"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's [etc]"-What's your interpretation of that story?

[ISiddiqui]

I think he was indicating that a sermon should be longer. Technically a “homily” is a commentary on a Biblical Text… but that doesn’t mean it has to be short.

[Measure_for_Measure]

From the TPM prime discussion (sub only):
Aslan on literalism:

@Reza Aslan

I have often said that there is no such thing as a true literalist. That even the most literalist literalist isn’t really a literalist. Everybody picks and chooses what they want to read as figurative or literal in the Bible depending on their own personal views. Then again that’s where the power of scripture comes from its ability to be infinitely malleable to mean whatever you wanted to mean. That’s why we still read these texts that were written thousands of years ago. That’s why they still matter.

Two TPM members had overlapping questions, so I’ll report them both, along with Professor Aslan’s answers:

@Memekiller

My question has to do with archaeology, though. You seem to take for granted that Jesus was a real human being. I guess I’m not real familiar with the evidence, but how do we know Jesus was a real man? Are there records of him made during his lifetime, or is it all of religious texts?

@mfm

Thanks for dropping by Professor Aslan.

In your view, did Jesus believe he was the Messiah? And, if so, did he also believe he was the Only Son of God in a literal, non-honorific sense?
Also, did Jesus really believe the world was about to end (as many of his recorded statements say or imply)?

My personal take is that these sorts of answers can’t be recovered from the primary source material. I have a rough understanding of Paul’s point of view and Christ is a knowable character. I’m not so sure about the historical Jesus.

@Reza Aslan

There are absolutely no historical records that were kept about Jesus during his life. Why would there be? This was a marginal illiterate peasant from the backwoods of Galilee. Before he was declared God no one cared who he was. But we do have some evidence that a person named Jesus of Nazareth actually existed. This evidence comes from a line in the historian Flavius Josephus. In a book called the antiquities Josephus mentions a man named James “the brother of Jesus the one they call Messiah.” Now obviously the phrase “the one they call Messiah” is meant to be dismissive. But this is an important text – it demonstrates that by 94 A.D. when Josephus was writing Jesus was already widely known as the leader of an enduring movement. Put simply we can be fairly certain that someone named Jesus of Nazareth actually existed. Everything else about him however is just educated guesses.
…
First of all it’s important to put Jesus’s statement in the Jewish context of his time. After all Jesus was a Jew not a Christian. Everything he said or did must be understood as influenced by Judaism. Therefore if he ever called himself Son of God he would’ve meant it like every other Jew in his time would have meant it as a title not a description. Many people are called son of God in the Bible non-more often than King David. The title is a tingly one. If Jesus did call himself son of God he meant he was king. Same holds for Messiah. If Jesus called himself messiah practically every Jew who heard those words would’ve understood that he meant he was the descendent of King David here to re-create David’s kingdom. Absolutely nobody would have thought he meant he was God.