David Green

David Green (Books) is the imprint under which I publish booklets of my own poems, or did. The 'Collected Poems' are now available as a pdf. The website is now what it has become. It keeps me out of more trouble than it gets me into. I hope you find at least some of it worthwhile.

Monday 1 April 2019

Jesus and Mother's Day

In a late career move, I may move on to commentatary on ecclesiastical matters.

Last year The Tablet declined the opportunity to publish my response to an article of theirs on Philip Larkin but The Times was more amenable today.

They helpfully did some editing to accomodate my effort into the 'house style' but it wasn't me that repeated the word 'claim'.

What I wrote was,



Sir,

Monica Ditmas stitches together some sketchy evidence to make her claim that Jesus would have ‘participated enthusiastically’ in Mother’s Day (Credo, March 30).

A.N. Wilson’s version of Jesus Christ’s childhood and character suggest something very different in his book, Jesus, which says that,
He is always, in the Gospels, very rude to and about his mother.

The reply given when the 12 year old Jesus goes missing in Jerusalem and is found in the temple is from an account written a few decades after the event and could be interpreted as facetious. It is a big jump to accept it as verbatim as well interpret them as the words of a loving son.

This highly selective use of evidence is also used by the likes of those who prefer Shakespeare to be have been happily married at home in Stratford as he is seen in Upstart Crow but he worked in London while his wife, who has always been known by her maiden name, is not recorded as having ever accompanied him there. There is little to support the case for an uxorious Shakespeare but admirers prefer to idealize him.

The arguments presented on both sides of the continuing debate regarding membership of the EU are similarly partial.

The only thing we can establish from any of these issues, some of which have more solid evidence to work on than others, is that we believe what we want to believe.

Faithfully,
David Green