Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A theologian, Hungarian Jew, Holocaust survivor, and first professor of Jewish studies at Oxford, known for disentangling early Christianity from its Jewish fou
On the island
Eight records
really corresponds to my discovery of real biblical scholarship, both Old Testament and New Testament, which consist in finding out what the real truth is lying beneath the surface of later elaboration.
memories of your childhood, Guesa Fermes, in Hungary, late twenties, early thirties, music that made you and your family feel good.
something there that expresses this feeling of being oppressed, of being without freedom, of being slaves, of be being continuously threatened.
reminds me the those years spent in churches and cathedrals and listening there to organ music.
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (Fourth Movement)
Budapest Symphony Orchestra conducted by György Lehel
it starts off with with a Hungarian folk tune and he produces all the variations o on this and it reaches, I believe, perfection.
St Matthew Passion (Recitative: 'Now from the sixth hour')
Robert Tear and John Shirley-Quirk
Last heart-rending cry of the men of faith who suddenly realizes that he has been abandoned by go.
Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47 'Kreutzer' (Second Movement)
Itzhak Perlman and Vladimir Ashkenazy
reminds us little songbirds competing with the with each other. And as we have the dawn chorus every day at home, I live at the edge of a seven hundred acre wood.
really for a nice sunny evening to relax and to enjoy oneself.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:56Who was Jesus?
Jesus said was a Galilean Jew. We can accept roughly the time of his birth, which happened just before the beginning of the Christian era, and we can agree also about the time of his death roughly around AD thirty.
Presenter asks
3:11Who did [Jesus] believe himself to be?
there is really clear evidence when you peel away the accretions. that he considered himself as someone commissioned by God to announce the imminent coming of the kingdom of God. persuade the the Jews of his time to repent and make themselves ready for entry, and lead them into this kingdom of God.
Presenter asks
6:26Why was [Jesus] crucified?
he was not just an itinerant preacher and healer. He was a magnetic preacher of the coming of the great moment in history. and made an enormous imp. on those are who listen. But that's, of course, why he was crucified, isn't it? Because he was so charismatic. … He was he had to die because he did the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which was the wrong thing was that he created disorder. by turning over the the the stalls and the the the tables of the merchants and money changers in the temple.
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Flavius Josephus
Flavius Josephus
the one book where I had difficulty with this, and at the end I decided to go for the complete works of Flavius Josephus
The luxury
A comfortable armchair and a desk
it is also something to do with a poem of my father's, at the end of which he advised me to pursue beauty. ... In a comfortable arm chair, smoking a good cigar. Well, I stopped smoking a long time ago, but I would have a comfortable arm chair and my desk.
Presenter asks
13:03Was [your family's conversion to Christianity] in order to protect yourselves from obviously increasing anti-Semitism?
I'm pretty sure that that it was a totally common phenomenon in Hungary in those days. A very large number of Jews, assimilated Jews, decided that to adopt one form of Christianity or another. … imagining that that would make life easier and I should I also think that my parents thought that they will make my life easy.
Presenter asks
13:45Can you recall why or how that calling [to become a priest] came to you?
Quite complicated issue because it was not simply a a problem of vocational otherwise, but what am I going to do once I finished my grammar schooling? and by that time it was quite impossible t to hope that I would be admitted. to university. and as I had an inquenchable thirst. for learning. Uh one of the possible routes where um A Theological College.
Presenter asks
16:27Do you feel guilt at your survival [of the Holocaust]?
In in one way where one always just wonders why on earth am I still here when most of the the others had perished. With hindsight, I would like to believe that this is because I had something t to do.
“Jesus the Jew had an electrifying effect and not just on theologians … when it first came out in nineteen seventy three, a lot of conventional Christians thought that it was shocking.”
“He was he had to die because he did the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I like to pray when I am alone, and I like to pray in the middle of the wood. Basically, this is the little small voice about which the the the the Old Testament prophets spoke.”