ment in regard to what is undenit ably the very
'matter of Europe' and (should the Gospel thesis be true) of the world--an argument of far too great moment for it to rest in any degree on faulty comparii sons.
Such a faulty comparison he hai however clearly made (27 February) in equating the degree of credibility rightly accorded to the Gospels— whose unfeigned variants betoken their authenticity as sources—with that demanded by the Koran and the Book of Mormon, since the cases are not only different, but instructively different.
Let us contrast these cases. Mor-
mons believe that an angel appear- ed to Joseph Smith and physically exhibited to his sight golden auto- graphs in the so-called 'reformed' Egyptian tongue (unknown to lin- guists), from which he made his translation of the Book of Mor- mon. No Christian believes any such thing about the Gospels, or indeed about the Bible as such.
Muslims believe rather similarly
that the Koran was communicated to Muhammad by an angel, with the addition in their case that such a degree of verbal inspiration be- longs to the Arabic text that it can never be used liturgically in translation. To become a Muslim involves learning Arabic! Again no Christian believes any such thing.
It is unworthy to allege, as the
Professor does, that the Christian faith falls alongside comparisons which are significantly different. The Christian case, to which the Gospels bear historical witness, is that Jesus is an historically unique figure and that His power to save derives precisely from this unique- ness. Thus, far from His uniqueness being established were virgin births and resurrections an everyday twentieth-century phenomenon, it would in fact be so completely de- stroyed that it would have nothing unique about it to communicate to the world.
The resurrection of Christ must
be taken seriously by Professor Trevor-Roper and your readers on its own account, for to it the very existence of the early Church— not to speak of the incredible testimony and career of St Paul— do give an objective witness which has yet to be disproved by anyone.
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