A nice overview and commentary from Midwest Conservative Journal on a recent Harvard Passion of the Christ forum. All the usual suspects were there, saying all the usual things. My favorite was this, from Frothingham Professor of the History of Religion Francois Bovon:

The Gospels are history and interpretation ... The Gospels are not our best sources to the history of the passion of Jesus.

There are times in life, even for loquacious types like yours truly, where words seem to fail and one is left almost speechless. This is one of those times.

Isn't it fascinating that mind-bending remarks like these have become the orthodoxy, and movies like the Passion have become countercultural, a challenge to accepted opinion (at least in the halls of academe)? Said Irving Babbitt in 1908, the time will soon come when the only way left to be original will be to make a modest plea for the traditional good sense of the world. Understanding the life of Jesus through the Gospels would seem rather sensible. What a commentary on our time that it causes such angst among the intelligensia.