Scott C. Davis

SCOTT D. DAVIS {[email protected]} is a graduate of Yale Divinity School (March 2011) and is now a Ph.D. student in the history of ancient Christianity at Yale University. Scott is from Logan, Utah, where he completed a B.A. in history at Utah State University. He published an earlier version of this essay on his blog Tea with Tumnus {http://njirving.blogspot.com}, February 14, 2011, and presented it at “Faith and Knowledge: Intellectual Prospects for Mormonism,” held at Duke University on February 12, 2011.

The Fabulous Jesus: A Heresy of Reconciliation

Articles/Essays – Volume 44, No. 3

Let me begin by stating that this is not an academic paper; there’s no bibliography. It is, rather, a personal reflection addressing the difficult questions of reconciling faith and the academy—many of which have already been raised today.

I hope that you are amused by the title of my talk. I hope that you are envisioning Jesus brunching by the Sea of Galilee, wearing bejeweled Armani sunglasses and a pashmina ascot, sipping mimosas and flamboyantly expounding the homosexual agenda with an Aramaic lisp. I also hope you are thoroughly baffled, maybe even a little offended—although this crowd seems shameless.