Letters to the Editor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
‘Immigration City’
I have consistently read your paper since it hit the streets of our great city. It has been wonderful reading the columns of good friends like John P. Avlon and Andrew Wolf. Most of the all, my views as a moderate New Yorker are reflected in your editorials and stories [“Immigration City,” Editorial, April 3, 2006].
Monday was a special day. I read your editorial on immigration, and it confirmed my view of the paper. I attended Saturday’s march on the Brooklyn Bridge to show that most people feel changes must be made in our immigration law, but with respect and reason.
Your editorial serves as a guidepost for our elected officials. Let our U.S. senators listen and learn.
NINFA SEGARRA
Manhattan
‘A Meditation for Lent’
Your Arts & Letters section contains two interesting book reviews: Bruce Chilton’s “What Jesus Meant” by Garry Wills and captioned “A Meditation for Lent,” plus Adam Kirsch’s “The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Tradition,” authored by Karen Armstrong and captioned “Seeking Guidance in Troubled Times.” These two captions are misleading [March 22, 2006].
Ms. Armstrong in “A History of God” explains how her belief in the God of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus “slipped quietly away.” So it is no wonder she has turned to the spirituality of classical India and China. And Mr. Wills is a proponent of a “peoples” Catholic Church like Sandinista-supporter Senator Kerry and his dissenting liberation-theology Catholic politicians in Congress.
They claim to represent “the voice” of Catholic Americans. So whose “voice” should people hear?
Michael Baiget who co-authored “Holy Blood Holy Grail” is suing author Dan Brown of the fictional “The Da Vinci Code” for plagiarism while currently promoting his new book claiming Jesus did not exist, and if he did, he survived being crucified. Perhaps Mr. Baiget read Hugh Schonfield’s speculative “The Passover Plot” on Jesus surviving, which opens him up to similar charges of plagiarism.
Mr. Schonfield at least is a truthseeker who describes vividly a Herodian political police state where the Galilean followers of Jesus view the Judean religious leaders of Jerusalem as being puppets of Roman authorities. Hence we see Gospel references to “the Jews,” which today is a pejorative term literally polluting Holy Week religious observances. A correct reading should be “the Judeans.”
To reflect on this mistranslation and its anti-Semitic implications would be a better Lenten meditation than the self-described “devotional book” by Mr. Wills. And Mr. Schonfield can offer better “guidance” to Christians and biblical scholars in ways Ms. Armstrong could never imagine.
ROBERT J. BONSIGNORE
Brooklyn
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