Book review: "Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media" by Nick Davies

For anyone interested in knowing how the media works, I would recommend reading Nick Davies’ excellent book “Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media”. Davies is a veteran British journalist who has seen all the changes in his industry over the last few decades. The picture he paints is not a pretty one. Much of the changes have not been for the better, such that today the mass media operates like a “global village idiot, deeply ignorant and easily led.”

From the Millennium Bug to the existence of WMD in Iraq, used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the media has not told the truth and engaged in what Davies calls “Flat Earth News”. This is when “a story appears to be true. It is widely accepted as true. It becomes heresy to suggest that it is not true – even if it is riddled with falsehood, distortion and propaganda.” It seems that the media’s role in the build-up to war in 2003 is what compelled Davies to write this book and investigate why truth telling has disintegrated into the way it has. He is aided by a specially commissioned team of researchers from Cardiff University.

What has led to falling standards in the media over the years? Why are journalists today failing to perform the basic functions in their profession such as fact checking and instead recycling second-hand wire copy and PR material? The author traces this trend to the 1960s when the new corporate owners began taking over newspapers and imposing their commercial logic on the industry. The “grocers” as the author likes to call them, such as Rupert Murdoch, cut costs and more costs over time to improve their profits, and at the same time increased the content of newspapers, which resulted in less fact checking and more “churnalism”.

It is not just British newspapers but newspapers across the world that have suffered the same plight as their British counterparts. This means that Flat Earth News has gone global. The fall in quality has made it easier for PR companies and the covert world of intelligence agencies to infiltrate the media. He cites the case of the “NatWest Three” as an example of PR at work. A very successful PR campaign transformed the image of three very corrupt employees of NatWest Bank, who were involved in a scam, into poor innocent victims of American law when faced with the prospect of extradition to the US. There is a whole chapter dealing with the production of propaganda in the media, which is nothing new but seems to have grown significantly since 9/11 without much public debate. Davies is careful to point out, however, that much of the distortion is done by feeding unsuspecting journalists than through directly controlled assets.

The various unwritten rules of news production are laid bare: prefer cheap safe stories, especially with statements from official sources, to tricky expensive ones; avoid the electric fence of the Official Secrets Act and, to a larger extent, libel law; fit the surrounding consensus and give them what they want to hear even if it’s not true; always give both sides of the story just as a safety net;  go along with moral panic; and run stories which are being widely published elsewhere (“Ninja Turtle Symdrome”). When journalists don’t toe the line they can face the consequences – as Andrew Gilligan found out when his story attacked the government for its handling of the intelligence on Iraqi weapons.

Nick Davies is credited for his part in exposing the phone hacking scandal and he touches upon it here in a chapter on the “dark arts”. From bribing police officers and civil servants to using private investigators, the author gives a disturbing insight into the world of the dark arts. It is true that the dividing line as to what is legal and illegal is ill defined, but the greater problem is the greed of newspapers for wanting to make money out of confidential and salacious information.

Nick Davies

The book is very well researched and skilfully written with plenty of examples to back up the author’s points. Indeed, it is the examples in the book that make it such an interesting read. There is a chapter each on three of the most well known British newspapers – The Sunday Times, The Observer and The Daily Mail; unfortunately none of them make for comfortable reading. The seesaw in fortunes of the Insight Team at The Sunday Times, which famously exposed the MI6 agent Kim Philby of being a KGB operative, is a particularly interesting tale that mirrored the change in ownership of the newspaper and its priorities. Although Davies is primarily a Guardian man, he tries to be as objective as possible, criticising both right-wing and left-wing newspapers, but it’s clear he is no fan of Rupert Murdoch.

For those people who have long suspected some falsehood and distortion in the media, this book gives adequate credence to that view. It is not so much that journalists deliberately set out to tell lies, but more the case that circumstances, driven by commercial interests, have led to the current state of affairs. With less time to file their stories, less resources at their disposal and the pressure to adhere to the production rules, truth telling has suffered. Davies doesn’t finish on an optimistic note and I share his pessimism. Everything he has described in the book, he confesses, seems to be symptoms of a disease that has set in and just seems to be getting worse. The book is both an illuminating and depressing account of our global media.

Book review: "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga

One hears so much about the dazzling rise of India these days as a major economic power. What about Indian society itself and how is it being affected by globalisation? Aravind Adiga’s first novel - "The White Tiger" - which won the Booker Prize in 2008 is an interesting and entertaining tale about one Balram Halwai, born into a lowly family in Northern India, and how he manages to scale the heights of entrepreneurial success. Although fictional, every bit of the book is believable. Written as a letter to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Balram tells his tale in his own distinctive way. In the process he shines a light on the darker side of contemporary India from the poverty ridden villages to the rapidly growing urban centres.

Born as the son of a rickshaw puller in a small North Indian village, Balram Halwai’s life seems destined from the outset to be trapped in poverty and insignificance, but he nurses a dream to escape. And escape he does. His big break comes when he is employed as a driver for a wealthy village landlord’s son, recently returned from America, and his wife. Moving to Delhi, the bustling capital of India, with his master and wife, the city is a revelation to him with its frequent traffic jams, call centres, shopping malls, strange civic planning, five star hotels and slums. It seems that the rich can buy anything they want. A turning point seems to be when his master’s wife decides to leave her husband after a road accident, and it is then that the corrupting influence of the city has an effect on both master and servant.

According to Balram, India’s greatest invention is not the number system or chess but the Rooster Coop – the system by which 99.9% of the Indian population, despite being strong, talented and intelligent, live in perpetual servitude to a handful of men. Likening himself to a rare animal - a white tiger - that escapes its cage, Balram desires to break out of this coop. Feelings of loyalty to his master gradually give way to resentment and ambition. He eventually kills his master and runs away with a bag full of money which his master is about to pay a politician. With this money Balram heads south to Bangalore, where so many foreign companies are coming to these days, and makes a new life for himself. Seeing the opportunities present themselves in Bangalore, Balram Halwai, now renamed Ashok Sharma, makes a name for himself as the owner of a taxi service ferrying workers to their offices.

