RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
In the spring of 1999, I initiated a fairly brief but compelling correspondence with Barbara Thiering, the great Australian master of biblical exegesis. Dr. Thiering was gracious and generous, helping me with questions I had developed while pondering her works Jesus the Man and Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There follow questions I put to her during that correspondence.
Is surrogate atonement a soteriological fact? Does it happen, assuming the “right” circumstances, e.g., traditionally, the once-for-all of the crucifixion of Jesus? Book of Hebrews ties surrogate atonement specifically to Pentateuchal statutes in re same, does it not? Isn’t Pentateuch locus classicus for the dogma in “Christian” — as you would like to use the term — circles?
Sathya Sai says “Three Wise Men” were Tibetans. And that Christianity is based on the Seers of Buddhism just as Islam is based on the Prophets of Christianity. And that Jesus spent years in Tibetan monastery — realizing while at one that he is the Messiah — which in light of your work I take to mean that he realized that he was of legal or legitimate birth. Were there Tibetan monasteries in the Near East and/or Mediterranean during the Gospel period?
Is there an ontic source for trinitarian typology/theology/taxonomy as well as a socio-cultural one?
It has always appeared to me that scholarly inquiry in re aetiology of Christianity/”Western Religious Tradition” by consensus stops at the western or at most the eastern border of Persia, not going farther eastward. I learned Mesopotamia as our source, too. And I have wondered why the search is not carried eastward.
Is it because there is not a “reliable” literary record?
200 years ago some German scholars brought in Vedas and translated them, giving rise to several lines of development, especially the varied sheaf we call German Idealism, which also has Greek roots — which the same scholars remarked as Vedic, based both on linguistic and philosophical congruences.
But, so far as I am aware, neither German biblical scholarship nor English-speaking scholarship of any kind pursue implications of this German Vedic scholarship. Is my impression correct? If it is, are we missing anything important because of the elision?
AMDG
OK, I’m not showing any responses that I have by Barbara directly to my questions. I cannot provide a verbatim. It’s been a while. Our commo was email. By memory, I can say that she dodged entirely the vector of my questions. She was not interested in anything east of, roughly, the Jordan. Certainly nothing east of the Khyber. That is information in itself, as you will know. The impression made was enough to end our commo at my end and she never took it up again.
I got the impression of a simple, fine lady abused and beset by prejudice on several accounts, not well-protected emotionally or academically, and thus prone to overstating her observations in order to earn credibility, acclaim if not also money. That said, each of us is a product of our times and climes and prone to attenuate inquiry when energy fails with age and / or abuse or observations would overturn the work on which our career rest.
Mark Durie is Barbara’s countryman and still alive, best I know. Perhaps you are aware of him and / or his website: https://theological-geography.net/?s=durie
Thank you for writing / commenting.
Please allow me to wish you well in your endeavors and career God-ward in this breathing world.
I would very much like to see her answers. Is that possible?
As I recall, little to nothing of substance. She wanted to stick within her exegetical Essene framework, which, as you must be aware, was unique. She was gracious, however. I have to go now, will research my records later today when I return home, and get back to you with what I find.