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The Jesus Sayings: The Quest for the Authentic Teachings of Jesus
The proliferation of doomsday believers, and the reinvigoration of the time-honoured antipathy between Muslims and Christians since 9-11, has given rise to the spread of increasingly vocal anti-religionists such as Christopher Hitchens-but that doesn't upset Greenpeace activist Rex Weyler.
Weyler has explored his Quakerism by writing a new book about what Jesus really said-as opposed to what others have fictionalized as his words.
Weyler in his The Jesus Sayings: The Quest for the Authentic Teachings of Jesus (Anansi $29.95), surveys more than 200 ancient documents in his search for the authentic voice of Jesus. Along the way Weyler discounts many contemporary beliefs, making clear that Jesus never claimed to be the son of God.
While referencing the investigative Biblical scholarship of Margaret Starbird, Nicholas Wright, Robert W. Funk and others, Weyler attempts to answer down-to-earth questions raised by the German linguist Hermann Reimarus in 1760: What events reported in the Gospels actually happened? And, what ideas and teachings from the surviving record can be traced to the historical Jesus?
In other words, Weyler asks, "What can we reasonably say about the historical Jesus, and what did this person teach?";
Weyler's intentions are not to debunk Christianity so much as to refocus on the essence of Jesus's radical message: serve God by serving others. In doing so, Weyler is willing to acknowledge the validity of "secular and agnostic reactions to violence among fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus."; He sees books such as The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens and The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong as healthy rather than destructive.
"A vast and glorious landscape exists between the extremes of religious fundamentalism and absolute rationalism,"; he writes.
978-0-88784-212-2;
[BCBW] "Religion"
Weyler has explored his Quakerism by writing a new book about what Jesus really said-as opposed to what others have fictionalized as his words.
Weyler in his The Jesus Sayings: The Quest for the Authentic Teachings of Jesus (Anansi $29.95), surveys more than 200 ancient documents in his search for the authentic voice of Jesus. Along the way Weyler discounts many contemporary beliefs, making clear that Jesus never claimed to be the son of God.
While referencing the investigative Biblical scholarship of Margaret Starbird, Nicholas Wright, Robert W. Funk and others, Weyler attempts to answer down-to-earth questions raised by the German linguist Hermann Reimarus in 1760: What events reported in the Gospels actually happened? And, what ideas and teachings from the surviving record can be traced to the historical Jesus?
In other words, Weyler asks, "What can we reasonably say about the historical Jesus, and what did this person teach?";
Weyler's intentions are not to debunk Christianity so much as to refocus on the essence of Jesus's radical message: serve God by serving others. In doing so, Weyler is willing to acknowledge the validity of "secular and agnostic reactions to violence among fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus."; He sees books such as The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens and The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong as healthy rather than destructive.
"A vast and glorious landscape exists between the extremes of religious fundamentalism and absolute rationalism,"; he writes.
978-0-88784-212-2;
[BCBW] "Religion"
Submitted on June 3, 2008 in By David.
