![\"Thorvaldsen's](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/08\/christus-statue-1025369-gallery.jpg\")
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I continue with my reading of Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach<\/em> (Routledge, 2020).\u00a0 Dr. Loke, a native of Singapore who is currently an Associate Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, was a practicing physician before he returned to school first in the United States and then in the United Kingdom, where he earned a doctorate in philosophy and theology at King\u2019s College London.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here is an interesting chain of logic from his second chapter that I find clarifying and, therefore, useful.\u00a0 Please note that the word or is taken in the exclusive sense of \u201ceither one or the other, but not both\u201d:<\/p>\n (2.2.1)\u00a0 Either (2.2.1.1) or (2.2.1.2) is true:<\/p>\n (2.2.1.1)\u00a0 Those who claimed to have witnessed the resurrected Jesus in mid-first-century Palestine were not willing to suffer for their religion.<\/p>\n (2.2.1.2)\u00a0 At least some (if not all) of those who claimed to have witnessed the resurrected Jesus were willing to suffer for their religion, in which case either (2.2.2.1) or (2.2.2.2) is true:<\/p>\n (2.2.2.1)\u00a0 They did not have any reasons for it.<\/p>\n (2.2.2.2)\u00a0 At least some (if not all) of them had reasons for it, in which case either (2.2..3.1) or (2.2.3.2) is true:<\/p>\n (2.2.3.1)\u00a0 They did not believe that Jesus resurrected and had other reasons for why they claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus.<\/p>\n (2.2.3.2)\u00a0 At least some (if not all) of them believed that Jesus resurrected, in which case either (2.2.4.1) or (2.2.4.2) is true:<\/p>\n (2.2.4.1)\u00a0 They believed that Jesus resurrected not because they had witnessed something which they thought was Jesus \u2014 they did not have such an experience, but they claimed that they had such an experience.<\/p>\n (2.2.4.2). At least some (if not all) of them had witnessed something which they thought was Jesus.\u00a0 [pages 68-69]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again, I invite readers to comment if they see a substantial omission or an error in the logic chain above.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n My wife and I have finally undertaken to watch The Chosen<\/em>, possibly as the last people in English-speaking North America to have done so.\u00a0 People have asked me repeatedly what I think of it, and it\u2019s probably about time that I have something to say in response other than \u201cI haven\u2019t seen it yet.\u201d\u00a0 We\u2019ve watched the first six episodes thus far, which means that we\u2019re seventy-five percent of the way through the first season.\u00a0 There have been a few aspects of the series where I\u2019ve thought \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have done it that way,\u201d but I\u2019ve had no major objections up to this point.\u00a0 Except for the portrayal of Mary Magdalene as having been a prostitute.\u00a0 That<\/em> I regard as a late-antique slander.\u00a0 However, it\u2019s a widespread idea, and it makes for a fairly good partly-fictonalized characterization.\u00a0 In order to make such a mini-series from the relatively slender material in the New Testament gospels, the scriptwriters necessarily must create backstories and flesh personalities out.\u00a0 There is, of course, nothing in the four gospels suggesting that Matthew was socially awkward and apparently autistic, nothing about Simon Peter\u2019s wife or the specifics of his adventures as a Galilean fisherman.\u00a0 But they make for a good, human story \u2014 so long as viewers don\u2019t take them as, well, gospel<\/em>.<\/p>\n I like the depiction of Jesus in The Chosen<\/em>.\u00a0 I like the depiction because, unlike so many other cinematic portrayals of Jesus, he seems like a real human being.\u00a0 He laughs, makes small talk, is genuinely good with children.\u00a0 He\u2019s fun and approachable.\u00a0 I feel strongly that the mortal Jesus must have been personable, approachable, noticeably kind. \u00a0Do I think that he really looked like Jonathan Roumie?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 And yet, meaning no disrespect whatever to Mr. Roumie, I think it\u2019s perfectly appropriate and right that the Jesus of The Chosen<\/em> is, well, ordinary<\/em> looking.\u00a0 After all, Judas Iscariot was obliged to point him out in the Garden of Gethsemane by kissing him on the cheek, which suggests that Jesus didn\u2019t glow, didn\u2019t typically walk about four inches off the ground, and wasn\u2019t unusual in his appearance.\u00a0 In the words of the hymn:<\/p>\n When Jesus, the Anointed,<\/p>\n Descended from above<\/p>\n And gave himself a ransom<\/p>\n To win our souls with love\u2014<\/p>\n With no apparent beauty,<\/p>\n That man should him desire\u2014<\/p>\n He was the promised Savior,<\/p>\n To purify with fire.<\/p>\n How infinite that wisdom,<\/p>\n The plan of holiness,<\/p>\n That made salvation perfect<\/p>\n And veiled the Lord in flesh,<\/p>\n To walk upon his footstool<\/p>\n And be like man, almost,<\/p>\n In his exalted station,<\/p>\n And die, or all was lost.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And, of course, the lyrics to that well-known sacrament hymn \u2014 which were written by William W. Phelps (1792-1872), set to music by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), and included in the very first Latter-day Saint hymnal \u2013were based upon the prophet Isaiah\u2019s famous \u201cSuffering Servant\u201d poem:<\/p>\n For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.<\/span><\/p>\n He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.<\/span><\/p>\n Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.<\/span><\/p>\n But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.\u00a0 (Isaiah 53:2-5)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I enjoyed a lunch today down at Magleby\u2019s in Springville<\/a> with Don Bradley<\/a>, who definitely ranks as one of the most consistently interesting historians of the Restoration currently active.\u00a0 (My monitors over at the Peterson Obsession Board can now report that this blog entry is about food, which is the only rival to my other<\/em> principal blog theme: dishonest personal smears of people who don\u2019t share my religious views.)\u00a0 Among other things, we talked about two of his recent research concentrations, both of which deal with topics in which I have personally taken an intense interest.\u00a0 I\u2019m excited to see them develop and, eventually, go public.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 I continue with my reading of Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach (Routledge, 2020).\u00a0 Dr. Loke, a native of Singapore who is currently an Associate Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, was a practicing physician before he returned to school first in the United States and then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":25411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34350,20490,34575,1356,15483,6997,31558,1369,34578,34347,5042,2977,3343,34581,1366,5081,32122,20487],"class_list":["post-99033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-andrew-loke","tag-bertel-thorvaldsen","tag-chosen","tag-christ","tag-christus","tag-incarnation","tag-isaiah-53","tag-jesus","tag-jonathan-roumie","tag-loke","tag-mary-magdalene","tag-matthew","tag-peter","tag-resurrected","tag-resurrection","tag-simon","tag-the-chosen","tag-thorvaldsen"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a><\/a>