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June 2, 2009 Joseph Sobran is a syndicated columnist, one-time senior editor of National Review, essayist, television personality and Shakespeare scholar. Born in 1946, he is an Irish Catholic and justifies many of his opinions on the basis of Christian doctrine. His credentials seem to establish that he is an intelligent person, and from those articles of his that I have read, it would appear that he is sincere in all that he says. In 1999, he wrote a short article called The Man They Still Hate , and of course he is talking about Jesus. To me, his way of thinking is naïve and preposterous. Sobran begins by saying that the world has forgiven Alexander, Caesar, Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, and that there is only one man from antiquity, Jesus Christ, who is still hated after these 2000 years. He refines this opinion by alleging that the Christ-haters usually disguise their hatred by directing it at the church or at organized religion. He includes even liberal theologians who say that Jesus was a great moral teacher who never claimed divinity and that his simple message has been corrupted by his followers, which doesn’t strike me as particularly hateful. Sobran cannot understand why, upon his making remarks like, “I and the Father are one,” Jesus would be crucified for blasphemy, since he was but speaking the truth, as many people who actually saw him after the Resurrection attested. It’s almost as if it is to be taken unquestioningly as historical fact that these things really happened, and that the Christ-haters are merely rebelling against the undeniable truth. Sobran doesn’t seem to allow for the possibility that the Gospels are false. Not only does he expect us to accept without quibble the mutually-exclusive accounts of the Gospels. but he seems to be unaware of the fact that there is no real evidence to support even the historicity of Christ. Christians read Matthew and Luke without even noticing that the two genealogies of Christ and the two Nativity stories absolutely and unequivocally contradict each other. They don’t read them attentively or intelligently, or they’d realize that either Matthew or Luke or both were liars. Once we understand that the Gospels are not dependable historical records, we are left with the possibility that there was no Christ at all. This becomes a probability of the highest order when we research the facts on the books and find that there is not a shred of physical evidence that can be associated with Christ. The whole story of Jesus is almost undoubtedly a myth. If there was no Christ, what is there to hate? Hate the people who keep trying to palm off the passion story as some kind of history? Might as well hate dogs for barking or children for yelling. Sobran goes on to quote Thomas Cahill and Alfred Tennyson, concluding that the mere fact that the words of Jesus, unlike those of anyone else, have managed to last as long and influence as many as they have is, in itself, a miracle. This is not far from the commonplace sort of argument whereby Christians, calling the birth of a child a miracle, attempt to get us to concede that miracles are therefore possible, so that they can leap to the conclusion that we should just as glibly accept that Jesus raised the dead or walked on water. I don’t know or care why the teachings of Jesus, if you call them that, have lingered for 2000 years. It’s enough for me to know that they’re false. In the parable of the lilies of the field, Christ is supposed to have said that we should take no thought for tomorrow for God knows what we need and will provide it, if only we seek the Kingdom of Heaven . No way! If Christians take no thought for tomorrow, why are they worried about their jobs, their bank accounts, their investments, their mortgages, their pensions, their insurance and their children’s tuition? Why should they give a hoot about AIG, GM, Citi, the Fed, unemployment, the housing bubble, the national debt and the decline of the dollar? God has it all under control. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Visit my website here. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! 
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