Rook Hawkins, co-founder and ancient texts expert of the Rational Response Squad, has been writing a lot of stuff lately that I wish I had the time to respond to.  Unfortunately, I have to take the time to pick and choose the projects that mean the most to me.  Rook has written two pieces, “Which Jesus: A Legend with Multiple Personality Disorder” and “On Paul and Identity” that are very long winded and I haven’t enough time on my hands to respond in full.

Fortunately, Frank Walton has responded to the second article as only Frank Walton can, complete with sarcasm and name calling, here.  I’ve said in the past that I don’t endorse the sarcasm and the name calling, and I hope that by linking to Walton’s piece that I don’t send the message that now I’m condoning such behavior.  I’m not.  But the points in Frank’s article really show that Rook has no idea what he’s talking about in regard to the apostle Paul.  I feel that it is important that these claims are answered, and Frank’s article does a good job of addressing Rook’s outrageous claims.

It’s interesting to note that Rook’s arguments in this “new” piece have been set forth already, which is why Frank’s response is from July of 2007.  Rook had created a series of four YouTube videos that allegedly “exposed” Paul as a proto-Gnostic and used the apostle’s letters to build the case that Jesus never existed.  This “new” article is a summary of those videos.

As for the “Which Jesus?”, I will respond to that later this week, hopefully by Friday.