Top 306 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Scholars - Page 4
Explore popular quotes by famous scholars.
There is a powerful desire by majorities to assert a religious identity for the country.
We humans have always needed rituals to draw like curtains over the chasms of the unknown. Without them we go mad, I think.
Spiritual influence never coincided with material affluence.
The people who are good at being civil often lack strong convictions and people who have strong convictions often lack civility.
Any part of the human body can only be explained in reference to the whole body. And any part of the Bible can only be properly explained in reference to the whole Bible.
I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.
The Gospel of Thomas, greatly favored in some circles, is ignored by archaeologists, primarily because it exhibits no verisimilitude. It tells us nothing about the historical Jesus and the world he and his disciples lived in. I've heard it said, that if all we had was the Gospel of Thomas, would we even know that Jesus was Jewish?
God's love entails a covenant commitment on the part of with us, and that covenant commitment means a promise to be with us and for us, and God's covenant is shaped toward our redemption.
For it is the same whether you take it that the Earth is in motion or the Sky. For, in both the cases, it does not affect the Astronomical Science. It is just for the Physicist to see if it is possible to refute it.
The materials in I Enoch range in date from 200 B.C.E. to 50 C.E. I Enoch contributes much to intertestamental views of angels, heaven, judgment, resurrection, and the Messiah. This book has left its stamp upon many of the NT writers, especially the author of Revelation.
And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt
Forgiveness isn't an end in itself. The point of forgiveness is to remove the barrier that stands between us and God so that He can give us His Spirit and bring us into His everlasting family.
witch-hunting misogyny is fiercely recurrent in this nation, even if its forms vary with the ages.
The Prophet also said: "A truthful and trustworthy merchant is associated with the prophets."
Be prepared for changes.
There is no reason to make the search for friendship sound like an animal instinct. Friendship does not always come as a result of a search; it can come when we least look for it, just as it denies itself when we pursue it too earnestly and with pathetic eagerness.
My first intellectual challenge was to try to understand this incredible city of Banaras (also called Varanasi) in India and its meaning for Hindus. That was the place I lived for the first year I was in India and I've been back many times. It's a kind of home to me.
I change myself, I change the world.
The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.
What we say and what we do ultimately comes back to us so let us own our responsibility, place it in our hands, and carry it with dignity and strength.
God's idea of redemption is community-shaped.
Scars are the price which every believer pays for his loyalty to Christ.
What good would it be to fight a war with the British and end up with your own king? Nobody had any idea that George Washington would be George Washington.
Americans are so often thrown by Japan. It looks familiar but, an inch below the surface, it isn't anything like the West at all.
Nobody’s going to save you. No one’s going to cut you down, cut the thorns thick around you. No one’s going to storm the castle walls nor kiss awake your birth, climb down your hair, nor mount you onto the white steed. There is no one who will feed the yearning. Face it. You will have to do, do it yourself.
God loves us already and has from our very beginning. The Christian life is not about believing or doing what we need to believe or do so that we can be saved. Rather, it's about seeing what is already true ? that God loves us already ? and then beginning to live in this relationship. It is about becoming conscious of and intentional about a deepening relationship with God.
The Western societies which espouse free market capitalism survive by the pursuit of greed and, in their own way, like Communism, throw into leadership men and women (mostly men) who know how to gain, exert and manipulate power.
The media like a good fight. They pick out the extremes and they leave out all the people in the middle who believe in both God and evolution.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was asked what type of earning was best, and he replied: " A man's work with his hands and every (lawful) business transaction."
I grew up going around with family, camping and living in a very beautiful mountain valley, knowing the names of the mountains and the rivers. I think it's no accident that I ended up studying the geography of India and knowing the names of the mountains and the rivers and all of that. I loved it. I think it gives a sense of space and a can-do-ness that was very powerful.
The New Deal is inconsistent with the principles of limited government and with the constitutional provisions designed to secure that end.
What people see in the news are places where things have not going so well.
