Christianity in Pynchon, background

[Doug Millison]

....a perspective worth considering in any discussion of Pynchon's use of
Jesus, Christianity,  Gnosticism in his texts:



http://www.ntgateway.com/xtalk/crossan1.txt

>From John_Dominic_Crossan at info.harpercollins.comTue Feb 27 12:40:17 1996
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 15:16:08 -0500
From: John Dominic Crossan <John_Dominic_Crossan at info.harpercollins.com>
To: JESUS2000 at info.harpercollins.com
Subject: Jesus Debate: Week 1, Primary Message (Crossan)


THE NECESSITY OF HISTORICAL JESUS RESEARCH FOR CHRISTIAN FAITH
John Dominic Crossan
Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, DePaul University, Chicago


INTRODUCTION

        Luke Timothy Johnson's recent book The Real Jesus: The Misguided
Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels
(HarperCollinsSanFrancisco, 1996) and his article "The Search for (the
Wrong) Jesus" in Bible Review for December, 1995, raise a question of
profound importance for Christian faith and theology. What is the
relationship between the historical Jesus and Christian faith? This posting
summarizes a longer reply to appear in Bible Review for April, 1996.
Basically, and in summary, to his words "misguided" and "wrong" I oppose my
word "necessary."
        Our disagreement is actually the contemporary restatement of a
very, very ancient debate, one as old as Christianity itself, the fight
between Catholic or Universal or Incarnational Christianity and Docetic or
Gnostic or Spiritual Christianity. Do not confuse that ancient term
Catholic with the contemporary term Roman Catholic.
Catholic/Universal/Incarnational Christianity believed that the material
universe was created by the one and only good God and was radically good.
The human body was therefore profoundly good. And Jesus was utterly, fully,
and totally human just as we are, and that to confess his divinity could in
no way diminish his true humanity. Docetic/Gnostic/Spiritual Christianity
distinguishes between the Good God of pure spirit and the Evil God or
Godling who created the material universe which, so created, was therefore
radically evil. We humans were good spirit trapped in evil matter. Jesus'
body could only be a docetic, apparent, or seeming one (dokein is to seem
in Greek), and that to confess his true humanity was to render his divinity
absurd. There were, of course, all sorts of divisions within those two
groups and other groups besides them in the rich plurality of earliest
Christianity, but, for my present purpose, that somewhat over-simplified
divergence can stand. My counter-proposal to Luke is that historical Jesus
research is theologically necessary for Christianity or, at least, for
Catholic as distinct from Gnostic Christianity. [...]


from:

http://www.ntgateway.com/xtalk/debate.html
Jesus at 2000 E-mail Debate
During the Lenten season of 1996, Harper San Francisco publishing company
sponsored an e-mail debate which explored the significance of the
historical Jesus for Christian faith. The seven-week debate took place
between John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, both members of the Jesus
Seminar, and Luke Timothy Johnson, the Seminar's foremost critic. Here are
the messages from this contentious and intense debate. Each week except for
the last consisted of a main message from one of the participants and
replies from the other two.