Balram clearly sees himself as an "entrepreneur" – a self-made man, a success in this world, and a white tiger. This is despite the fact that he has killed someone, which he justifies by saying that most men of stature have done the same. Here Adiga seems to be critiquing the ruling classes of India, some of whom are guilty of criminal activity.

Written in a simple way, mixed with a good deal of wit and humour, the book is an enjoyable read. It seems Adiga is deliberately caricaturising his main characters for greater effect. For example, the greedy village landlord is called the "Stork" and his son the "Mongoose". Issues surrounding caste, religion, politics, corruption, violence and globalisation are all exposed, laying bare the brutal realities of modern India. There is much to shock the reader and make him ponder.

This is not the kind of book many proud Indians would like reading, and indeed some have criticised the book as a Western conspiracy to malign India’s economic progress. I disagree. Just like Charles Dickens shone a light on the inequalities of Victorian Britain during the Industrial Revolution, Adiga manages to do something similar here. This book offers a riposte to the glamorised view of India portrayed by Bollywood. Adiga deserves credit for casting a sharp eye on modern India, however uncomfortable that may be, and telling a most interesting story. Congratulations to him for winning the prestigious Booker Prize

Book review: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt

This book by John J. Mearsheimer - Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago - and Stephen M. Walt - Professor of International Relations at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University - is excellent for anyone interested in reading about the powerful and highly influential Israel Lobby in the United States. Despite the fierce criticism any critical discussion of Israel tends to attract, I think the authors have done a creditable job researching the subject and presenting their views as objectively as possible. They state from the beginning that they do not question Israel’s right to exist, but argue that the Lobby’s influence has grown over time and is now largely responsible for the unconditional nature of America’s support for Israel. Indeed, there is no other country that receives the huge amount of aid – financial, military and diplomatic – that Israel gets from America. Yet the policies pursued by the Lobby and supported by successive American governments have not always had a positive influence on US foreign policy (or Israel for that matter).

After detailing the various forms of aid the United States gives to Israel, the authors question whether Israel today is more of a liability to America rather than a strategic asset. Certainly Israel was an asset during the Cold War, but that no longer seems to be the case with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Disproportionate support for Israel is "undermining relations with other US allies, casting doubt on America’s wisdom and moral vision, helping inspire a generation of anti-American extremists, and complicating US efforts to deal with a volatile region." Israel also looks first and foremost to its own interests, and it has done things contrary to American interests. The various moral arguments supporters employ to justify America’s special relationship with Israel are examined and undermined.

A spot light is shone on the different components that make up the Lobby. It is not a single unified movement with a central leadership but a "loose coalition of individuals and organisations that actively work to shape US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction." The majority of the Lobby’s constituents are Jewish, but there are also some important non-Jewish individuals and groups such as the Christian Zionists. The Lobby generally promotes a very hawkish Israeli position – more extreme than most Jewish Americans – yet this has become more pronounced over time.

What makes the Lobby so effective? There are various reasons say the authors: it is well financed and resourced; American Jews are politically very active and give generously to political parties; dissent is mainly a private affair; and the Lobby has the support of the neoconservatives and Christian Zionists. But the main reason, according to the authors, is that there is no effective opposition to it. Arab Americans are neither as wealthy, well organised, numerous or politically active as Jewish Americans.

The peculiarities of the American political system are what make the Lobby such an influential force. Since elections in America are expensive affairs, the Lobby’s main way of influencing politics is by way of donations. The Lobby, in particular AIPAC, screens candidates based on their views of Israel. Then it donates money to candidates that are pro-Israel. Candidates who aren’t pro-Israel can expect funds channelled to their opponents. The Lobby has also had success in turning round politicians who have been critical of Israel into steadfast supporters. An example is Hillary Clinton. Sometimes a bit of threatening behaviour is used by AIPAC toward politicians who fail to follow its lead. Such is AIPAC’s hold on Congress today that to be invited to speak at its annual Policy Conference has become a coveted affair among prominent politicians.

A chapter is devoted to how the Lobby influences the media and think tanks, policies academia and uses the charge of anti-Semitism to silence critics of Israel. There are individual chapters on the role of the Lobby behind various modern day phenomena such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the invasion of Iraq, the Second Lebanon War, Israel’s tense relationship with Syria and the Iranian nuclear programme. In all these cases the Lobby has played a prominent role – more prominent than I had hitherto thought. America’s increasingly confrontational approach to Iran is partly as a result of pressure from the lobby, which views a nuclear armed Iran as a mortal threat to Israel’s existence; the authors say this is despite the fact that Iran did try to reach out to the US and normalise relations, notably in 1997 and 2003, and helped America topple the Taliban in 2001.

The book ends with the authors suggesting ways in which the US could have a more balanced foreign policy less influenced by the Israel Lobby. These include: maintaining a regional balance of power (‘offshore balancing’) by supporting local allies instead of unilateral transformation, ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by supporting a two-state solution, treating Israel as a normal state, and a more open discussion about US interests and Israel. These are good suggestions, but it is difficult to see most of them happening any time soon.

On the whole this a very interesting book, which I enjoyed reading. I agree with Mearsheimer and Walt that US foreign policy is tilted heavily in favour of Israel and the Lobby has a large part to play in this. Given America’s dependence on oil from Arab states, its strong support for Israel can only be adequately explained by such a powerful force, small though it is. The book is not a diatribe, but a sensible and intelligent piece of work. It’s clear the authors have researched their subject thoroughly; their arguments are backed up well and presented logically. It will not please the diehard Israeli supporters, but for others this is a valuable addition to the discussion about the power of the Israel Lobby and its influence on US foreign policy. I certainly learnt a lot from reading it and I recommend it to others.

