Inge Frette wrote:
> Hei George,
>
> > It's a standoff only to the extent that "For Christ's sake God
> > forgives
> >you your sins" and "You'll go to Hell if you don't earn God's acceptance" is a
> >standoff.
> > I emphasized (below) that the heart of the Christian claim has to do
> >with "the historical
> >reality (N.B.) of the crucifixion of Jesus." Just this historical reality is
> >disputed by Muslims, something that shows their unwillingness to pursue any
> >historical investigation of religious issues. BUT - the
> >theological claim associated with the cross - that the Crucified is the Son of
> >God whose death reconciles us to God - is, like the goodness of creation, not
> >something one can verify by historical investigation.
>
> I am just curious. When you stress that the heart of the Christian claim
> has to do
> with the "historical reality of the crucifixion of Jesus" you didn't say
> anything about
> the resurrection of Jesus. Was that intended ? Do you see a historical
> resurrection
> of Jesus as essential too Christianity, or do you limit it to the
> crucifixion ? If you
> don't see a historical resurrection as essential, why don't you do that ?
The resurrection is indeed essential, & good arguments can be given for the
truth of the NT claims about the appearances of the risen Christ & the empty tomb.
But in the nature of things this is not open to the same type of support as the
crucifixion. E.g., we _might_ find Roman records of the trial of Jesus, but there
would be nothing corresponding to that for the resurrection. _Theologically_ I
want to avoid the constant temptation to jump to Easter & avoid Good Friday.
Unless the risen One is the Crucified then the whole things loses its
significance. I go into this a bit more in my recent _Perspectives_ (Sept.2000)
communication, to which I referred in my parallel post to Glenn _et al._
Shalom,
George
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Nov 04 2000 - 09:04:46 EST