Rick B. (bup) -
Osler draws interesting parallels - really substantive ones - between the trial and execution of Jesus as presented in the gospels and the modern American capital punishment system.
He's at his best when addressing the reader as a Christian. That is to say, Osler isn't preachy, and he doesn't have a political agenda. He asks, without making (this reader, anyway) defensive, to examine the meaning of the gospels - is it happenstance that the narrative has God the Father yield up his innocent son to be executed by the state?
Or are Christians supposed to infer something from that?
Would the story be the cornerstone of a religion if Jesus had been killed by an extralegal gang? If the mob had lynched him? Or is it significant that it was a legal process that rushed to judgment, convicted him, and executed him?
They are questions I hadn't considered before, among others, and although it's a quick read (about 140 pages), it'll leaving me thinking about it for a long time.
He's at his best when addressing the reader as a Christian. That is to say, Osler isn't preachy, and he doesn't have a political agenda. He asks, without making (this reader, anyway) defensive, to examine the meaning of the gospels - is it happenstance that the narrative has God the Father yield up his innocent son to be executed by the state?
Or are Christians supposed to infer something from that?
Would the story be the cornerstone of a religion if Jesus had been killed by an extralegal gang? If the mob had lynched him? Or is it significant that it was a legal process that rushed to judgment, convicted him, and executed him?
They are questions I hadn't considered before, among others, and although it's a quick read (about 140 pages), it'll leaving me thinking about it for a long time.
