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"Jesus of Nazareth" by By Pope Benedict XVI (2007)

The british newspaper "The Economist" published an intriguing review of this book, written by "the Catholics' ultimate boss, Pope Benedict". The content of the book is reviewed in relation to recent events, such as "the outrage of muslims over the knighthood that Queen Elizabeth is to confer on the “blasphemous” author Salman Rushdie", and recent fallout over the Popes qouting of an emperor who described the Islam as irrational and violent (just for the record: the actions of neither the inquistion nor the conquerer are regarded - retrospectively of course - as overly rational and peaceful).

The starting point of the review is a musical performance, which intoned (in Arabic) "the 99 names of God, taken from the Koran".

" […] The pope's elegantly, almost tenderly written essay on the founder of his faith is less obviously polemical in tone than his lecture in Germany last September. This outraged Muslim opinion by quoting a Byzantine emperor who had called Islam irrational and violent (the pope later apologised for the offence his remarks had caused but stopped short of withdrawing them). Yet his book remains uncompromising in its insistence on the divinity of Jesus Christ, and hence in its rejection of arguments to the contrary put forward by liberal Christians, or indeed by Muslims and Jews.

Pope Benedict takes issue with a powerful body of conventional wisdom among revisionist scholars of the New Testament. This school starts by making an undeniable point: the contrast in tone between the “synoptic” gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke—which emphasise the story of Jesus's life as a teacher and healer—and the mystical language of John's gospel (as well as many of the Pauline epistles) which meditate on the divinity of Christ rather than the particular things he did or said. Some modern readings of the New Testament go on to argue that “the historical Jesus” of the first three gospels is not really portrayed as divine at all; and that the divinity of Christ, which is so emphasised by John and Paul, represents a later doctrine that was artificially bolted on to the basic story of Jesus's life.

The pope will have none of this. He insists that the divinity of Christ is very much present in the first three gospels, and that the gospel of John, for all its mysticism, does contain a reliable first-hand historical account of the life of Jesus. In making the first half of this case, he finds himself going head to head—with perfect courtesy, it should be said—with some Jewish critiques of the New Testament.

Whatever Jesus was, the pope argues, he was not simply a free-thinking rabbi who told people to lighten up and ignore the finer points of the Mosaic law. On the contrary, he saw the law of Moses as God-given and supremely important—and it was only because of his own divinity that he had the right to reinterpret that law. In other words, the teachings of Jesus and his divinity are inseparable. That means there is no avoiding a hard argument with those who deny his divinity: either he was the Son of God, and entitled to remake God's law, or he was an impostor.

What emerges from the pope's style of argument is a profound distrust of liberalism and watering-down of any kind. He has no time for the suggestion that Jesus was merely a good human being who offered an interesting new interpretation of Jewish teaching that had become excessively rigid or chauvinist. He respects tough-minded Jews, who do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, more than woolly conciliators from any side. […]"

[ June 30th 2007, The Economist, Religion: » An author and his subject]

Charlemagne: God meets the lawyers

"TWENTY-FIVE European foreign ministers sat around the table in Naples last weekend. But an unseen presence hovered in the room: God. A spot of divine inspiration is always handy when ministers start arguing about the draft constitution for the European Union, but this time it was God Himself who was the topic of debate. For one of the most controversial issues is whether to include an explicit reference to Christianity in the statement of values that serves as a preamble to the constitution."

"[…] Arguments about religion and fundamental values do not sound like the sort of thing that can be settled by clever legal drafting. But—this is the EU—a compromise is already in the works. The Italians, who are chairing the constitutional negotiations, suggest that the final text might refer both to Christianity and to the secular nature of the modern European state."

"[…] How neat. And how uninspiring. For beyond the argument about Christianity, European leaders should really be debating whether their constitution needs a preamble at all. Mr Giscard d'Estaing's original plan was to come up with something as inspiring and memorable as the preamble of the American constitution, which reads: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

"[…] Unfortunately, where the Founding Fathers came up with a single, stirring sentence, the Giscard preamble rambles on for six paragraphs. Like an over-ambitious student essay it starts with a quotation from Thucydides (in the original Greek): “Our constitution...is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority, but of the greatest number.” The preamble continues with some utterly forgettable sentiments about civilisation, culture, prosperity and other excellent ideas, and ends with a vote of thanks to none other than Mr Giscard d'Estaing and his colleagues. That the EU emerged above all as a reaction to two world wars is only tacitly acknowledged in a sideways reference to the determination of Europeans to “transcend their ancient divisions”.

A British diplomat struggling to summarise the significance of the preamble writes that it is 'pompous and pretentious, but at first view not actively dangerous.' Few other readers seem able to muster more enthusiasm. Mr Giscard d'Estaing has suggested hopefully that future generations of European schoolchildren might learn the preamble by heart. But this would seem to be in contradiction of Article II-4 of the constitution's Charter of Fundamental Rights, which states clearly that 'no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.'

The best suggestion in Naples came from the Finnish delegation. They proposed putting the entire preamble in the bin. Come to think of it, haven't a few atavistic curmudgeons suggested doing just that with the whole constitution?" [Dec 4th 2003, The Economist]

The 99 Names of Allah

Although called "names", they are actually more attributes. One hadith of Muhammad is often cited:
"Verily, there are ninety-nine names of God, one hundred minus one. He who enumerates [and believes in them and the one god behind] them would get into Paradise." [Sahih Muslim, Vol. 4, no. 1410]

Some Muslims use a rosary (Tasbih), in order to recite the 99 names. The use of the rosary was at the time of Mohammed not yet well-known. The rosary consists mostly of 33 beads (in 3 passages one pulls 99 beads) or 99 beads, according to the 99 invocation (name, designation, characteristic, attribute) of God. From Islamic view, the hundredth name of God is unpronounceable and unknown to humans. The first two names are used in the well-known formula Bismi llahi r-rahmani r-rahim ("In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful"), which constitutes the first verse of every in 113 of the 114 sura.

There is no "one" list of the 99 names: in the Qur'an is for example "The Lord of Infinite Grace" mentioned, but it is not part of the traditional list of the 99 names of God.