Sunday, 9 December 2012

Tabor's latest book

Browsing through a North Shore branch of Whitcoulls today I was amazed to find James Tabor's new opus, Paul and Jesus, staring back at me from a bottom shelf. It's not that I didn't know that it had been published - in fact I'd downloaded a copy from Amazon soon after it was released. But I had no idea it would reach these distant shores so quickly in hard copy form.

To be honest, my previous impressions of Dr. Tabor's work have been a bit jaundiced. He has seemed to me to be a scholar often driven by his own agendas, especially on the Jewish nature of Christian faith.  But this latest book is, in my opinion, a cut above his previous efforts - at least that's the impression so far, having not yet quite reached the final page.  Indeed, I feel a warm recommendation coming on, and perhaps some more disciplined remarks to follow than these.

In any case James, if you see this, as a peace offering for the rather unappreciative (some might say churlish) review I gave to Restoring Abrahamic Faith, I hauled the two hardback copies off the bottom shelf and placed them prominently, covers facing out, onto the top shelf. At nearly NZ$50 a copy I figured any small boost would help.  May they sell swiftly.
Posted by Gavin R at 15:27

6 comments:

  1. James D. Tabor11 December 2012 at 04:45

    Gavin, strange that I would have even seen this but somehow some link came to me this morning and I was glad to see your blurb here! You are all forgiven, no problem. As I told you back in the day, all we need are a few beers together in a good pub and we would be okay, even on RAF I think...

    Thanks for the marketing placement! Wow, all the way to NZ so quickly...yes, I am impressed. BTW, how much is NZ$50? I hope you can do a more extensive review when you are done. I would be pleased to know what you think of this one.

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  2. Minimalist12 December 2012 at 02:20

    What are the odds that an ex-Armstrongite would uncover a more Jewish
    layer of Christianity contra Paul?

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  3. Byker Bob12 December 2012 at 11:21

    Minimalist, I'm thinking that had to be tongue in cheek? Like myself, you must be aware of the huge subset of ex-Armstrongists doing exactly that. Some go so far as to say that Paul was a cypher for Simon Magus, or vice versa.

    I enjoyed Dr. Tabor's Jesus Dynasty, and am glad to know of this latest opus. Will be checking it out soon myself.

    BB

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    Replies
    1. Corky12 December 2012 at 13:59

      Some go so far as to say that Paul was a cypher for Simon Magus, or vice versa.

      I've heard the one about Simon Magus being a cypher for Marcion - since both tried to buy an apostleship with money. I believe that was/is the theory of Hermann Detering. Of course, if the Pauline epistles were actually written by Marcionites and edited by the orthodox proto-catholics and Acts was written as a polemic against the Marcionites, it would make sense. However, that theory looks like a lot of guesswork based on a premise with no evidence to support it.

      Delete
    2. Minimalist12 December 2012 at 15:35

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  4. lnrd18 December 2012 at 19:08

    go here

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