Notwithstanding these disadvantages, a system of morals is presented to us which, if filled up in the style and spirit of the rich fragments he left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by man.
Thomas Jefferson, on the teachings of Jesus.
If ever there were a project about the historic Jesus appropriate for a liberal, reason-based blog, the book that's the subject of this diary strikes me as a good candidate. It applies tools of scientific testing to one of the most basic questions of religion that is often said to be untestable, and sheds some interesting light on the fundamentalism which at publication time had not yet grown to challenge the foundations of our political system.
Now, Biblical scholarship is not my specialty, so while I'll be available and happy to answer questions from the book if I can find them, I can't defend the study or its methodology. It's over 30 years old so if there's a consensus that it's been discredited, or that it's totally non-news, I'll delete the diary. With those caveats in mind, join me below the fold for my first and probably only diary effort:
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