April Books

Wow, these months do fly on by, huh?  One third of 2011 is nearly over!  Hope it's going well for you!   Here are the books I finished this month.




Islam Today by Akbar S. Ahmed -- a "short introduction to the Muslim world." I was especially interested in the talk of the Central Asian Muslim countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union because I didn't know much about them.  The author tended to focus more on Asian Muslims rather than Arabs. That was a change so I Iearned a bit from that perspective which was good.  see previous posts about this book (they are in March)



Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives In North Korea by Barbara Demick -- The author told the story of northern North Korea - a city called Chongjin - through the tales of defectors she met while living in Seoul.  I heard about this book from Bridget's blog and when I found it at my library, I checked it out.  It's so interesting and sad. Several times I had tears in my eyes as I thought of the difficult lives of these people.  The author described party faithful and those who were questioning of the regime, but dared not say anything for fear of neighbors who would report them.  The lies told about how poor the capitalists were and how privileged the North Koreans were by comparison were heartbreaking especially when people finally realized the truth.  So many people starved to death.  Ugh.  The author also told how hard it was for many North Koreans to start over in China or South Korea. After having the government tell them what to do and basically make every decision for them and provide everything, they didn't know what to do with the array of choices available in South Korea.  Due to lack of nutrition, North Koreans average about five inches below their southern counterparts in height.  Also the north has kept more of the traditional culture than the south.  South Koreans worry about the reunification because of the problems of having millions of extremely poor people in their country. Also imagine a group of people who don't know much about how to use ATMs, internet, cell phones and so forth. They've been literally kept in the dark. Great book. And the title is from a North Korean song in case you were wondering.



Motoring with Mohammed by Eric Hansen -- This library book published twenty years ago tells of the author's adventures first getting shipwrecked in the Red Sea, his rescue, burying his travel notebooks and later - a decade later - his return to Yemen with hopes of locating these.  I enjoyed the tales from his weeks living amongst the Yemenis and meeting Westerners who lived there.


The Gifts of the Jews by Thomas Cahill -- "How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels"  -- see previous post


Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos by Emily Wu and Larry Englemann -- This book describes the early life and teen years of Emily as she grew up during the Cultural Revolution as a daughter in a "black" family - one where her father was considered "ultra-rightest" due to his intellectual and American ties (he was a professor and had been university educated in Chicago.)  I really enjoyed this book though it was not uplifting and sweet and cuddly at all. Still the determination and hard work and the strength of some people is admirable.  I was glad to see glimmers of compassion and community in certain characters.  Emily was interviewed for a documentary described here.  Wow, I just saw where one of the relocated youth teaches at Duke University which is about a half hour from my house!  Here he is now.  Oh,oops!  It seems he died last Christmas at age 59 and his memorial service at Duke was held just yesterday! Freaky coincidence since I'm just learning about him today (April 9).  Here's the notice.   Sad!




Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill -- see previous post; this book talks about how the Greeks contributed to our western culture



Historic India by Lucille Schulberg.  -- see previous posts


Himalayan Passage by Jeremy Schmidt -- a traveler's tale of his seven month journey with his wife and friends through the high country of Tibet, Nepal, China, Indian and Pakistan. I enjoyed the tales of people they met, sights they saw and experiences with officials, locals, dogs and so forth. Got this at my local library.


North Korea by The Voice of the Martyrs with Todd Nettleton -- a brief book with a bit about the situation of Christians past and present in this country



The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization by Richard W. Bulliet -- This Columbia University professor discusses how Islam and the West are like siblings and how very similar their paths have been. He discusses democracy and fundamentalism within the world.   The book consisted of four rather lengthy chapters and number three was my favorite.  It was especially interesting to read this in light of what has happened this year in many Arab countries.



