Many questions
Sir: I have no idea what kind of fee an Arts and Sciences Professor of Religion at Duke University and a former Dean Ireland's Professor of Exegesis of Holy Scripture at Oxford can command for his contribution to your issue put did it happen?', 6 April). The 'blarney' is certainly all there, but I
LETTERS
find it interesting that long ago, and with- out any specific academic qualifications, I reached the same conclusions as he expounds in the opening paragraph. As a result, I am a lapsed RC.
The other part worth noting in his long recital is the sentence near the end suggest- ing that something happened to the follow- ers of Jesus, but we do not know what it was.
I wish that many of those who have claimed to be the successors of Peter had not — in the words of Matthew Parris 'committed the sin of hubris', and that those who still claim to 'have a hotline' to God, or Jesus, had not oppressed us with their diktat.
E.P Sanders has not posed the logical question, though: will those who claim the Resurrection and Ascension to be a fact historical or otherwise — please tell me, and anyone interested, where Jesus is now and is presumed to have been for some 1963 years? Must He not feel terribly lonely 'up there, all by Himself, unable even to see His Heavenly Father, because the latter is the Infinitely Perfect Spirit, and should He not have a terribly guilty conscience that He has not intervened in the debate or, let me say ,slaughter in his name, during the ages since He excepted himself from the law of gravity?
His coming, being and going was not in vain for those who have faith without 'mira- cles' — the kind of faith He demanded and I will follow His two commandments to the end of my days. All the rest is part of the notorious chutzpah.
John van der Pas
17 Preston Road, Poole, Dorset
Previous page
