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Quote by Humphrey Carpenter

“It takes a fantastic will to unbelief to suppose that Jesus never really ‘happened’, and more to suppose that he did not say the things recorded of him – so incapable of being ‘invented’ by anyone in the world at that time: such as ‘before Abraham came to be I am’ (John viii). ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father’ (John ix); or the promulgation of the Blessed Sacrament in John v: ‘He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life’. We must therefore either believe in Him and in what he said and take the consequences; or reject him and take the consequences. Letter 250 To Michael Tolkien”

Quote by Humphrey Carpenter

Book:The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
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The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

This book includes letters written by J.R.R. Tolkien, covering a wide range of topics including his writing process, personal life, and thoughts on various subjects. more

Author

Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey Carpenter

Humphrey Carpenter was a renowned British biographer, recognized for his extensive work on the lives of musicians and writers. Born on April 12, 1946, and passing away on January 4, 2005, Carpenter's biographies were known for their depth and thoroughness, offering comprehensive insights into the personal and professional lives of his subjects. more

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“Accepting that the Gospels are problematic sources, we can still sketch Jesus's life and teachings. The evidence puts him among the Jewish peasantry of first-century Palestine. He was born ca. 4 BCE, more likely in or around Nazareth than in Bethlehem, given both widespread doubts about the historicity of Matthew's and Luke's Nativity narratives and recognition of their apologetic aims. He came from a family of modest means, spoke Aramaic, and worked as a carpenter or builder. At about age thirty, he was baptized by an itinerant preacher named John, after which he spent one (or more) years in the Galilee, gaining disciples and sometimes teaching in synagogues. By all accounts he moved easily among and displayed great compassion for people at society's margins. He fomented a major disturbance in Jerusalem, for which he was executed. Some of what Jesus taught was already familiar—the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12) parallels a saying of the Jewish sage Hillel, his elder contemporary—but much represented a distinctive message about "the kingdom of God," a highly disputed term that many researchers understand as a place and time to come in which God will reign supreme. Heavenly or earthly, future or present, the kingdom would be ushered in by the "Son of Man," an apocalyptic figure whom Jesus may—or may not—have identified as himself. The kingdom's advent is imminent and would occasion a catastrophe, leading to a universal judgment of each person's fitness to enter it that would radically remake the social order. Mark 1:15 offers a concise precis: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come, repent, and believe the good news.”

Historical Jesus
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“[Jesus's] concern for society's outcasts and his portrayals of the transformation wrought by the kingdom of God have helped cast him as a militant revolutionary, but he lived a generation before the Zealots, and his admonition that all who take the sword will "perish" by it (Matt 26:52) hardly intimates a rebel chieftain. Self-authorized preachers such as John the Baptist or Theudas, who professed that he could part the Jordan River, roamed first-century Palestine, and Jesus seems to fit this profile.”

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“Though there’s simply no way to prove that no real Jesus ever existed [...], the closer you look for him the harder he is to see. When we search for what we think of as new innovations brought about by Jesus, invariably we find the same ideas have already come from some other source. He was a placeholder for all the values bestowed by all the other savior gods; he taught all the things Greek philosophers and Jewish Rabbis taught; he performed the same miracles, healings and resurrections the pagan magicians and exorcists did; in other words Jesus Christ was not a real person, but a synthesis of every cherished and passionate notion the ancient world came up with — noble truths, gentle wisdom, beloved fables, ancient attitudes, internal contradictions, scientific absurdities, intolerable attitudes and all. [...] We see indications that the first generation of Christianity began as a Jewish version of the Mystery Faiths, and that all the confused, contradictory ‘biographical’ information for Jesus stems from a deliberate allegory.”

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“Paul is not the one who needs an update—we do, considering that the tools used for interpretation have already been updated. They can help us find where many interpretations of the same texts have varied among those who hold a high view of Scripture.”

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“About this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was the achiever of extraordinary deeds and was a teacher of those who accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When he was indicted by the principle men among us and Pilate condemned him to be crucified, those who had come to love him originally did not cease to do so; for he appeared to them on the third day restored to life, as the prophets of the Deity had foretold these and countless other marvellous things about Him. And the tribe of Christians, so named after Him, has not disappeared to this day.”

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“But Tertullian insists that making choices is evil, since choice destroys group unity. To stamp out heresy, Tertullian says, church leaders must not allow people to ask questions, for it is “questions that make people heretics” — above all, questions like these: Whence comes evil? Why is it permitted? And what is the origin of human beings? Tertullian wants to stop such questions and impose upon all believers the same regula fidei, “rule of faith,” or creed. Tertullian knows that the “heretics” undoubtedly will object, saying that Jesus himself encouraged questioning, saying, “Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7). But Tertullian has no patience with such people: “Where will the end of seeking be? The point of seeking is to find; the purpose in finding, to believe.” Now that the church can provide a direct and simple answer to all questions in its rule of faith, Tertullian says, the only excuse for continuing to seek is sheer obstinacy: Away with the one who is always seeking, for he never finds anything; for he is seeking where nothing can be found. Away with the one who is always knocking, for he knocks where there is no one to open; away with the one who is always asking, for he asks of one who does not hear. The true Christian, Tertullian declares, simply determines to “know nothing ... at variance with the truth of faith.” But when people “insist on our asking about the issues that concern them,” Tertullian says, “we have a moral obligation to refute them. . . . They say that we must ask questions in order to discuss,” Tertullian continues, “but what is there to discuss?” When the “heretics” object that Christians must discuss what the Scriptures really mean, Tertullian declares that believers must dismiss all argument over scriptural interpretation; such controversy only “has the effect of upsetting the stomach or the brain.”

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Book:The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics
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