Why Do You Kill?  by Jurgen Todenhofer was recommended to me by a Moroccan Facebook friend. I read much of this book with Samer (I read it to him) and finished it on my own.  It gives the story of the Iraqi resistance. I thought one mother's summary was good. "Can you not make your American friends understand that they have to stop presenting our children with this horrible alternative -- either to stand by and watch their families being slaughtered or kill someone themselves? Tell them to end this war, which is killing both their young soldiers and our sons - for no reason at all."  (pg. 138)  It really helped me see the Iraqi perspective as so many people have been affected by what the United States has done over there. 



The Jesus You Can't Ignore by John MacArthur -- This is one of my brother's books that he gave me to read. The theme is that Jesus thought so much of Truth that he didn't always be nice and tolerable to people who were distorting it. The author showed several confrontations Jesus had with Pharisees and false teachers and how he stood up for the Truth.; also see previous post

"Truth was his only weapon. He did not assault the false teachers in Corinth the same way they had attacked him - with innuendo, distortions of his teaching, purely personal insults, and webs of deceit.  He answered their deception with truth."  (pg. xxxii)



A Deadly Misunderstanding by Mark Siljander -- a great book about a former Republican Congressman from Michigan as he changes his views about Islam once he meets Muslims and starts listening to them; saw this mentioned first by an Arab Christian friend on Facebook, Nabeel Jabbour, and got it for Christmas off my Amazon Wishlist.



What have you read lately that has most interested you?  :)

Reading's Influence on Community and Vision

This book is part of a series about the development of our Western culture.  I've kind of read them out of order since I've yet to read How the Irish Saved Civilization (the introductory volume) yet read the book about Jesus and Christianity last year (it's third in the series and you can see my numerous posts on it by scrolling this link which is a search using the author's name).  My previous post touching on The Gifts of the Jews is second in the series, and this blurb is from book four Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill.


"Many cultural commentators have theorized that oral society -- that is, society in which writing is unknown -- is far more communal and visionary than society in which human thought is objectified by writing and that written language encourages the reader in his separateness to individualism (uncommunity) and by its sequential format to sequential, rational analysis (unvision). Though there is probably much truth to such theories, it may also be true that the type of literacy a given society enshrines may work great wonders than the fact of literacy itself.  A type of literacy that can be grasped easily by almost anyone will tend to spread some kind of proto-democratic consciousness far and wide, even if this is accomplished only in small steps over a very long period of time. ... A type of literacy that demystifies the act of reading, erasing for all time the aura of an unapproachable Sacred Brotherhood of scribes, wisemen, and potentates, will by its very nature tend to demystify additional realms of human experience."  (pg. 60)



I guess this struck me as worth sharing because of all the talk of the old Jewish and Arabian societies being oral in nature. I remember a post I did not long ago about the Quran being repeated over and over and basically perfected by Muhammad as he taught it to his followers before it was finally written in the version we have today (thanks also to Uthman who had the first Quran burning for copies of the Quran that were not the Authorized Version.  Yes, I know I'm being silly calling it the AV which is usually attributed to the King James Version of the Bible, but I'm in that kind of mood.)

So about oral societies vs. literate ones.  Do you think it's true that we readers are more individualistic and rational thus not prone so much to community ties and being visionary which I suppose means - what? dreamers?   Actually what do you think the author means by this vision vs. "unvision"? Is this why we don't have angels talking to us and bringing us fresh revelation from God?

I can see that when I read, I am being individualistic in that I am not interacting with anyone until I decide to do this -- share on my blog and ask you to discuss what I read!  So maybe blogging is getting back to community somewhat.  And for sure if you have an oral tradition of stories, it would promote interaction. It's like the entertainment of the day - hearing the stories, the family history, the battles, the struggles to survive, the victories!  Nowadays we have television.

Also what do you think about reading being demystified and this leading to more democratic movements?

Any other thoughts or observations?  Please share!

Did Western Individualism Come from the Jews?

The Gifts of the Jews by Thomas Cahill -- "How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels"

I got this book (along with four others) yesterday when I went to return the 8 books I checked out last time. I had plans to finish the books I have here waiting at home which I received for Christmas and Valentine's, but my "let's just see what they have on the new book shelf" turned into my browsing the other shelves and I came home with books about a journey through the Himalayan passage as told by some adventurous Westerners, ancient India, Jews, Greeks and a Chinese woman.  So I started this one yesterday - The Gifts of the Jews - and finished it today while getting sunburned on my arms as I sat outside enjoying the glorious warmth.   I jotted down page numbers of things that interested me and here is a bit of that.  I may write about more later. 


