Incoherent rambling is not completely unheard of on this blog. So I was prepared to give Eagleton some benefit of the doubt on his ramble about whether Jesus was “Messiah or
Bolshevik”, on the Guardian’s Comment is Free. However, this turns out to be an “edited excerpt from Terry Eagleton’s introduction to The Gospels” so I’m treating it as fair game.

Eagleton’s answer to the patently absurd question is summarised in the tag line as

The Christ of the Gospels is indeed a revolutionary – but of a millenarian, rather than a political, stripe

Wikipedia get a bad press in universities – quoting it will supposedly get you a fail mark – but I’d definitely say that, on the basis of Wikipedia’s definitions of these terms, the answer is clearly “No Jesus wasn’t a Bolshevik. As to whether he qualifies as a Messiah, that depends which definition you are using. Maybe he was indeed anointed with oil.

The Messiah disambiguation page offers

Messiah can refer to:
* Messiah, a religious concept
o Jewish Messiah claimants
o List of messiah claimants
o Alternately Christ (Greek translation of the term)
* Messiah College, a Christian liberal arts college in Grantham, PA
* Lionel Messi, Messiah is nickname of famous Argentinian football player

Well, OK, he qualifies on “the Greek word for Christ” bit. Unless you were wondering if he was an Argentinian football player*, in which case the answer is “No. Well, no more likely than that he was a Bolshevik”

Well, ask a silly question, get a silly answer, indeed. Eagleton does indeed conclude that Jesus wasn’t a bolshevik. Wow, the man’s an intellectual giant!

Must run right out and read these fascinating gospels of which he speaks…..

* Disambiguation (is that really a word?) football= soccer 🙂 This Messiah appears to have been born in place called Rosario, which translates as Rosary. So, maybe, he is the REAL Messiah.