Stephen Sorensen

“Self-deception is cured by the gospel...”
― Dan O. Via, Self-Deception and Wholeness in Paul and Matthew

“It is not only heretical Christians who interpret Jesus' crucifixion as divine deception.”
― Austin Busch, Risen Indeed? Resurrection and Doubt in the Gospel of Mark

“Odysseus’ success depends as much on making people believe what is not true as on surprising them with the truth.”
― Sheila Murnaghan, Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey

“For trickster saves the world. The paradoxical trickster-creating order through chaos, the underdog that overcomes, the liminal role, and all the dangers associated with it, personified Israel. So in Exile when the canon is beginning to form, the Israelites tell of their ancestors as tricksters. For the trickster represents not only the threat of a marginalized existence, or the danger of the liminal status, but also the salvific role in which Israel still paradoxically believed it functioned.”
― Dean Andrew Nicholas, The Trickster Revisited: Deception as a Motif in the Pentateuch