The Man who sat for the Christian Portrait ..

A tough competent Jewish Rabbi, and a tough competent Christian professor weigh in on Jesus Christ.

Source One: Walsh, Chad. Campus Gods on Trial. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962.

Page 86:

"The picture that Christianity posts on the bulletin board is Christ. But a word of warning here. Make sure it is a complete photograph, not a fragment blown up to full size. For a long time now, it has been fashionable to depict Christ as a good but pale young man, whose eyes glow with mingled tenderness and sorrow. It is certain that Christ could be gentle and tender, and that he grieved for the blindness he saw around him. But he could also denounce double talkers in language that would bring a suit for slander today; and when he drove the go-getters out of the temple he didn't depend on sorrowful looks. In the complete photograph there should be not merely tenderness and sorrow, but also towering strength, boldness, playfulness, and flashing humor.

"Christianity is the imitation of Christ [This book is also cited by Pope Benedict XVI in "John the Theologian," August 9, 2006, below today's Seer of Patmos on St. John blogged below, and accesible from the same Italian website ]. No one succeeds completely; but some progress far. The great saints and many plain men and women, not officially labeled as saints, have gone far enough to give us some clear intimations of what happens. In them we see the same loving obedience toward God, the overflow of love into concern for all their fellows, the same radiance and indomitable strength, the same enderness, joy, and courage, that are surpemely revealed in the man who sat for the Cristian portrait."

Source Two: Steinberg, Milton. Basic Judaism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1947.

Adapted from pages 107-111.

"This is not to deny Jesus' originality. His was an unexcelled gift for allergory, a genius for incisive utterance, a skill for bringing into sharp focus that which is perceived, but as through a glass, darkly. He had great talents as a synsthesizer, a collector into organic unity of the disjointed members of a truth. And always there is his own personality, a superb achievement in its own right. All this is originality, but, except for the man himself, on a secondary or derivative plane.

"In only a few respects did Jesus deviate from the Tradition and in all of them, Jews believe, he blundered.

"He would seem to have claimed to be the Messiah foretold by the prophets as the inaugurator of God's Kingdom on earth. The condition of the world since his advent has never impressed Jews as justifying such an appraisal of him.

"Nor was his character altogether unexceptionable.

"He was capable of bursts of ill-temper, as when he cursed the towns of Capernaum, Chorazin, and Beth Saida, or when he denounced a fig tree for not yielding fruit to appease his hunger, though it was not the fruit bearing season. And he was intemperate in his condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees, most of whom were thorougly honest and dedicated men.

"Very well then, says the Christian, let it be conceded that Jesus is neither God, nor uniquely His son, nor the Messiah, nor a moral prophet, nor even an impeccable human being. [A groveling concession encounntered with at least some of Mr. Frank Gorman and Fr. Rick Mattey and Father Fabian Marquez's "Bible Studies Class" materials at St. Patrick's Cathedral in El Paso, Texas!]

"Certainly he was, despite his defects, a great man, a gifted and exalted teacher. Will not the Jews accept him as such?

"To which the answer of Jews runs: Have Jews, except under the extremest provocation, ever quarreled with such a presentation of him? "