First a quote the author used on a page when he was trying to make sense of God.  And found he couldn't.

"We are talking about God. Which wonder do you think you understand? If you understand, it is not God." - Augustine of Hippo  (pg. 159)

Then this which makes me think the notion that man has a sin nature was known well before Christianity popularized it.


"Man behaves badly." -- Utnaphishtim

"Never has a sinless child been born." -- Sumerian proverb  (pg. 61)


A Lesson from Exile....


 ²⁷ “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of people and of animals. ²⁸ Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the LORD. ²⁹ “In those days people will no longer say,
   ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
   and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
 ³⁰ Instead, everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge. (Jeremiah 31)


No longer will God visit the sins of the fathers onto the next generations.  Each person is responsible for his own sins.  Individualism -- a difficult concept in a "world of groups, tribes, and nations, in which all identity and validation comes only from solidarity with a larger entity."  (pg. 230)


"Democracy...grows directly out of the Israelite vision of individuals, subjects of value because they are images of God, each with a unique and personal destiny. There is no way that it could ever have been 'self-evident that all men are created equal' without the intervention of the Jews."  (pg. 249)


So, see, there is a bit of the gifts the Jews gave us.  Rather, God gave us all through the Jews.  I wonder if this is what God meant when He said the Jews would be a light unto all nations.

I found this rather interesting because I'd been wondering - and asking Amber - where our western sense of individualism came from...tada!  The Bible!

Or did it?




What do you think?

Happy Halloween & October Books

Andrew and Walker, our neighbor

Desire of the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill -- see previous posts

Grace at Low Tide by Beth Webb Hart -- Fifteen year old DeVeaux struggles with life on Edisto Island after her father declares bankruptcy and the family is forced to move from Charleston to a new life.  The biggest struggle isn't their going from the rich house to the poor, but the fact that her father has become a jerk and mistreats people as he works through his issues.  Good reminder of the hope we have with God. I got this book from Cindy.

 
Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time by Karen Armstrong -- see previous posts

Home Another Way by Christa Parrish -- from the back cover:  "Sarah Graham is living life hard and fast -- and she is flat broke.  When her estranged father dies, she travels to the tiny mountain hamlet of Jonah, New York, to claim her inheritance. Once there, however, she learns that her plans for the future - and her memories of the past - are about to change forever."  -- I enjoyed this book as Sarah interacts with mountain folks who seem to know all about her, yet mostly embrace her as part of their community.  It's good to see how her brash personality plays out amongst these people.  I got this book from Cindy.

By Reason of Insanity by Randy Singer -- from the back cover: "Following a series of murders in Virginia Beach, newspaper reporter Catherine O'Rourke experiences disturbing dreams that detail each crime.  To aid the investigation, she shares them with a detective working the case.  But her plan backfires when she's arrested as the main suspect."  Catherine turns to a Las Vegas lawyer Quinn who specializes in insanity defenses.  Another book I borrowed from Cindy.


Matthew's Story: The Jesus Chronicles by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins -- This novel is fictional in that we don't know about Matthew's early years except that the Bible speaks of him as a tax collector.  The authors have taken us from the time 8 year old Levi saw his baby brother murdered as Herod sought to destroy any potential rival to the throne.  Levi grew up believing in God, but hated the God who would allow such hurt into his family.  Instead of becoming a priest as his parents desired of him, he vowed to become a tax collector in order to secure himself in riches instead of God.  But Levi's life takes a dramatic turn when this Jesus guy comes through town. Eventually Levi becomes Matthew "gift from God" and allows Jesus to soften his heart and bring him back to the God Matthew vowed to hate.

