The Great Gulf Between Scholars and the Pew - The BAS Library
Login
Home > Magazines > Bible Review > June 1994

The Great Gulf Between Scholars and the Pew

By Michael D. Coogan

Three great intellectual revolutions of the 19th and early 20th centuries have profoundly shaped and transformed the way we think of ourselves and our world. The first is Marxism and its derivative, socialism. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the changes in Eastern Europe may appear to have thoroughly discredited Marxism; such is the message of a letter I recently received from the Campus Crusade for Christ, which headlined its plea for funds with the message “Marx is out, Jesus is in.” But many Marxist principles, such as “from each according to his abilities, to each according to […]

You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.

Join the BAS Library!

Already a library member? Log in here.

Institution user? Log in with your IP address or Username

Footnotes

1.

Apparently, this was thought necessary to bring the book into an acceptably orthodox mode: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep all his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13–14).

2.

Zechariah foretells that a king will arise for Jerusalem triumphant “riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” This is an example of parallelism, in which the repetition of an idea in different words is analogous to a musical variation on a theme. There is only one animal, however. The author of Matthew misread this, so he has Jesus entering Jerusalem riding on two animals.

Endnotes

1.

See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651).

2.

See Benedict Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670).

3.

See Richard Simon, A Critical History of the Old Testament (1678).