Resurrecting the biblical Jesus

Re “Jesus skeptics on the run,” Current, Dec. 18

Thank you for your unbiased glimpse at the person of Jesus. Without a doubt, Jesus was the most divisive figure in history.

For that reason I suspect that the Jesus Seminar scholars have their own agenda when addressing the validity of Jesus’ claims.

First and foremost, Jesus claimed to be the son of God. This sets up a tension for we humans. If, as he claims, he is the son of God, then the implications for us are enormous. Simply put, we must believe (and respond to) everything he says. Conversely, if he was not the son of God, then he is nothing more than a charlatan worthy of being tossed upon the garbage heap of egotistical and self-serving historical figures.

As mentioned, I believe the former for many solid reasons, some of which “we cannot prove,” as Charlotte Allen so aptly opines.

Allen’s assertion that we “do not have to feel like ignoramuses should we choose to believe these things” is a breath of fresh air to Christians weary of being relegated to the land of the naive non-thinker.

CLINT SADLER

Corona

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As a historian, I am not skeptical about the existence of Jesus. I am skeptical about Christ.

I have read the Jesus Seminar books and am inspired by Jesus’ messages of love and care for the afflicted. But I can’t swallow the stories about Christ rising from the dead, being the son of God or relieving me of my sins. I’m responsible for those.

PORTER EWING

Emeritus Professor of History

Los Angeles City College

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Allen tells us that she has learned to live with the cognitive dissonance between what Christian orthodoxy requires of its adherents and what scholarship says about the likely history of the events described in the New Testament Gospels. In her favorable review of the Anne Rice novel, she shows us how one can even come to love it. Sure, the Flat Earth Society also deserves to be taken seriously, but only as entertainment, right?

REX STYZENS

Long Beach