Question of interpretation, perhaps

SIR - As to the letter by David Blumson (Agnostic) in last week’s Sidmouth Herald, I want to say simply and definitely to his kite-flying questions, the following:

(1) Christians believe that Jesus lives because of the Resurrection, carefully recorded in all four Gospels in the New Testament. Surely, even a serious agnostic would not have thought of Jesus getting older and older in the human understanding of growing older!

(2) A healthy protest against miracle-mongering is a welcome thing. You ask ‘Did Jesus really walk on water?’ Volumes have been written on the miracles and especially on this one, but beware of rationalism, some say he was only paddling in the shallows. A small Greek preposition, on or by, alters its meaning. Does he really think the Galilean lake was a salt water lake? It is generally understood to have been a fresh water lake.

(3) Jesus the Son of God. Christianity asserts that this is so. It is the great miracle of the incarnation we celebrate at Christmas...

I consider his letter as the most flimsy and nonsensical piece of questioning which only reveals a colossal ignorance, crude pronouncements, and a shallow dismissal of the difficult or the unfamiliar. However, I warmly thank him for raising these questions, but ask was he becoming ‘devil’s advocate’ merely to get answers to his own questions. I kindly suggest he reads more widely and thinks more deeply on those important questions.

Allan Bowers

via email