Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema:
> Maybe I should have used another word. I meant that to many liberals/radicals the SotM
> has so grandiose and seductively compelling an appeal, and beguiles them into a kind of
> unthinking sentimentality.
In that case I don't think they're reading it very attentively. I wonder what such folks make of the suggestion that if one's hand sins, one should cut it off rather than allow the whole body to burn in Hell. Just talk, I suppose -- but then everything can be sentimental.
> ...
> I also would disclaim any particular interest in "the purveyor" except as a construct
> in human minds. I'm anything but a biblical scholar, and what I've read of the
> historical Jesus scholarship leaves me with the impression of huge effort going into
> inquiry about sources so obscure that any outcome must be barren.
History being a construction, a paucity of information is not necessarily an impediment to a magnitude of output. It may be even an encouragement.