This week’s Newsweek cover story on Jesus is actually not too bad, especially by mainstream newsmagazine standards. Jon Meacham attempts to explain how an obscure Jewish prophet came to be seen as the Christian Savior and head of the world’s largest religion and he makes many good points along the way. for instance:
…a reconstruction of Jesus’ journey from Jewish prophet to Christian
savior suggests that faith, like history, is nearly always more
complicated than it seems. For the religious, the lesson is that those
closest to Jesus accepted little blindly, and, in the words of Origen
of Alexandria, an early church father, "It is far better to accept
teachings with reason and wisdom than with mere faith." For the
secular, the reminder that Christianity is the product of two millennia
of creative intellectual thought and innovation, a blend of history and
considered theological debate, should slow the occasional rush to
dismiss the faithful as superstitious or simple.