[jerryb]

Quote: "Imagine for a moment that you woke up one morning,and everything you thought you knew about yourself was untrue. Your name wasnot your true name...your parents were not your real parents...your whole identity was a fabrication. This is how it is with our so-called sacred texts...they have been
WILFULLY distorted,badly remembered,and wrongly interpreted".

[jerryb]

jerryb, on Nov 20 2005, 08:48 PM, said:

Quote: "Imagine for a moment that you woke up one morning,and everything you thought you knew about yourself was untrue. Your name wasnot your true name...your parents were not your real parents...your whole identity was a fabrication.  This is how it is with our so-called sacred texts...they have been
WILFULLY distorted,badly remembered,and wrongly interpreted".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OOPS! Sorry for the double post.

Having been brought up in an extremely fundemental church...I really had a crisis of faith,when for the first time...I allowed myself to entertain the slightest doubt
about the infallability of the bible.
But after months of intense struggle with that 'slightest doubt'....I began to feel a sense of true freedom for the first time in my life. It was the most liberating
experience of my life. And I am grateful to authors like these (Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy) who wrote this excellant book. Jerryb

[FredP]

Of course, there is some salesmanship going on here. The Bible didn't fall out of the sky containing all the truth there is; but to say the whole thing is unlaterally a "WILLFUL" distortion of the truth isn't quite fair either. Do you really think that the Bible and the Qur'an are "works of political propaganda created by Taliban-like fundamentalists to justify religious violence"? If that were true, then the texts would have no value even to their esoteric and gnostic interpreters, among whom Freke and Gandy count themselves. But of course, you're smart enough to pick through the commercialism and get to the good stuff.



Actually, I recently picked up all three of the popular new Freke and Gandy books myself (book club enrollment), and sometime in between work and being a dad I'll get around to reading them. (So, sometime in 2031, maybe?)

The Laughing Jesus is billed as dealing with the subject of literalism in western religious texts, which is a good topic these days. Like you, and many others here no doubt, biblical "inerrancy" in some form or other, was the first thread that I started pulling on in my exploration of my fundamentalist roots. And before long the whole sweater was one big mess of fabric lying in a tangled ball on the floor. It is scary, and liberating, and worthwhile. Just keep your head on straight!

[AletheiaRivers]

I'm not a bit Freke fan. I bought "Jesus and the Lost Goddess" and "The Pagan Jesus" a few years back, but ended up returning them after the first few chapters.

I find it ironic that "The Laughing Jesus" is about literalism and the scriptures? One of the reasons I returned Freke's books was because I thought he was treating the stories in the gnostic gospels as literal happenings and I just couldn't swallow the whole "Sophia and her consort Christ" scenario. Perhaps the end of the books would have discussed gnosticism from a more metaphorical standpoint, but I couldn't make myself wade thru the rest of the books to get there.

I returned the books and bought "Inner Christianity" and "The Heart of Christianity" instead. Both good books. "Inner Christianity", I thought, did a better job of discussing gnostic and esoteric Christianity.

For a book dealing with legalism and literalism and the church, I think I'd recommend "Stealing Jesus."