Mark's Story: The Jesus Chronicles by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins -- speculating about John Mark and how he came to write one of the Gospels of Jesus Christ


Noah's Other Son by Brian Arthur Brown -- see previous posts

"Mark gives the essence of the teachings of Jesus, implying that if we get that, the more esoteric doctrines of his birth and resurrection may be seen as presentations of messianic credentials.  That is a subject for believers, once they have accepted his teaching. Matthew focuses on the 4 Jewish Diaspora from east to west and develops the messianic claim within Hebrew 'proof texts,' quoting prophecies and tracing the lineage only within the family of Abraham. Luke presents a gospel to the non-Jewish world, not quoting Scriptures that would be unfamiliar, but eyewitnesses who could then still be verified.  His genealogy relates Jesus to the whole human family, beginning with Adam."  (pg. 182)

"Unless the loving, healing, and redemptive relationship with God is secured through an encounter with God in worship (a burning bush experience, whether spontaneous or planned), the social action of the Christian Church is at risk of becoming a temporary feel-good exercise with constantly diminishing resources and impact. This has been precisely the experience of mainline Protestant Churches in North America and the state churches of Europe, in spite of sincere and heroic efforts to be relevant." (pg. 180)


What Paul Meant by Garry Wills -- see previous posts

Cultural Wars, Depicting the Crucifixion, Suffering

This is the last of my notes from Thomas Cahill's book.  Now I'm working on notes from Muhammad:  A Prophet for Our Time by Karen Armstrong.

"Paul and his fellow Christians were already fighting a war on three cultural-political fronts: against Jews who accused them of the capital crime of blasphemy, against Greeks who found the Jewish notion of physical resurrection hilarious, and against Romans who were eager to round up 'troublemakers,' especially ones who prayed to a 'god' that the Romans themselves had executed. In their monotheism, Christians were accused of atheism, in their Messianism, of heresy. In their communism, they appeared an obvious threat to the economics of class; in their joyous inner freedom and their comprehension of the essential equality of all human beings before God, they stood an outrageous challenge to the whole socio-political order of the Roman empire."  (pg. 232)


"Paul called his converts 'the brothers and sisters loved by God,' and Peter, in a vision, came to the conclusion that 'God has no favorites.' The Jesus Movement became a movement for the universalization of Judaism, making Jewish ideas and even the Jewish social context available and applicable to all humanity.  We should not, however, see Jesus as the beginning of this development, any more than we see Moses, rather than Abraham, as the beginning of monotheism. Jesus, like Moses, took advantage of a living tradition that was astoundingly rich in possibilities. Long before Jesus, the classical prophets had already looked forward to the outpouring of God's 'Spirit on all humanity,' an incredible outpouring from which no one -- not even the 'women' and the 'slaves' of Peter's quotation from Joel -- would be excluded. And we cannot be surprised that women and slaves, far more than any other categories of society, swelled the ranks of a movement that assured them that, however insignificant their places in society, in the eyes of God and his Assembly they were the equals of anyone."  (pg. 239)

By helping the poor and afflicted, they were helping Christ, and it was not a duty, but a privilege.  (see Matthew 25)

The author states that almost from the beginning of Christianity there were "pictures that form a distinctively Christian message," however "so intense was the suffering of Jesus before and during his crucifixion that the early Christians could not bring themselves to depict it."  He states that it wasn't until the fifth century - when "Augustine of Hippo lies dying, the barbarian hordes are overrunning the empire, and Patrick is in Gaul making his fateful travel plans to evangelize the Irish...on the verge of the Middle Ages" - before Christians finally depicted the crucifixion and even then it did not take a central place in their churches. 