Book review: "Holy Warriors: A Journey into the Heart of Indian Fundamentalism" by Edna Fernandes

Not only is India home to all the major faiths, it is also host to virtually every type of religious fanatic. But what drives these “holy warriors” of various faiths? Their actions sometimes have tragic consequences. In this a fascinating, disturbing, brave and at times funny book, British Indian journalist Edna Fernandes explores the world of Indian fundamentalism. By travelling to areas of past conflicts and interviewing a number of key figures, she reveals an interesting picture of a country where the forces of fundamentalism are very much alive as in the past.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim majority state in India, Fernandes finds a region still suffering from the wounds of a violent insurgency that broke out in 1989. Between 40,000 and 100,000 people are thought to have been killed here. Both local Muslims and outside agitators supported by Pakistan have been involved in the militancy. Kashmir is the unfinished business of partition: for the militants and Pakistan it is a question of territory in the name of Islam, while for India it is a question of territory in the name of secularism. A fall out of the insurgency is that hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Brahmins have had to flee their ancestral homeland due to threats from militants, and their tragic plight is borne out in the book.

In the small, rural town of Deoband in the Hindu heartland of Uttar Pradesh, Fernandes visits a madrassa known as Darul-Uloom, the House of Knowldge. This is no ordinary school; it is the second most important Islamic academic institution in the world. Here the gates of ‘ijtihad’ (independent thinking) are firmly closed and a rigid, puritanical version of Islam is taught. Darul-Uloom was established soon after the Indian Mutiny in 1857 and since then thousands of Deoband-affiliated madrassas have been established worldwide, particularly in the tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Although Muslim leaders in Darul-Uloom stress on the peaceful message of Islam, some of its sister schools teach a more radicalised version of it.

Fernandes is from a Goan Catholic background and there are some delightful reminisces about her childhood throughout the book. It was in Goa in the sixteenth century that St Francis Xavier, outraged by the licentiousness of the Portuguese colonialists as well as how Indian converts to Christianity continued their earlier religious practices, requested the Inquisition. The Inquisition only ended in 1812. Fernandes finds a Goa today that is changing fast. On the one hand, there’s a rising Hindu conscientiousness with the BJP party trying to rake up old history and undermine the church; and on the other, there’s a lot of external influences from Delhiites, foreigners and people from Mumbai. While old churches are razed to make way for new apartment blocks and hotels, criminal gangs from Russia bring prostitution and drugs.

The Protestant powers that came to India were initially slower than their Catholic counterparts to see the opportunity for missionary work, but eventually they too encouraged it. Despite their obvious contributions to education and healthcare, Christian missionaries in India remain controversial. They have been accused by Hindu hardliners of using forceful and fraudulent means to convert Hindus to Christianity. In recent years there have been attacks on Christians including priests, nuns and missionaries.

One area where Christian missionaries did have a big impact was the north-east. Here the overwhelming majority of the population is Christian. In the restive state of Nagaland, Fernandes encounters a people who have been fighting for a separate homeland. The Nagas are not Aryan or Dravidian but of Mongoloid stock. They were one-time tribal headhunters before they were converted by American Baptists in the nineteenth century. In terms of culture, language, race and religion they see little in common with other Indians. “Nagaland for Christ” is the call of the Naga nationalists, but Fernandes is sceptical of their chances of success as they have little support from powerful external allies.

In Punjab, Fernandes finds the situation is a lot calmer today than at the height of Sikh militancy in the eighties. The storming of the Golden Temple by the Indian Army to flush out armed militants, and the gunfight that ensued at Sikhism’s holiest shrine, led to the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in October 1984. In retaliation many Sikhs were openly butchered in Delhi and other parts of northern India, which only made calls for a separate Sikh nation, Khalistan, even louder. The man who led the crackdown on the Khalistan movement was K. P. S. Gill, former Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab, and there’s a fascinating interview with him in the book. By the mid-nineties there was little support left for Khalistan as the activities of the militants didn’t endear them well with the community. However, a sense of grievance felt by Sikhs remains because grave human rights abuses were committed and the guilty were not punished.

The final part of the book deals with Hindu nationalists. There’s a vivid account of the Gujarat riots in 2002 in which Muslim owned businesses, homes, apartments, vehicles and places of worship were systematically targeted and destroyed by Hindu fanatics. The violence left at least 2,000 people dead and up to 140,000 Muslims in refugee camps. Fernandes was able to get a good picture of what actually happened because she visited the area just a few weeks after the riots began. There was evidence that Narendra Modi’s hard-line BJP government was complicit in the violence, yet it was retuned to power in the state elections later that year. The irony was that this all happened in the same state where Mahatma Gandhi was born.

There are interviews with two firebrand Hindu nationalist leaders - Bal Thackeray and Praveen Togadia. Thackeray formed Shiv Sena in 1966 to stop south Indians coming to Bombay and taking the jobs of Marathis; but as the city became a melting pot of people from all over India he transformed the prejudices of his party to be more explicitly anti-Muslim. To Thackeray the Muslims in India are the enemy within and they should always know their place. Togadia, leader of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), is arguably more extreme. He has publicly defended the Gujarat riots and called Sonia Gandhi “that Italian bitch”. He believes India should drop a nuclear bomb on Pakistan to be rid of terrorism forever. There’s also an interview with Yukta Mookhey, former Miss India and Miss World, who campaigned for the BJP in 2004 general elections. Yukta is passionate about her country; she wants to help the common man and be remembered for more than beauty, but she naively thinks the BJP will help her fulfil all this.

There’s a glimpse into the world of the RSS, the mother of all Hindu nationalist organisations. At a RSS shakha in Delhi Fernandes finds men dressed in khaki shorts doing marches and exercises. They may look like boy scouts but their ideology is far from comical. Based on 1930s European fascist movements, RSS wants to create a theocratic Hindu state in which the minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, are reduced to being second-class citizens. Central to the RSS ideology is the belief that Hindu submissiveness is to blame for India’s turbulent past in which the Hindu has been the constant victim. First, the Hindu was the victim of the Muslim invaders, and then the British imperialists. Today, he is the victim of the minorities and Pakistan.

