Faithdigger

Dead Sea Scrolls

Just read about the Dead Sea Scrolls in wikipedia and then a brief synopsis here .  What i find interesting is the lack of mention of Christ even though the documents are dated from the first century and attrabuted to the Essene sect (which I presume John the baptist was connected / related to, and certainly Christ's wandering in the wilderness has reflections of). 

Does lead me a little to suspect that the theories that Paul mythologicized the Christian story might have a grain of truth, but then again - you can't ignore the growth of christianity and even if Christ was not a big event in the religious and civil life of the Jews at the time - it would still have figured in the scrolls had they reported on issues of the time.  In short I've just talked myslef round to saying they probably don't say anything about Christianity other than giving insight into the life of the time.

Doesn't really have a big effect on my faith - I'm not sure the historical story / truth is important to the message of Christ.  But it is another chip at the issue of the divinity of christ.

continuing history of jesus

Next in  series here on BBC not so good about the church of the holy sephulcre in jerusalem.  But the 3rd in the series with constantine and the adoption of christianity as the state religion is excellent with good questions raised about the message and how it became institutionalized.  Great interviews at the end with Ann Widdicombe and others.

BBC Background to Christ

Great BBC radio series on the background of Jesus  here  the medieval and subsequent repression of Jesus as a Jew is an interesting point.  Problem for medieval man was recognising Jesus as a jewish preacher is it denied the new-ness of Christ's message - ie if christianity is a faith about the man Jesus, then it's new - but if its about the Jesus's faith - then its about Judaism.  Got to the point that Nazis and the German Christian movement of the 1920s claimed jesus was not jewish at all.  Only post war has the jewish-ness of jesus been focussed on.