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2 internautes sur 2 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
1.0étoiles sur 5
Jesus never existed, Juil 16 2004
Par Un client
This book might be an interesting read for sci-fi fans, but it's fatally flawed as history because Jesus never existed. As historians are making clear, there's no evidence for the historical Jesus outside the gospels, which are unreliable documents meant to convert people, not teach history. There's the further problem that there is no God, any more than there is an Easter bunny or Santa Claus, so there can't really be a son of God, can there? Christianity is a primitive and silly belief system, and it's really not worth reading about.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, Avril 15 2004
Prothero (religion, Boston Univ.; The White Buddhist, etc.) eschews American theology in favor of its art, music, literature, and film to answer the intriguing question, "How did the Son of God become a national icon beloved by Jerry Falwell and the Dalai Lama alike?" The author has chosen to capitalize on Jesus the man and universal Christ while largely ignoring the nature and function of a dogmatic Christ as messiah. Objective and dispassionate throughout, the author confidently assures the reader that Jesus really matters-that he serves as a common cultural coin in a country divided by race, ethnicity, gender, class, and religion. Salty and savory quotes (including Langston Hughes's 1932 incendiary poetry describing a black Jesus) season the chapters well and flavor the author's underlying belief that there is a huge difference between authentic Christianity and organized "churchianity." A detailed time line and bibliography accentuate the value of this popular and scholarly survey of the "American" Son of God. It is a witty, entertaining, and eye-opening romp through American cultural history-as exciting as William Manchester's 1974 The Glory and the Dream. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries
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5.0étoiles sur 5
The Rohrschach, object-in-the-clouds Jesus, Fév 22 2004
In addition to many valid comments made by other Amazon reviews here, let me feature perhaps the central underlying concept of Prothero's book: the general concept that divinity, like beauty, etc., exists in the eye of the beholder. Jesus has been like a Rohrschach ink-splotch exercise: "What do you see here?" Different viewers of the same ink splotch see varied kinds of faces and objects. Prothero has revealed the history of Americans' "thing-in-the-clouds" Jesus, analogous to children who look at the same cloud and see no recognizable shape, or a dog, or a flower, or their uncle Henry's shoe.Prothero's book, that is, doesn't focus on the question of WHAT, or even IF, Jesus was or is. Prothero lets us see that the Jesus concept is principally that, a concept, one that lets individual minds see a reflection of what occurs cognitively and emotionally in his/her own head and heart. Each Christian denomination, then, merely presents a particular view, which attracts a particular kind of convert who mistakes that particular view as "reality." Each denomination then presents arguments for their own view, eager to convince other religious "viewers" that their doggie in the clouds is the real doggie, and that the viewers who don't see this doggie lack sufficient faith, or righteousness, or status as one of the chosen who recognize the "truth." Jesus, that is, serves as an anchor of private and personal limitations, and then provides motivation hopefully to grow beyond those limitations. The realist will expend no effort on deciding whether the cloud or the Rohrschach splotch IS a dog or person, etc. The realist will recognize that the cloud is a cloud, and the splotch is a splotch. Anything else is but a mental projection superimposed onto that reality, leaving people to argue over which mental image has more validity. Prothero does a magnificent job of laying out the American history of this cognitive/emotional syndrome.
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