This is an interesting book which I enjoyed reading just like the author’s other book “The Last Jews of Kerala”. It is well written and quite objective. Fernandes is a good observer, has an eye for detail and brings her characters to life. She is not shy to express some of her her own views. Where the book does fall short is seeing the bigger picture. How strong are the secular forces in India? To what extent do class and caste play in sectarian violence? How has bad governance played a role? What about expatriate Indians and their influence on fundamentalist groups? The book is not an extensive study, but it does give a valuable overview of the various sectarian fault lines in the country today.

Since the book was published in 2007 there have been more instances of terrorism and sectarian violence in India. This shows, as highlighted in the book, there are clearly some leaders who are willing to exploit and fan the flames of bigotry. Communalism is very rarely spontaneous and nearly always manufactured. One only hopes that with time things will improve. That of course remains to be seen.

Book summary: "The Case For Christ" by Lee Strobel

I enjoyed this book so much that I decided to summarise it. It is a Gold-Medallion award-winning best-seller written by Lee Strobel, a former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, who has a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School. The book retraces his own spiritual journey from atheism to belief in Christ. Using his investigative journalism skills he cross-examines a dozen experts, with doctorates from prestigious universities like Cambridge and Princeton, who are recognized authorities in their own fields. Strobel asks some tough, point-blank questions. With a predisposition to atheism he sets out to examine whether Jesus of Nazareth really was the Son of God. Being a skeptic he is interested in evidence, and that is what he tries to uncover. The book is remarkably easy to read, written in a captivating, fast-paced style.

The eyewitness evidence

Strobel starts by examining the eye witness testimony of Jesus, recorded in the gospels, and interviews Dr. Craig Blomberg, a New Testament scholar at Denver Seminary in Colorado. The gospels include: the Gospel of Matthew, by Matthew, also known as Levi, the tax collector; the Gospel of Mark, by John Mark, a companion of Peter; the Gospel of Luke, by Paul’s physician, Luke; and the Gospel of John, by another disciple of Jesus, John. All the gospels were written within sixty years of the life of Jesus, much earlier than biographies of other important persons in ancient history and too early for legendary interpretations to have formed, explains Blomberg. The Gospel of Mark was written first, no later than about 60AD, and it was a source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke. It is believed Matthew and Luke also used a common hypothetical source, called Q (from the German Quelle, meaning "source"), containing a collection of the sayings of Jesus.

Blomberg explains persuasively it was the intention of the gospel writers to preserve history accurately, they were able to do so, and that they were honest and didn’t allow bias to influence their reporting. They had nothing to gain except criticism, ostracism and martyrdom, yet because of their integrity and firm beliefs, they were willing to endure all this. The consistency of the gospels on the main facts, together with variations on some details, lends historical credibility to the accounts. Blomberg says, “It’s likely that a lot of the similarities and differences among the synoptics can be explained by assuming that the disciples and other early Christians had committed to memory a lot of what Jesus said and did, but they felt free to recount this information in various forms, always preserving the significance of Jesus’ original teachings and deeds.” Moreover, it is unlikely the early church would have grown if contemporaries of Jesus could have been exposed as propagating falsehoods.

The documentary evidence

Strobel then examines how carefully the biographies of Jesus have been preserved. He interviews Bruce Metzger, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, who has written many books on the New Testament. Metzger explains that although there are no surviving copies of the original New Testament, what it has in its favour is the unprecedented number of copies (more than 5,000), from different geographical locations, that have survived and date back close to the original writings. This indicates they can be traced back genealogically in a family tree to the original manuscripts. The oldest surviving manuscript is a fragment of the gospel of John which dates back to between 100 and 150 AD. The manuscripts are so remarkably consistent with one another that scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix conclude, “The New Testament has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book – a form that is 99.5% pure.” The early church did not include apocrypha, such as The Gospel of Thomas, in the New Testament because they contradicted Jesus’ teaching, having been written in the second century or later, and their mythical qualities made them less credible.

The corroborating evidence

Is there evidence outside of the gospels for Jesus? Strobel puts this question to Dr Edwin M. Yamauchi, a Japanese-American academic, who was born a Buddhist but became a believer of Christ. Josephus was a very important Jewish historian of the first century. In his work “The Antiquities “ he describes how a high priest named Ananias took advantage of the death of the Roman governor Festus in order to have James, the brother of Jesus, killed. An even lengthier section about Jesus is written in the “Testimonium Flavianum”, which is considered authentic by both Jewish and Christian scholars, although there may be some interpolations by early Christian copyists. Josephus corroborates important information about Jesus: he was the martyred leader of the church in Jerusalem; and he established a wide and lasting following, despite having been crucified under Pilate at the instigation of some Jewish leaders. Tacitus, a Roman historian of the first century, testifies to the success and spread of Christianity, based on a historical figure – “Christus” – who was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Pliny the Younger, another Roman who was provincial governor of Pontus and Bithynia, wrote to Emperor Trajan in 112 AD how to deal with Christians, who refused to worship the emperor and instead worshiped "Christus". A historian called Thallus refers to the solar eclipse at the time of the Crucifixion. The Jewish Talmud mentions Jesus, calling him a false messiah who practiced magic and who was justly condemned to death; and it repeats the rumour Jesus was born of a Roman soldier and Mary, suggesting there was something unusual about his birth; so in a negative way it corroborates some things about Jesus. Paul of Tarsus, a Jewish high priest who never met Jesus, was transformed from being a persecutor of Christians to history’s foremost Christian missionary after he encountered the resurrected Christ. His letters, written before the gospels, verifies the antiquity and traditions of Jesus, undermining a popular theory that the deity of Christ was later imported into Christianity by pagan beliefs. The ‘Apostolic Fathers’ – the earliest Christian writers after the New Testament – attest to the basic facts about Jesus, particularly his crucifixion, resurrection and divine nature. Yamauchi adds, “For me, the historical evidence has reinforced my commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God who loves us and died for us and was raised from the dead. It’s that simple.”

