Jul 22 2008
Making History Up as You Go Along
In the spirit of St. Mary Magdeline’s feast day, my history professor came up with the following:
”Mary Magdeline was from a wealthy family. Her uncle, Joseph of Arimethea, was wealthy enough to afford a very good tomb. He was also friendly with Pontius Pilate so…”
And that’s where my note-taking ends because it wasn’t even remotely funny anymore. I have absolutely no idea where he gets this crap from. He also lectured today (and previously) that “inferential reasoning” and “most Jewish scholars” say that Jesus definitely was married or the Saducees would have attacked him.
I give up. I’ve asked him about his sources, and he lent me a book written by a University of Michigan instructor in the ’50s with footnotes that wouldn’t pass muster in a high school student’s essay today. (For example, a comment that Buddhist missionaries obviously influenced the religious environment of Jesus’ time leads to this footnote: Gospel of John.) No chapter, no verse – and no explanation linking Buddhist thought with that in the Gospel. The book also treated Gnostic writings as equal to Book of Tobit and such.
I promised myself I wouldn’t even bother to ask him for sources anymore, especially since other students roll their eyes and today mutter “There she goes again.” But when he peppers his talks with dirty jokes and “On the History channel I saw…”, I want to scream.
