Tuesday, October 15, 2013
361 - A Faithful History of Jesus
Spirituality Column #361
October 15, 2013
Current in
Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
A Faithful History of Jesus
By Bob Walters
In
his new book “Killing Jesus,” Bill O’Reilly presents a historical look at the
life and times – and death – of Jesus Christ from a most unusual point of view:
That
Jesus Christ was the Son of God.
The
phrase “Historical Jesus” is contemporary cultural code for “Jesus wasn’t
really the Son of God.” It has become a
common yet dreadful genre of written and video material typically dedicated to pooh-poohing
and undoing the truths of the Gospels and the Church about the perfect, coexistent
humanity and divinity of Jesus.
Television productions
and print publications commonly herald newly-minted “truth” about the
“Historical Jesus”; somebody has found Jesus’s bones over here or unearthed
“evidence” of Jesus’s marriage and progeny over there.
Whether propagated
by a cable channel documentary or a new Dan Brown novel, in recent decades it
has been rigorously out of bounds for mainline, popular, and especially
academic thought to purport that Jesus is exactly who He said He was,
fulfilling the exact divine mission He said He was on. It’s simply not institutionally hip to look
at the history of Jesus Christ – the most impactful and famous person in the
history of humanity – and not intellectually ridicule His Godly identity and
purpose.
Funny, that’s what
the Pharisees and Romans did 2,000 years ago.
“Killing Jesus,”
currently the top-selling book on the planet, does not preach a sermon or teach
the Bible. Importantly, and somewhat
uniquely, neither does it attempt to debunk Gospel truth. It illuminates the historical goings on in
and around the culture, religion, politics, personalities and scandals of the BC/AD
era Roman Empire, Jewish nation, and especially Jerusalem.
It’s
educational. What was the deal with the Caesars? The Herods?
Pontius Pilate? Caiaphas? The
beheading of John the Baptist? All very
enlightening.
How bad was
crucifixion? Really, really bad.
I had never
before understood that the “money changers” in the Temple, who were Jews, were bilking
Jewish pilgrims by charging exorbitant fees to exchange Roman “denarius” coins
for Hebrew “shekels.” Outside commerce
was done with the denarius, but only shekels could purchase a Passover lamb. Ergo, Jews ripping off other Jews for worship
is what upset Jesus.
Jesus
interrupting the flow of Temple income is what upset the Jewish elders.
There is a
spiritual quality about reading the Bible unmatched in secular histories, including
this one. With faith and prayer, the Bible’s
mystery and truth can be grasped if not entirely understood. O’Reilly and co-writer Martin Dugard, both
Roman Catholics, provide welcome perspective by animating the living-color
context of the life Jesus lived.
Without insisting
that Jesus is a lie.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) applauds O’Reilly for invoking, on “60 Minutes,” the Holy Spirit’s
inspiration. It befuddled the secular
media.
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