{"id":7724,"date":"2012-12-18T09:46:03","date_gmt":"2012-12-18T15:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/?p=7724"},"modified":"2015-03-13T16:48:14","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:48:14","slug":"of-all-times-and-places-why-did-god-come-in-1st-century-palestine-questions-that-haunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2012\/12\/18\/of-all-times-and-places-why-did-god-come-in-1st-century-palestine-questions-that-haunt\/","title":{"rendered":"Of All Times and Places, Why Did God Come in 1st Century Palestine? [Questions That Haunt]"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><\/p>\n<p>There are some really great, beuatiful submissions to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/Progressive-Christian\/Topics\/progGOD.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\">#progGOD Challenge<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/Progressive-Christian\/Topics\/progGOD\/Why-an-Incarnation.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\">Why an Incarnation?<\/a> This week\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/tag\/questions-that-haunt\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\">Question That Haunts<\/a> comes from Judy, and it\u2019s also got a Christmasy theme. It comes at the Why? question from a different angle:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><!--more-->I grew up in the church, though I don\u2019t go any more. <strong>I\u2019ve always wondered, of all times and all places, why Jesus? Why first century Palestine?<\/strong> I mean, if God was going to incarnate himself in just one human beings of all the billions of human beings who\u2019ve lived, why a first century peasant carpenter. I remember Sunday school teachers giving us some answers for this when I was a kid, but I always found them unsatisfying. <strong>Do Christians believe there was something uniquely special about that time and place?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I look forward to reading your responses to Judy. I\u2019ll post a response on Friday.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are some really great, beuatiful submissions to the #progGOD Challenge, Why an Incarnation? This week\u2019s Question That Haunts comes from Judy, and it\u2019s also got a Christmasy theme. It comes at the Why? question from a different angle:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6835,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[986,39],"tags":[125,973],"class_list":["post-7724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-questions-that-haunt-2","category-theology","tag-christmas","tag-questions-that-haunt"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Of All Times and Places, Why Did God Come in 1st Century Palestine? [Questions That Haunt]<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There are some really great, beuatiful submissions to the #progGOD Challenge, Why an Incarnation? 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