The scientific evidence

Next, Strobel examines the scientific evidence and interviews Dr John McRay, a professor of New Testament and archaeology. McRay explains how archaeological evidence has repeatedly enhanced the credibility of the New Testament. John’s gospel was sometimes considered suspect because he mentioned locations that couldn’t be verified, but new discoveries have backed it up. The Pool of Bethesda, where Jesus healed an invalid (John 5:1 – 15), has recently been excavated. Other discoveries include the Pool of Siloam (John 9:7), Jacob’s Well (John 4:12), the probable location of the Stone Pavement near Jaffa Gate where Jesus appeared before Pilate (John 19:13). Luke says the census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem was conducted when Quirinius was governing Syria. Strobel points out that Quirinius didn’t begin ruling Syria until 6 AD. But McRay says an archaeologist named Jerry Vardaman found a coin with the name of Quirinius on it in very small writing, which places him as proconsul of Syria and Cilicia from 11 BC until after the death of Herod the Great. Sir William Ramsay, the late archaeologist and professor at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, concluded from various inscriptions that while there was only one Quirinius, he ruled Syria on two separate occasions, which would cover the time of the census. Another contentious issue is the existence of Nazareth, which skeptics say didn’t exist during the time of Jesus. After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, Jewish priests were sent out to various other locations, including Galilee. Archaeologists have found a list in Aramaic describing the twenty four ‘courses’, or families, of priests who were relocated, and one of them was registered as having moved to Nazareth. There is no independent confirmation of the slaughter of new born children at Bethlehem. Bethlehem, McRay explains, was a small town, and the fact that Herod, a bloodthirsty king, killed some babies there wouldn’t have captured the attention of people in the Roman world. Ancient Palestine was a bloody place. The way archaeology has backed up the New Testament, concludes Strobel, contrasts with how it has proved to be devastating for other religions such as Mormonism.

The rebuttal evidence

With self-selected, liberal groups like the Jesus Seminar attracting a great deal of uncritical media attention with their claims disputing the gospels, is the Jesus of history the same as the Jesus of faith? Strobel puts this question to Dr Gregory A Boyd, a former atheist, who became professor of theology at Bethel University. The Jesus Seminar disputes most of what Jesus is purported to have said in the gospels, rules out the possibility of the supernatural, and uses questionable criteria to prove that a saying came from Jesus. Historians usually operate with the burden of proof to prove falsity or unreliability, since people generally are not compulsive liars, but the Jesus Seminar turns this logic on its head explains Boyd. He says the Jesus Seminar represents “an extremely small number of radical-fringe scholars who are on the far, far left wing of New Testament thinking.” The idea that Jesus emerged from mythology or was another Jewish wonder worker doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Jesus’ teachings are based on distinctively Jewish beliefs and the miracles he performed have no parallel in history. It is likely that mystery religions with parallels to Christianity, which emerged after the second century, borrowed from Christianity rather than the other way round. So the Jesus of faith is the Jesus of history, concludes Boyd.

The identity evidence

The second part of the book examines the identity of Jesus. Did he believe he was God? Strobel discusses the topic with Dr Ben Witherington III, Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. Drawing upon Jesus’ miracles, his sense of mission, and some of his phrases (e.g. “Abba” to refer to God, “Amen I say to you” before starting his teachings) Witherton explains how Jesus saw himself in the very place of God. As Mark 10:45 says his purpose was to come into this world and, by sacrificing his life, redeem his people: “I did not come to be served but to serve and give my life as a ransom in place of the many.” Just as God formed his people in the Old Testament Jesus creates a renewed Israel, represented by his twelve disciples. This says quite a lot about what he thought of himself.

The psychological evidence

Was Jesus crazy when he claimed to be the son of God? Strobel examines this area with Dr Gary R Collins, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology from Purdue University. Collins says Jesus didn’t display the usual characteristics of madness: emotional imbalance (e.g. depression, anger, anxiety); misperceptions (e.g. paranoia); thinking disorders; or unsuitable behaviour (e.g. odd dress sense, poor social skills). On the contrary he was compassionate; he was not egotistical; he was emotionally balanced; he knew what he was doing and where he was going; he accepted people but didn’t ignore their sins; and he responded to people based on their unique needs. Jesus healed conditions like lifelong blindness and leprosy, for which a psychosomatic explanation isn’t likely. “I just don’t see signs that Jesus was suffering from any known mental illness,” he concluded.

The profile evidence

The Old Testament provides numerous details about the attributes of God. Did Jesus fulfil those attributes? Strobel put this question to Dr D A Carson, a research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, who has written more than forty books. While the Incarnation - God becoming man, the infinite becoming finite – is difficult for our finite minds to comprehend, Carson pointed out evidence that Jesus did exhibit the characteristics of deity, although theologians believe some kind of voluntary ‘emptying’ out (Philippians 2) of his independent use of his attributes took place. Every attribute of God, says the New Testament, is found in Jesus: omniscience (John 16:30); omnipresence (Matthew 28:20, Matthew 18:20); omnipotence (Matthew 28:18); eternality (John 1:1); and immutability (Hebrews 13:8).

The fingerprint evidence

Did Jesus, and he alone, match the identity of the Messiah given in the Old Testament? Could he have simply fitted the description of the Messiah by coincidence? Strobel interviews Dr Louis S. Lapides, who was born to a Jewish family, to discuss these questions. Lapides had experienced some anti-Semitism when he was an American soldier in the Vietnam War which put him off Christianity. However, looking at a bible given to him by an evangelist he was stopped cold when he read Isaiah 53, which was written seven hundred years before Jesus:

He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gave gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

And who can speak of his descendants?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

for the transgression of my people he was stricken.

