Jay Parini quotes

The U.S. invaded Vietnam because many in our government - Lyndon Johnson's best and brightest - imagined it could impose a government on that country that would provide a buffer against China and stop the supposedly rolling dominos of Communism. (Jay Parini)
So who is Jesus? For me, he's the central character in the greatest story ever told. It's a story about a gradually realizing kingdom that lies inside of us. View quote
Jay Parini
In the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are many Aramaic texts from the time of Jesus, so one can get a pretty good idea of what the language of Jesus looked liked. View quote
Jay Parini
Actually, a myth is a story that is not just not true, but it's a story that is especially true. And I think the myth of Jesus is especially true. View quote
Jay Parini
Christmas is a story that has both religious and pagan origins, and to ignore its power is to ignore the power of myth - those symbols and legends that help us to ground our lives. View quote
Jay Parini
One thing a narcissist doesn't like is to look in a mirror that is in any way genuinely reflective of what's on the other side of it. View quote
Jay Parini
It seems likely that Jesus, being a scholarly young man, learned some Hebrew, but that's conjecture. It's more likely that Jesus spoke some Greek, as this language dominated the region after the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century. View quote
Jay Parini
By the time I went to college, I knew the major passages of the Bible pretty much by heart. View quote
Jay Parini
In a sense, I wrote the book about Jesus that I wanted to read. View quote
Jay Parini
The core of the Jesus message is what has made him relevant for twenty centuries. View quote
Jay Parini
Jesus remains the most influential person in history, one who has inspired untold followers for millennia. (Jay Parini)
American failures in Vietnam and Iraq suggest that it's not really possible to create and sustain a proxy government in a country far from our own borders. View quote
Jay Parini
Ridding the world of poverty is, of course, a fantasy. View quote
Jay Parini
History is, of course, a made thing. It does not exist by itself in anything like a recognizable form. View quote
Jay Parini
It's time that Americans dealt seriously with guns, getting in place strong and appropriate measures - there is no excuse for anything but the strictest controls. View quote
Jay Parini
God is God, but he has various names in different languages, and each strand of monotheistic religion has multiple ways of describing the godhead. View quote
Jay Parini
Within the Christian tradition, fundamentalism arose in the 19th century as an effort to push back against modern' readings of the Bible that suggested everything in the text wasn't true in some literal sense. View quote
Jay Parini
The whole Christmas story was probably a later addition to the gospel narratives, presented only by the authors of Matthew and Luke. Mark and John seem never to have heard of the manger in Bethlehem, the Massacre of the Innocents, the hovering star, the three wise men, and so forth. View quote
Jay Parini
The gospels were, in fact, written anywhere from forty to a hundred years after Jesus, and their authors attempted to demonstrate that Jesus could be seen to fulfill various Old Testament pronouncements. View quote
Jay Parini
Who was Jesus anyway? After twenty centuries, there is not much anyone can agree on. The four canonical gospels don't measure up to modern standards of biographical writing, and - outside of this material - there is precious little contemporary evidence, apart from a few glancing mentions of Jesus or the movement centered on him. View quote
Jay Parini
It's probably incorrect to say that Islam is 'a religion of peace,' as some politicians like to say. Overstatements like that don't clarify anything. (Jay Parini)
I have always found the baptism of Jesus, with a dove descending and voice from Heaven, one of the great moments in the Jesus story. This is where Jesus hears the deep call from God. View quote
Jay Parini
The whole point of the Resurrection stories - and the Resurrection itself - is that we don't recognize Jesus when he comes back to us. View quote
Jay Parini
We should never forget that Americans continue to advocate for individual liberty, equality and self-governance. We often step in when it's necessary to help countries in need. But our history needs no whitewashing. To attempt this does us a terrible disservice. View quote
Jay Parini
Each year in early spring, during the season of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Easter, a plenitude of books, magazine articles, and television shows about Jesus appear. View quote
Jay Parini