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The Doctrine of Addai and the Letters of Jesus and Abgar

Product Description

November 1, 2023

$ 23.00 USD

This collection of essays by Robert Funk delves into the contributions of notable artists and intellectuals, including Kafka, Beckett, Henry Miller, Castaneda, Fowles, and Thoreau, to illuminate the true successors of Jesus. In the section titled 'Voices of Silence,' Funk examines the interplay between language and contemporary reality. He ultimately addresses the pivotal theological question of whether individuals can identify a genuine world to which they can fully commit, offering twenty-one propositions on theology in response.

The Doctrine of Addai tells the story of how Christianity came to the Syrian city of Edessa. It incorporates and adapts a correspondence between Jesus and the Syrian king Abgar, who wrote to Jesus requesting healing from a long-term illness. In his response, Jesus promises to send him an apostle, Addai (sometimes called Thaddaeus), who will heal Abgar's disease and establish Christianity in his kingdom. The exchange between Jesus and Abgar and Edessa's subsequent evangelization by Addai functions as a founding myth for Christianity in the region, which likely did become Christian under a later King Abgar in the early third century.