He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

and with the rich in his death,

though he had done no violence,

Nor was any deceit in his mouth...

For he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors.

Lapides was so struck by this description of the Messiah that he believed Christians had rewritten the Old Testament to make Isaiah’s words sound as though the prophet had been foreshadowing Jesus. Jews in the Old Testament sought to atone for their sins through a system of animal sacrifices but here was Jesus, the ultimate sacrificial lamb of God, who paid for the sin of all man. He came across more than four dozen predictions of the Messiah in the Old Testament, all of which matched with Jesus. Mathematician Peter W. Stoner computed that the probability of a man fulfilling just eight prophesises would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. Lapides realised the New Testament wasn’t a handbook for the American Nazi Party but an interaction between Jesus and the Jewish community. Lapides accepted Jesus as the Messiah and that also helped to transform his spiritual life.

The medical evidence

The third part of the book examines the Resurrection, the fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith, which is the ultimate vindication of Jesus’ teaching and personal claims. The idea that Jesus never really died on the cross can be found in the Koran. Ahmadiya Muslims believe that Jesus fled to India; and there’s a shrine that supposedly marks his real burial place in Srinagar, Kashmir. Many swoon hypotheses, that contend Jesus faked his death, continue to flourish. Strobel interviews Dr Alexander Metherell, M.D., Ph.D., who holds a medical doctorate from the University of Miami and a doctorate in engineering from the University of Bristol, to discuss the possibility whether Jesus could have faked his death. Metherell provides a medical account of the physical torture Jesus would have endured, from his sweating of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest to his crucifixion on the cross. The sweating of blood is a condition known as hematidrosis, which is associated with a high degree of psychological stress. The flogging Jesus received prior to his crucifixion would have been brutal, resulting in lacerations and significant blood loss, which would have caused hypovolemic shock as evidenced by the fact that he was too weak to carry the crossbar (patibulum) all the way to Golgotha. At the site of the crucifixion he would have been laid down and his wrists would have been nailed to the crossbar, piercing the median nerve which is the largest nerve going to the hand. The pain would have been unbearable, so much so that a new word was invented for it: excruciating. Once the crossbar was attached to the vertical skate, and nails driven through his feet, both shoulders would have become dislocated (Psalm 22: “My bones are out of joint”). Then it would have been a slow agonizing death by asphyxiation. Jesus’ death would have been guaranteed by the thrust of a spear into his side and heart, accounting for some fluid – the pericardial effusion and the pleural effusion – that has the appearance of a clear fluid, like water, described by the eyewitness John in his gospel. Metherell concludes that it would have been impossible for Jesus to survive this ordeal, and even if he somehow did his ghastly condition would not have inspired a worldwide movement.

The evidence of the missing body

If the resurrection is true, is there evidence that supports Jesus’ missing body from the tomb? Strobel seeks out Dr William Lane Craig, who has a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Birmingham and a doctorate in theology from the University of Munich, to answer this question. Craig points out that the empty grave is reported or implied in extremely early sources – Mark’s gospel and the 1 Corinthians 15 creed – which date so close to the event that they could not have been products of legend. The fact the empty tomb was discovered by women, who had a very low status in first century Jewish society, bolsters the story’s authenticity. There are conflicting narratives about the empty tomb in the gospels but the inconsistencies are in the secondary details, suggesting we have multiple, independent attestation for the missing body; and all four accounts name Joseph of Arimathea, a Jewish high priest who gave Jesus a tomb. It is most likely that Joseph of Arimathea is a historical figure, and not invented by the gospel writers, considering the early Christian anger toward the Jewish leaders for instigating Jesus’ crucifixion. It is unlikely the women went to the wrong tomb because it was known to the Jewish authorities who would have been too happy to point it out, yet they invented the story that the disciples, despite having no motivation or opportunity, stole the body – a theory not even the most sceptical critic believes today.

The evidence of appearances

What is the evidence to support the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus? This question is put to Dr Gary Habermas, an expert on the resurrection of Jesus. Habermas begins by referring to Paul’s letters to the Corinthian church. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul passes on a creed of the early church which names specific individuals and groups of people who encountered the risen Christ, written at a time when many of them were still alive and could be sought out to verify the truth. The evidence suggests the creed could be considered a statement of eyewitnesses. The Acts is littered with references to Jesus’ appearances, while the gospels describe numerous appearances in detail. Appearances to multiple people simultaneously, including to sceptics like James and Paul, rule out the possibility of hallucinations. Concluded British theologian Michael Green, “The appearances of Jesus are as well authenticated as anything in antiquity...There can be no rational doubt that they occurred, and that the main reason why Christians became sure of the resurrection in the earliest days was just this. They could say with assurance, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ They knew it was the case.”

The circumstantial evidence

Finally, what circumstantial evidence supports the Resurrection? Strobel interviews Dr J. P. Moreland, a philosopher with a doctorate from the University of Southern California and a master’s degree in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, to answer this question. In a clear and methodical way Moreland outlined five reasons to believe in the Resurrection. Firstly, the disciples were transformed from being weak, cowardly men to zealous followers of Jesus, willing to spend their lives proclaiming about Jesus and, in the process, face hardship and death; it’s unlikely they would have endured so much if they weren’t sure of the Resurrection. Secondly, there’s no good reason other than the Resurrection that sceptics like James, the brother of Jesus, and Paul of Tarsus would have been converted and died for their faith. Thirdly, within five weeks of the Crucifixion over ten thousand Jews began abandoning key social practices that they had carefully preserved for centuries. For a people who thought that such social institutions were entrusted by God and abandoning them would risk their souls being damned, these changes represented a social earthquake, and earthquakes don’t happen without a reason. Fourthly, the early Christians adopted the sacraments of communion and baptism. Communion symbolised Jesus’ victory over death, and baptism a Gentile’s wish to take upon himself the laws of Moses. Fifthly, the spontaneous emergence of the church in the face of brutal Roman persecution “rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of Resurrection,” as C. F D. Moule put it.

