Posted on 05/19/2005 9:31:48 AM PDT by mlc9852
It always boggles me when feminists tout the gospel of Thomas as somehow feminist. I think Elaine Pagels amongst others do this, they seem to conveniently ignore that little verse.
I would guess that the DUers would say pitch the Bible, except for the gospels....minus the virgin birth, minus the miracles, minus Jesus' embarrassing statements about how he is the "way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father but through" him, and minus the resurrection.
Well before 1453, in 1204 to be exact, the Fourth Crusade replaced the Byzantine Empire with something called "The Latin Kingdom of Constantinople." For 87 years, there was no Byzantine Empire. (Or "Roman Empire," as the Greeks still styled it.) A native revolt in 1291 "restored" the Byzantine dynasty after a fashion, but this later edition remained weak to the end.Well, after 1204, the Byzantines formed the empires of Nicaea and Trebizond and the despotate of Epirus, preserving Byzantine culture. These nations quickly picked off portions of the Latin Kingdom. Finally, in 1261, Michael VIII Palaiologos of Nicaea reclaimed Constantinople and reformed the (now somewhat reduced) Byzantine Empire, which, as you said, was weak to the end.
But my larger point was that Constantinople was never Muslim before 1453, thus Mehmet was not "reclaiming" it.
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