find a stone hat as well as a stone hatchet.” Because we haven’t found them, it doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.

By: david mcgowan

david mcgowan — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:38:40 +0000

when I was young I wondered why the infant church would adopt as its symbol a depiction of a common and horrible form of execution. After all St Paul told us the important proof of the Gospel is the Ressurection. A wise teacher of mine remnded me that ressurection would be a myth if Jesus was not in fact dead. As the early populations (not just Xtians) were familiar with this awful practice and knew for certain that if your were crucified, you died. Jesus was in fact dead therefore his testifiable reappearance must be ressurection from the dead. The ultimate proof. It would be surprising if the early Xtians were not just as keen to represent the cross.

By: Carl Sommer

Carl Sommer — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:04:57 +0000

You and I are on the same page. BTW, hope you get to feeling better!

By: Mike Aquilina

Mike Aquilina — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:37:48 +0000

Precisely. And how do the circulars deal with the documentary record? By imagining a class struggle in the early Church — painting proles versus rich preachers! As if it didn’t cost a small fortune to have frescos painted at your tomb!

By: Carl Sommer

Carl Sommer — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:18:49 +0000

You have stated, brilliantly and succinctly, what I think on this subject, and several others of scholarly import. Isn’t circular reasoning wonderful? You always end up concluding whatever you started out believing!