Conclusion

This is a certainly a compelling book and for those people who have open mind, there is sufficient evidence to support the case for Jesus’ divinity. However, it probably won’t convince the most ardent sceptics. They will obviously point out that all of the people Strobel interviewed were evangelical Christians. This maybe so but most of them have undertaken extensive research, often battling with their own beliefs, before becoming convinced about Jesus themselves. In some cases they were not believers of Christ at all but became believers in the course of their research. Even today, the majority of scholars are so convinced of the historicity of Jesus that it is only a small minority of non-historians who dispute the case. This book is testament to the fact that the evidence was strong enough that a former atheist, who was a well established award winning journalist, has become a pastor. Often converts who are the most ardent believers. Strobel has gone on to write a number of other books similar to this one, in which he tries to argue the case for a Creator, faith and the real Jesus, none of which I have read; he has also appeared on a television programme called "Faith Under Fire" in America. This book is most certainly worth a read if you want to explore the evidence for Jesus and you have an open mind.

Book review: "The Last Jews of Kerala" by Edna Fernandes

This is a fascinating and touching account of the dying Jewish community in Kerala, India. The book is well researched and skilfully written by Edna Fernandes, who is a British Indian journalist, pointing a spotlight on a community largely unknown to the rest of the world. The author explores the racial divide in the community between the White and Black Jews, the major landmarks in their history and what the future holds. The author’s direct meetings and conversations with members of the community adds a true sense of authenticity, which makes the book so much more interesting.

The Black or Malabari Jews trace their ancestry to the days of King Solomon in biblical times when Jewish traders would come to Kerala in search of spices, sandalwood and other exotic commodities. The White or Paradesi Jews came during the Inquisition in Europe. Unlike many other Jewish communities in the western world, the Jews never suffered persecution in Kerala. In fact, they were a privileged community with special favours bestowed upon them by princely rulers during the ages.

The divide between Black Jews and White Jews came about due to a fight for pre-eminence in Cochini society, resulting in a “Jewish apartheid in India that would last four centuries and eventually lead to the decline and fall of both Black and White.” The Paradesi Jews linked their skin colour to religious purity, alleging that the Malabari Jews were the offspring of slave converts. As Fernandes explains, this undermined the standing of Black Jews: “In caste-based India, where the concept of religious purity is prominent, the taint of slavery eventually undermined the Malabaris’ standing in the royal court of Cochin. Loss of status and economic influence was only part of the cost they had to bear. Dubbed the sons of slaves, the Black Jews were then barred from marrying the White Jews, barred from the Paradesi Synagogue, barred from forming their own place of worship in their homes.”

All this went against the tenets of Judaism, in which the link between justice and shalom are inviolable. As news of this discrimination reached overseas, foreign rabbis such as Rabbi ibn Zimra ruled that the Black Jews “did have the right to intermarry and enter the synagogue as equals, provided all the proper conversion rituals had taken place.” However, the Paradesi leaders did not listen and carried on with their discrimination. “If the segregation was ever challenged by the Blacks, the Whites would call upon the raja or local colonial powers to intervene on their behalf and quell any resistance.”

Eventually it took the bold efforts of a low-born, brilliant lawyer from Ernakulam, A. B. Salem, known as the “Jewish Gandhi”, to bring about change. Inspired by Gandhi’s non-violent methods of protest in the fight for Indian Independence, he applied similar tactics with the Paradesi community. One day he refused to sit in the antechamber designated for the Blacks and strode into the Paradesi Synagogue, dragging his sons behind him. Being a top lawyer, writer and knowing Gandhi and Nehru the Paradesi elders were powerless to stop this man. “Blessed with formidable patience as well as intellect, he relentlessly chipped away at the edifice of prejudice, piece by piece, until it came tumbling down.” Finally, within a few years of the creation of the state of Israel, the last taboo was broken when Balfour, the second son of A. B. Salem, fell in love and married Seema ‘Baby’ Koder, a beautiful White Jewess.

Fernandes briefly describes the other Jewish communities in India including the Bene Israel, who are based in Mumbai, and the Baghdadi Jews, who have now all but disappeared. “While British rule lasted, the educated Bene Israel did well. By the 1940s the community had reached a peak of 25,000 people in India. The Bene Israel were like the Cochinis in that they, too, differentiated between light and dark-skinned Jews, mirroring the indigenous society, which also put a premium on fairness.” However, the Bene Israel still number around 5,000 today which is evidence of their ability to put aside their differences unlike the Cochinis.

Faced with an uncertain future and the lure of Zionism many of the Jews of Cochin, and India, migrated to Israel after Indian Independence and the creation of the Jewish state. Fernandes visits a few Cochini Jews in Israel, most of whom have settled in the Negev, where the dry, barren, desert landscape contrasts with green, verdant Kerala. Despite the harshness of the land many of them have settled well, doing well in horticulture and agriculture. “After fifty years, the Cochini Jewish way of life was thriving in the Middle East just as it was dying in southern India. The community here took every opportunity to push things forward to the next generation. They were ruthless in their in their pragmatism, as one would expect of a desert people. If they could not marry a Cochini, they would marry another Jew and show them the Kerala Jewish life. It was better than the alternative.”

For some Cochinis, however, Israel wasn’t the paradise they had envisaged. Not only was it a “void of loneliness and rejection,” the constant conflict between the Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land was a far cry from their peaceful co-existence in Kerala. As Fernandes explains, the Malabari immigrants “sensed an echo of their own tragedy in the Palestinians.” “They too knew what it was to be usurped in their historical narrative, to face separation. In Kerala, division led to destruction. Perhaps their fear was of the cycle repeating itself.” One such person is seventy-eight year old Abraham Eliavoo, who came not for Zionism but the love of his faith, yet he wanted to return to Kerala to die there because he could not reconcile faith with conflict. “In the end, it was an age-old tolerance that drew him.”

