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1. The Lord's Prayer is an essential corrective to our delight in unnecessary rubrical burdens, esoteric speculations, and exclusivism.

   Posted By: MJ, Camperdown, Sydney.

2. 'John Dominic Crossan is arguably the world’s foremost scholar of the historical Jesus.'
   I would certainly argue this point. I prefer the Gospel version of Jesus - the divine Son of God who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, performed miracles, and rose from the dead.
   We shouldn't be idolising ivory tower academics who seek public adulation through re-defining Jesus in their own biassed image.

   Posted By: RMBH Bankstown

3. Robert Haddad: Now that we know what your preferences are, and having listened to your rendition of part of the Nicene Creed, you might also bring yourself to acknowledge the fact that we only know of Jesus Christ through the written and oral communication of Christians.
   They didn't exist in a vacuum. The Christian Scriptures came out of discrete social and historical contexts.
   It has been the work of Crossan and other international scholars to investigate the earliest received meanings of the preaching of Jesus. A vast amount of this preserved memory is to be found in the writings of 'biassed, ivory towered' Christian Arabs from the 5th century.
   They beggged no adulation but we owe them for keeping the Memory alive. Alhumdulillah! Don't mock what you should know.

   Posted By: David Timbs Albion. Vic.

4. I would also argue the point of Crossan allegedly being the foremost scholar of the historical Jesus.
   He is yet another example of someone constructing Jesus to fit his own image.
   If you want a more accurate picture of the historical Jesus, who is none other than the 'Christ of faith', then read Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth. We need look no further for the world's foremost theological scholar than our own Holy Father.
   Also, as a woman I have no problem with saying 'Our Father' and would argue that Crossan completely saps the filial relationship of its essential intimacy by proposing the substitution of Father with Householder, or even more ridiculously the 'Big Householder in the Sky'. If Crossan is indeed seen as a foremost Biblical scholar, then Heaven help us!

   Posted By: S. N. Smith, Richmond, Victoria

5. I found it rather ironic that the blurb introducing John Dominic Crossan's ideas on the Lord's prayer should refer to him as 'arguably the world’s foremost scholar of the historical Jesus.'
   Crossan is a co-director of the ‘Jesus Seminar’ whose scholars have concluded that over 82 percent of what Jesus said in the Gospels is not historically accurate; and that of the 176 deeds of Jesus recounted in the Gospels, only 10 are historical. They assert that Jesus did not rise from the dead and that his death had no salvific significance.
   One of the presuppositions of the Jesus Seminar is ‘Scientific Naturalism’ which holds that anything incapable of natural explanation cannot have historical evidence to substantiate it. A presupposition is a starting assumption adopted before looking at the evidence which determines how you interpret it. Blessed John Henry Newman held that a fundamental cause of radical differences of belief was that of different starting points, which is to say in fundamental assumptions. Given its adoption of scientific naturalism as a starting point, the Jesus Seminar had already concluded before conducting its research that the miracles of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels could not have occurred.
   Crossan himself asserts that the accounts of the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord given in the Gospels are historically invalid and that there was no Virgin birth. He postulates that Jesus’ body was not placed in a tomb after his crucifixion, but rather was probably “eaten by scavenger dogs, crows or other wild beasts.”
   Crossan further asserts that Catholic teaching on the origin and nature of the Eucharist is erroneous and that St Paul took over the tradition concerning the Last Supper from pagans in Asia Minor.
   On the basis of a lack of correspondence he believes exists between the account of the Eucharistic celebration given in Didache 9-10 and 1 Corinthians 10-11, Crossan concludes as follows: “It is simply that their dual existence renders most unlikely a Last Supper with its passion symbolism institutionalized and commanded to repetition by Jesus himself on the eve of his death” (The Historical Jesus, p. 364).
   What is at stake in Crossan’s assertion that the New Testament accounts of the Last Supper are not historically reliable is the difference between a Church with the ministerial priesthood and Eucharist Sacrifice and a church without them.

   Posted By: Eamonn Keane Cherrybrook, NSW

6. Eamonn Keane: Well said! David Timbs, please take note. As for my preferences, David, they can be summarised in one word - Catholicism.

   Posted By: RMBH Bankstown

7. It's the work of scripture scholars like John Dominic Crossan that's enabled me and many like me to continue to believe, and believe joyfully, in Christ incarnate in the world.
   What a relief it was, many years ago, to realize that we don't have to surrender our intelligence and even common sense to be a believer. I don't see where JD Crossan 'proposes the substitution of 'Father' with 'householder', S.N. Smith.
   Nor do I see where recognizing Crossan as a fine scripture scholar detracts from the Pope as a fine theologian. They're not the same thing, you know.

   Posted By: Joan Seymour Albion, Vic.

8. Robert Haddad: Your brand of Catholicism and I think it is of the drum-beating, hollow sounding variety.
   Eamonn Keane: Whatever else about the minimalism of Crossan and the 'Jesus Seminar,' they are hardly worse than the crowd who argue their debates from the heavy weight stuff found in the Catechism and 'reliable' Catholic newspapers. Even Crossan brought much light from 'The Dark Interval.'
   Look at the very valuable work done by Bruce Malina and associates of the 'Context Group.'
   In their studies of ancient Near Eastern clan cultures and life, they have provided us with a 'cosmos' in which the teaching of Jesus take on startling and refreshing meaning. This needs to be acknowledged and, I think, generously.

   Posted By: David Timbs Albion. Vic.

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