Thank you to all those who have read last week's blogpost, the first in this series of six. It was exciting to get around a dozen direct responses and to see that the blog spot site is showing eighty views in the last seven days. If you missed it, here's the link:
https://robdonovan.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-world-seen-through-eyes-of-new.html
When I studied history as an A-level student, the 17th century was my period. Ever since, I have been fascinated by the explosion of ideas and the turning upside down of the world in the Civil War. Out of that turmoil, came a new church: the Quaker church. One of the fundamentals of the Quaker faith is a rejection of war and violence. Quakers are following the teachings of Jesus.
In this week's blogpost, I explore the teachings of Jesus about money. If we were to follow those teachings, we really would see the world turned upside down.
I am realizing, as I reflect upon my own writings during the month of July when I put these six blogposts together, that my research and the ideas I share do point in a radical direction. That, I think, is just as well, given the state of the planet.
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My encounter with the words attributed to Mark in his gospel has been shaped by my training as a historian.
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Well, that's a good question! I wrote a doctoral thesis called "Drink in Victorian Norwich" (2003) to get my qualification as a proper historian. |
There is an academic consensus that this book written by Mark:
- is a testimony to Jesus of Nazareth being the long-awaited Jewish messiah.
- was written between 66 AD and 74 AD, a generation after the execution of that charismatic preacher - and contains authentic detail about the sayings of this man, Jesus.
- contains substantive evidence that Jesus, who was brought up to become a carpenter like his father, became a preacher convinced of his own mission to follow what he saw as a path set out by the transcendental power that he, as a Jew, called the one and only God. He was certain that he and others were all, in a sense, children of God.