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).
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
