Historical Scholastics of Middle Eastern Influences

Submitted by M Tovey (United States), Jun 4, 2021 at 18:06

Representing that this reader has identified persuasions towards the influences of the Judaic Messiah and the Gospel messages commencing over 1900 years ago, it should come as no surprise then, that a certain direction of study of such things for over forty years took this reader on a journey that required hard questions to discern why it is so easy for any student of Christian ethos to become disaffected and become part of the apostasy prognosticated by the Apostle Shaul (Paul) of Tarsus. People claiming to be followers of the Carpenter of Nazareth questioned Paul's authenticity, compelling the query, why?
Dare we look into this 'compendium' of modern approaches to the question and learn that, all along, the message of the Savior had been compromised as the Apostle Paul had written in anticipation of the acts of the Gnostics and post Judaizers, thereby providing a lull in the message and allowing dividing perceptions of such things to develop and gain traction while apostate Christian militants took up the challenge to further pervert the message.
The Gospel message was supposed to provide Spiritual comfort (peace) in a world bent on a different course of divisions and ambitions of empire, which eventually got swept into the 'Christian' community as well and for a few hundred years, the message of Christ was caught up in apologetics.
This review of the reference mentioned appears to court the idea of apologetics, but not really. This book is less of a defense in the tone of apologetics and more like an exploration of how Islam was treated in each of the potential venues by which the examiners attempted to explain how things got where they got.
Dr. Pipes provided this reader with some of the best exposure over the years as to why the world is so wrapped around the axis of religious polemics and how the modern approaches of solving the world's dilemma of never achieving peace is couched in the reality that religions will never be the cause of peace; humanity fails every time. Again, the approach needs finesse, not humanly defined; but we have already said where the true influence must be sought, now haven't we.

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