-007_Part OneChrist's Kingdom of God Christ's Kingdom of God   A Letter and a Reply Apropos of the Article " Sri Aurobindo and the Kingdom of God"   Mother India, in its issue of December 5, 1970, published "Sri Aurobindo and the Kingdom of God" by Dick Batstone. In one place it carried the following footnote by the Editor: "The author has overlooked one reference in the New Testament, Luke 17:20-21: 'And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the Kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Io there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.' Ronald Knox has the gloss to his modern transla

The Historicity of Christ   A Letter of January 6,1981   Today is Epiphany Day on which, according to the New-Testament legend, the Magi, the Wise Men of the East - perhaps "Parsis" like me, since "Magi" originally meant Persian highpriests - brought gifts to the infant Jesus. The occasion is appropriate for me to reply to your many-faceted letter, expressing doubt about the historicity of Christ.   I am surprised that my article in the Mother India of last December - "Augustus Caesar and the Birth of Jesus" - has revived your scepticism. It accepts the historicity of Christ as much as that of Augustus Caesar. And it would not have done so if Sri Auro

Section I   1   The Significance of the Earliest Evidence   The Protestant theologian Bernhard W. Anderson1 writes:   "The earliest literary witness of the Resurrection is given to us by Paul, especially in 1 Corinthians 15. The historical value of this chapter is great, for though 1 Corinthians was written around A.D. 56-57, Paul claims to hark back to the time of his conversion, perhaps within ten years after the Crucifixion. Moreover, Paul insists that he passed on to the Corinthians the gospel he had received from early preachers and witnesses:    ..... that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was

Part One    EARLY CHRISTIANITY   Augustus Caesar and the Birth of Christ    Some Reflections on their Contemporaneity   December 25, year 0 or else 1 (authorities differ on the point): this has been observed for centuries as the date of the birth of Jesus. The historical situation of it has been highlighted from two statements in the New Testament. The Gospel of Matthew (2:1) tells us that "Jesus was born in Judaea, in the days of Herod the king..." The Gospel of Luke (2:1-5) has the information that Jesus' mother Mary, when she was "great with child" (believed to be by the Holy Ghost's "overshadowing") was taken by her husba

The Shroud of Turin and the  Biblical Evidence   As the result of several years of strict scientific examination of the famous Shroud which is now kept at Turin (Italy) by the Roman Catholic Church and which shows the figure, front and back, of a crucified man as if on a photographic negative, we are at last certain that the Shroud was not worked upon by any painter. It carries a genuine image produced by means unknown to science today: some sort of radiation effect beyond our current technology may be presumed.   The crucified man, about five feet ten inches tall, with a beard and long hair is of the Caucasic type - more precisely, li

St. Thomas and India   A Letter to the Madras Daily, The Hindu   I have been following the lively debate over St. Thomas and his visit to India. Mr. T. R. Vedanthan strikes me as the most knowledgeable among the various controversialists. But even he has slipped up over the words "all the world" in Mark 16:15.   He feels that they go against his contention that Jesus wanted his mission to be very restricted - indeed to the Jews alone, as Vedanthan concludes from Matthew 10:5-7. Hence he thinks it important to note that the verse in Mark is considered by Biblical scholars to be an interpolation. But he forgets that Matthew himself has the verse: "And the go

-009_Part one The Time of Christ's Second coming in the New Testament The Time of Christ's Second Coming  in the New Testament   I   Biblical scholars have been at variance as to the time which the New Testament visualises for the return of Jesus Christ from heaven in glory to mark the end of the earth and establish the Kingdom of God. Among the representatives of one view the most prominent figure is Albert Schweitzer, author of the famous book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. In general terms Schweitzer's position is that Jesus pinned everything on the miraculous Kingdom of God coming or being made to come in the very near future. Another opinion, apparently favoured by the majority of com

Shakespeare and "Things to Come"   Up to now Shakespeare remains among English poets a "topless tower" — sole and inexplicable. Inexplicable in his inspired prolificity, and not, as the Baconians urge, by having masterpieces ascribed to his "ill-educated" mind. It is argued that what tells against his authorship of the plays is not only their success as literature but also their being packed with versatile learning. One has, however, just to point out Bernard Shaw and ask: What efficient school-education did he have to equip him for his excellence in the field of letters? Shaw is nowhere near Shakespeare as a creative genius, but the fact stands that, without academic

        ADVENTURES IN CRITICISM           Adventures in Criticism   AMAL KIRAN (K.D. SETHNA)   The Integral Life Foundation P.O. Box 239 Waterford CT. 06385 USA First published 1996 (Typeset in 10.5/13 Palatino)               © Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna) Published by The Integral Life Foundation, U.S.A. Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA J606 (94)/500/96

-004_A great pioneer of yogic poetry-an appraisement of AE^s inspiration A Great Pioneer of Yogic Poetry: An Appraisement of AE's Inspiration   It was in starlight that I heard of AE's death. I do not know if he died also under the stars, but there could have been no better time to hear of his passing. For often he must have shut his eyes in tranced forgetfulness of earth at this deep and passionless hour: he was one of those to whom meditation and self-communion was the truest life, and he has told us how those little gemlike songs of his early days came to him pure and perfect out of the profound hush into which he had plunged his mind. I remember my own joy on first realising what his poetry discl