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orion Re: Response to Harrison



Mr. or Ms. Harrison or Bradley
seems rather harsh in dismissing poor Philip Davies' description of the 
rabbi's historical fictions as being motivated by ethnocentrism. However, 
he or she uses only a politically correct form of rhetoric 
for a response. Of course, "Christ's" trial was a fiction. Even such 
a "Christ," namely Messiah, is a theological, and therefore 
fictional, concept; and it is also a matter  of course that Paul's Sanhedrin visit -- 
paralleling Steven's "trial"-- was also fictive. Such critical 
assertions -- and Philip agrees with me here -- are not ethnocentric. 
Let's not open up a religious war here. 
Philip, hardly a Christian except by my catholic standards, must be 
allowed to paint even the rabbis with his critical brush. 
Christian's, even Catholics fare no better at his hands. His aim  is 
scholarship, not religious supersessionism. That game must be 
surrendered to Islam, not Christianity.
Thomas

Thomas L. Thompson
University of Copenhagen 


>     Mishnaic fiction? Even in the DSS this fiction was refered to and even
> duplicated in their own political tradition. Your position is very
> ethnocentric I fear, i.e. if it is written in a traditional Jewish sources
> then it is fiction. I suppose Christ's trial was fiction, and when Paul
> presented himself to the Sanhedrin, this was fiction too.