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WestBow Press - Gennaro Cozzi

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217 pages

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A carefully reasoned case for the human need for the Jesus of the Bible, drawing on history, philosophy, mythology, and psychology outside the Bible itself.

Sit in on a series of conversations about the biggest questions of philosophy, mythology, psychology, history and our contemporary world.

Across these wide-ranging discussions, four friends keep coming back to the need for something—a catalyst—to transform human brokenness and answer our deepest longings.

With Gennaro as our guide, these questions lead us to the Bible’s stories of Jesus and the possibilities that this might be the best Catalyst human knowledge and experience has yet found.

“This book addresses the biggest ideas and our biggest human needs for healing, rescue and restoration. It is a unique and passionate contribution to the arguments for why we can and must take Jesus seriously in our world today.”

— Nathan Brown, author,

Why I Try to Believe: An Experiment in Life,

Faith and Stubborn Hope

Sujets

Biblical Meditations

Philosophie et théologie

El Mesías

Jesús de Nazaret

Jesus

Religion

Messiah

Jésus de Nazareth

Informations

Publié par	WestBow Press
Date de parution	06 juin 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781664297777
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE LOGICAL CHRIST HYPOTHESIS

AN ANSWER TO DISBELIEF

Gennaro Cozzi

Copyright © 2023 Gennaro Cozzi.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®

Scripture marked (KJV) taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-9778-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-9779-1 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-9777-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023907022

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/17/2023
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1 Why this book
Chapter 2 A brief history of Bible criticism
Chapter 3 Still on Bible Criticism
Chapter 4 Exploring the Religious Rituals of the Past: The Human Sacrifice
Chapter 5 The spiritual realm—the idols
Chapter 6 The concept of morality across the ages
Chapter 7 More on morality
Chapter 8 Difficult Times for Morality
Chapter 9 Could human morality affect the physical world?
Chapter 10 Another world
Chapter 11 Why the Bible?
Chapter 12 More on the Bible
Chapter 13 Why the Hebrews? God’s people in the Bible
Chapter 14 The Concept of Sin: Biblical Perspective
Chapter 15 The Biblical Solution to Sin—Part 1
Chapter 16 The Biblical Solution to Sin—Part 2
Chapter 17 The Bible’s Concept of Messiah: Temporal, Spiritual, Eschatological
Chapter 18 The Biblical Remedy for Sin: The Sanctuary
Chapter 19 Conclusion
Acknowledgments
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, both academic and media attention has turned with peculiar regularity to the figure of Jesus Christ, even to His claims to be the Messiah. Television documentaries, movies and magazines seem to periodically organize debates and investigations on the topic of Jesus, His passion, His trial, His tomb, His natural family and, not least, His supposed relationship with Mary Magdalene.
Unfortunately, many of these discussions are not driven by an academic spirit, much less a spiritual interest, aimed at highlighting the real issues and questions. At times, following the trend to satisfy popular curiosity, they become derisive and sensational.
This book has been written particularly for those who question the reality of the God of the Bible; the supernatural Being beyond time and space; the Creator of the whole universe and all the creatures living in it. Alongside this, this book is devoted to highlighting the figure of Christ the Messiah. So often, He has been placed under scrutiny by many skeptics, but the way He still rises above human thought through the way He lived and what He taught is evidence of His unique nature.
This work is not a Bible study. Instead, this is an invitation to investigate a hypothesis that might turn out to be true. It’s also a response to thinking that tries to analyze the divine solely through human wisdom, ignoring the clues available to them and, in doing so, reaching conclusions far from the truth.
Acknowledging our limited perception of the universe, we realize we cannot define an absolute truth or absolute un-truth. Through an in-depth check of available evidence, we can consider and weigh a number of possibilities, but we cannot rule out a hypothesis that involves the supernatural that might affect us in real ways. After all, what if the supernatural dimension—neither quantifiable nor qualifiable by the laws of matter—is real? What would be the implications for us?
Obviously, we can tell nothing about how the supernatural dimension would be, unless by a revelation from the Eternal Himself. One example is dramatically pictured in the book of Revelation 21:4: “[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
In this quotation, the old order of things that has passed away represents the sum of our experiences with suffering. The Bible argues that this suffering is caused by an orientation in humanity that is not in line with the best interests of humanity. But how—with a tendency toward a single-minded focus, in which most of humanity directs love toward the self rather than other—can a new order be realized?
Given the vital importance of these questions, wouldn’t it be wise—rather than discarding the issue on the basis of a momentary feeling—to engage in a deeper investigation and analysis of the issues, bearing in mind what it could eventually mean for us?
I acknowledge that the whole matter might look speculative at first sight. But, from the standpoint of the one who is open to walk on the likelihood to believe, what would the alternative be? By believer , I mean either the individual who has been raised in a religious environment, which eventually may contribute to forming in him rituals devoid of spiritual strength, or the individual who chose to believe as a result of personal experiences or investigations.
While I come to this project as a lay person, in each of the specific fields addressed, I will rely on the scholars’ works, considering and confronting their results, to reach a reasonable conclusion that might satisfy the thirst for knowledge of those who—like me—are spectators on the scholars’ world.
This work is also an attempt to understand the logic behind why some critics, dating from the enlightenment period beginning about four centuries ago, devoted themselves to diminishing or even destroying the figure and influence of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
These liberal critics, who deny the possibility of the supernatural, devote themselves to testing the Bible in order to evaluate its historical and literary validity, under the pretense of scientific work. Accusing the Bible of historical incoherencies, editorial interferences and mythical creations by the first writers, these critics have undermined the entire Sacred Volume. In turn, such reading undermines the image of a personal God who wants a closer relationship with His own creatures and, in the pursuit of this, He is even willing to engage in personal sacrifice.
Standing on the opposite bank of the river are their colleagues who believe in the authority of the Bible. They busy themselves plugging the holes their antagonists have produced in the Holy Text, leaving the average person in the dark trying to understand what is going on!
On one side, we have a kind of Bible critic who does not believe in the supernatural. On the other hand, we have another kind of Bible critic—the Apologist—who believes in the supernatural. Both are doing their best to wrestle with the same topic: Jesus the Messiah, His historical reality, His messianic role. It is noteworthy to question: Having similar academic backgrounds, these two groups share the same field of interests, have similar intellectual power, but begin and arrive at opposite points of view. What measure is there to judge who is right and wrong?
Why this difference of opinions? The reality is the dimension of the spirit! We are not living in a closed system. To understand all the phenomena concerning human feelings and belief, we have to include the dimension of the spirit too!
As a repercussion of this conflict between these two groups of critics, let me quote Dr Gary Parker 1 —a doctor of biology:
Even secular and agnostic scientists are (now) become creationists! … I’m an evolutionist turned creationist, so it may surprise you: I don’t believe we live in the world God created! Or, at least … as God created it … One reason is my answer to the same problem that puzzled Darwin: How could there be so much pain, suffering, disease, death, and disaster in a world created by an all-powerful, all-loving God? According to the Bible, God did not create the world full of pain and death. Instead, it was the self-centered, arrogance … of human beings that ruined the world of perfect harmony that God had created.
There is also a third body of people. They write stories centered on Jesus, but that seem quite far from the truth about Him. These stories usually end up in movies or musical works and can be quite popular — Jesus Christ Superstar , for example. How come these movies or musical art works are not focusing on other notable people of faith?
Building on this curiosity, I am inviting the reader to keep in mind the extent of this topic. It includes both secular and spiritual dimensions, as well as the experience of the di