Let the conversation flow at its own pace, don't try to rush it or control it. You need to let go and be part of the conversation.
Even the cry from the depths is an affirmation: Why cry if there is no hint of hope of hearing?
The Bible is a human product: it tells us how our religious ancestors saw things, not how God sees things
... the Eucharist profoundly enables the grace of God to be received with all its glories and blessings.
The idea that relationships are not a strategy is potent; and the sad commentary proceeds to say that often relationships are seen as a strategy, a means to accomplish great things - except love and relationship are not what is really wanted. We want to appear relational so people will like what we have to offer. It's the difference between wanting a good marriage and loving the person you married.
Some writers may toy with the fancy of a ‘Christ-myth,’ but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the ‘Christ-myth’ theories.
The only way for us to make sense of life today is to appreciate where the future is going. Scripture outlines that future, not with detailed dates, but with a general outline of what is to come. That outline is designed not to have us prepare charts, but to prepare our hearts.
Abandon desire for this world, and God will love you. Abandon desire for others’ goods, and people will love you.
We are built on a structure of the freedom of religion and the non-establishment of religion. That really is a pretty sturdy rudder for the U.S.
One who directs to good is rewarded similar to the doer of good.
A woman who writes has power, and a woman with power is feared.
The idea that the United States government would have to figure out what to do about the headscarf is simply ludicrous. We don't get involved in that.
In every generation women have to be taught their place one more time. The subordination of women is never accomplished for once and for all.
My whole worldview has changed because of the work that I do. Specifically, the way in which I appropriate my own faith as a Christian, and the way in which I think about the faith and life of others who are very different than myself. That mutuality of regard is how we deal with difference and diversity in the world.
When tradition is thought to state the way things really are, it becomes the director and judge of our lives; we are, in effect, imprisoned by it. On the other hand, tradition can be understood as a pointer to that which is beyond tradition: the sacred. Then it functions not as a prison but as a lens.
The assumption that the gospel can be reduced to a note card is already off on the wrong track.
God, through Jesus Christ, welcomes you anyhow.
'Believing' cannot tip the scales in making a historical judgement about whether something really happened. I can choose to believe that George Washington threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock, but my believing that he did it has nothing to do with whether or not he really did do it. So also with the story of Jesus walking on water: Believing that he did it has nothing to do with whether he really did do it. 'Belief' cannot be the basis for historical conclusions; it has no direct relevance.
God’s dream for us is not simply peace of mind, but peace on earth.
Archaeological evidence provides significant help in interpreting the Gospels. In a sense, archaeology is an exegetical tool. To ignore the evidence of archaeology would be almost as irresponsible as making no appeal to the original text. The archaeological evidence is a vital component in the context of Scripture.
One reason why so many Christians today don't know the Old Testament is because their 'gospel' doesn't even need it.
Hatred in your heart for others is always weakness.
the Japanese school year begins in spring ... so mothers can send off their children as cherry blossoms fall from the branches.
I let go of the notion that the Bible is a divine product. I learned that it is a human cultural product, the product of two ancient communities, biblical Israel and early Christianity. As such, it contained their understandings and affirmations, not statements coming directly or somewhat directly from God. . . . I realized that whatever "divine revelation" and the "inspiration of the Bible" meant (if they meant anything), they did not mean that the Bible was a divine product with divine authority.
Angels, inasmuch as they come from the Throne Room of the Thrice-holy God, usher us into the presence of God once removed and such encounters with God are more powerful and overwhelming than ordinary moments with God.
Books saved my sanity, knowledge opened the locked places in me and taught me first how to survive and then how to soar.
Wine is the liquid form of the Goddess Tara, who is the saviour of all living creatures, the mother of all enjoyment and Release, the destroyer of dangers and disease, who burns up all sins and purifies the worlds, O Beloved , who grants all success and increases knowledge, understanding and learning.
I will say that the power of being a stranger in someone else's religious community has its own lessons, really. It is something like the power of visiting another very happy extended family and being at their table.