The book is a touching and compelling tale of the Jews of Kerala whose existence, stretching back thousands of years, certainly looks bleak despite a prosperous past. There are some wonderful conversations with various people, as well as descriptions of the Paradesi Synagogue in Mattancheri and places such as Cranganore, Cochin, Chennamangalam, Parul, the Negev and Jerusalem which are important for the Cochinis. In the twilight of their existence in Kerala, at least, there is a belated bonhomie between the Black and White Jews, the latter depending on the former for life support. But as the last few Paradesi Jews come to the end of their lives, and a despondent resignation hangs over them, they will be questioning whether their own attitudes led to their plight, for without justice there can be no shalom.

Book review: "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam" by Reza Aslan

I have just finished reading Reza Aslan’s book “No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam”. I enjoyed it very much. Written in a lucid, precise and highly readable style, Aslan describes how Islam came into being in Arabia, which up to that time had a polytheistic religious culture. The ancient Arabs worshipped many Gods including the God of the Jews and the Christians. Then came Muhammad - the founder of Islam – who, after receiving the Revelation at Mt Hira in 610AD, preached a message of absolute monotheism and declared “there is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger.” Aslan narrates the lives of Muhammad and his Companions who established the first Muslim community (“Ummah”) in Medina, their battles with the powerful Quraysh tribe and their eventual victory, and the subsequent evolution of Islam after Muhammad’s death.

Aslan knows his subject very well. It does often read like an unapologetic defence of Islam, which he acquiesces in the introduction, yet he is critical of the rise in Islamic extremism (Islamism) in recent times and sets out some ideas for reform at the end of the book. The diversity of Islam owes to “dozens of conflicting ideas about everything from how to interpret the Prophet’s words and deeds to who should do the interpreting, from whom to choose as leader of the community to how the community should be led.” These arguments often led to conflict, but also gave birth to various sects. Apart from the main Sunni or “orthodox” branch of Islam are the Shia and Sufi sects, both of which came into being as reactionary movements. Aslan goes into some detail about Sufism, the eclectic mystical tradition within Islam.

Muhammad was a very different kind of figure from Jesus Christ (whom he greatly revered), yet he strove to bring about radical religious, social and economic change in pre-Islamic Arabia. Aslan makes some interesting comparisons between Islam and Christianity, although his knowledge of the former is much better than of the latter. He says Christianity is an ‘orthodoxic’ religion; it is principally concerned with one’s beliefs in God while Islam, like Judaism, is an ‘orthopraxic’ religion, where it is one’s actions that makes one an observant follower. The five pillars of Islam are: “salat,” or ritual prayer (performed five times a day); “zakat,” or the paying of alms; fast (“sawn” in Arabic) during the month of Ramadan when Muslims believe the Quran was first revealed to Muhammad; the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca; and the “shahadah,” or profession of faith, which initiates every convert to Islam. Only the last pillar requires belief rather than action. Unlike Christianity, Islam is a communal religion; it abhors monasticism and reclusive individualism. The Quran also categorically derides celibacy as being against God’s command to be “fruitful and multiply.”

Aslan traces the roots of modern day Islamic fundamentalism to the influence of people such as Shah Wali Allah (d. 1762) as well as the experiences of the colonial period. Shah Wali Allah’s emphasis on orthodoxy, to strip Sufism of its “foreign” influences (e.g. Neoplatonism, Persian mysticism, Hindu Vedantism) and restore it to a former unadulterated form of Islamic mysticism, sparked a number of “puritan” movements in India like the Deobandi School. What angered political reformers, such as Jamāl-al-dīn al-Afghānī (1838-97) and Hassan al-Banna (1906-49), was the hypocrisy the British showed in preaching the values of the Enlightenment while cruelly pillaging the natural resources of their conquered lands and suppressing appeals for liberation. Al-Banna formed the Muslim Brotherhood, which was conceived to be an Islamic social movement “to present Islam as an all encompassing religious, political, social, economic, and cultural system.” Later, the movement underwent a more radical transformation under the influence of Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), who asserted the new ideology of Islamism which “called for the creation of an Islamic state in which the socio-political order would be defined solely according to Muslim values,” and he envisioned this process to be a “cataclysmic, revolutionary event.”

The book describes how the puritanical, fundamentalist sect of Islam known as Wahhabism became established in what is today Saudi Arabia. Thanks to oil money and Saudi evangelism, Wahhabism has now infiltrated every corner of the Muslim world, and it is the ideology of al-Qaeda. Aslan says that despite 9/11 and subsequent terrorist acts against western targets, “what is taking place now in the Muslim world is an internal conflict between Muslims, not an external battle between Islam and the West. The West is merely a bystander – an unwary yet complicit casualty of a rivalry that is raging in Islam over who will write the next chapter in its story.” This is not the “clash of civilisations” but a war within Islam between scores of first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants, indoctrinated in the democratic ideals of their new homes, and the bigotry and fanaticism of those who have replaced Muhammad.

Being a young boy who fled to America with his family during the Iranian Revolution, Aslan is able to narrate the events of that historic period well and how Iran was transformed into “a fascist country run by a corrupt clerical oligarchy committed to snuffing out any attempts at democratic reform.” Yet he says that democracy in the Middle East is possible because “it is pluralism, not secularism, that defines democracy,” and Islam has had a long commitment to religious pluralism. If America, which is “unapologetically founded on a Judeo-Christian – and more precisely Protestant – moral framework,” it should be possible to have Islamic democracy through a path of secularization.

Aslan compares the current conflict in Islam to the cataclysmic events of the Reformation in Christianity. The book ends with the sentences: “The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.” What is happening in Islam, says Aslan, is an internal conflict about who will write the next chapter in its story. It’s an alluring thought and I sense his passion about his own faith makes him believe that this is the case. The book does have its biases, but for anyone who wants a fairly balanced introduction to Islam I recommend this book.