Only when four hundred years had passed since Christ's crucifixion and one hundred years since Rome "discontinued the practice of crucifixion and no one living had witnessed such a procedure, did Christians forget the shame and horror of the event sufficiently to begin making pictures of it.  [By this time] many of the gruesome details of actual crucifixion had been forgotten" and Jesus didn't look like a man in agony hanging there.  (pg. 285-288)

"We do not have to adopt a theology of substitution - the theory that God required a spotless human victim to make up for human sin - to make sense of the crucifixion.  Such a theory, it seems to me, is a remnant of prehistoric paganism and its beliefs in cruel divinities who demanded blood sacrifice.  But Jesus's suffering body is surely his ultimate gift, for it is his final act of sympathy with us.  From all ages, human suffering has been the stumbling block that no life can avoid and that no philosophy has been able to comprehend.  In the Hebrew Bible's Book of Job, God refuses to explain why good people must suffer. In the New Testament, he still does not explain, but he gives us a new story that contains the first glimmer of encouragement, the only hint of an explanation, that heaven has ever designed to offer earth: 'I will suffer with you.'  The flesh of Jesus is the bread of the poor, the sick, the miserable, the dispossessed -- their nourishment.  'For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow into our lives, so does the encouragement we receive through Christ,' Paul tells the Corinthians.  Whatever pain we suffer, he has suffered. However acute our suffering, he too has borne the whips, the thorns, the nails, the lance, the cross.'"  (pg. 293-294)


"Jesus insists on forgiveness, turning the other cheek, peace, and compassion, always compassion -- and which of us wants to hear that?  The leaders of the Jewish religious establishment rejected Jesus in his own lifetime, not principally because he rejected the Torah of Moses or because he claimed to be God, but because of his midrash, his interpretation of God's word. He insisted that all of Jewish sacred scripture -- the Torah and the Prophets  -- was asking them to live in a way that they considered unrealistic.  Any Christian who imagines himself morally superior to those who turned away has only to glance at the subsequent history of Christian persecution of Jews to realize that Christians have been far more successful at rejecting Jesus than any Jew has ever been."  (pg. 318)


all quotes from Desire of the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill

John's Jesus -- Making Jesus God, Jews as Enemies, 'Rigid' Church People

Bear with me while I finish posting my notes from Desire of the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill. Only one more post after this one. 

The author points out that most Jews seemed to be expecting only one Messiah, however the term "Son of God" was often used of both angels and prophets, "indeed of anyone who could be considered God's mouthpiece."  "Son of God" and "Savior" also were used within the Roman world for "whichever Caesar happened to be occupying the imperial throne."  (pg. 255)

The question then becomes is Jesus the unique "son of God" or as some English versions of the Bible put it "the only begotten son" which I've read in the past was the King James-era method of declaring someone as a unique person not necessary begotten of a person in a human birth way.  Oh, I found this which explains it a bit more clearly perhaps.

The phrase "only begotten" translates the Greek word monogenes. This word is variously translated into English as "only," "one and only," and "only begotten." ...

So what does monogenes mean? According to the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BAGD, 3rd Edition), monogenes has two primary definitions. The first definition is "pertaining to being the only one of its kind within a specific relationship." This is the meaning attached to its use in Hebrews 11:17 when the writer refers to Isaac as Abraham's "only begotten son." Abraham had more than one son, but Isaac was the only son he had by Sarah and the only son of the covenant.

The second definition is "pertaining to being the only one of its kind or class, unique in kind." This is the meaning that is implied in John 3:16. In fact, John is the only New Testament writer who uses this word in reference to Jesus (see John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9). John was primarily concerned with demonstrating that Jesus was the Son of God (John 20:31), and he uses this word to highlight Jesus as uniquely God's Son—sharing the same divine nature as God—as opposed to believers who are God's sons and daughters through faith.      (Source)

While the author makes concession in the book's end notes that there is a case for Paul making Jesus God, the author's view is the opposite.  He said neither Paul nor Mark, Luke nor Matthew thought of Jesus as God. But the writer of the fourth gospel - credited to John - did.  (pg. 257)

Do you agree that John was the only one? 

About the Gospel of John the author writes, "the delightful parables of the Synoptics are nowhere to be found, replaced by dignified but boring speeches that sometimes run to several pages" and "overwhelm us with airless solemnity that leaves us begging for the sinewy, down-to-earth Jesus of the Synoptics.  John's Jesus is always in control." (pg. 271-272)

Bah!  I take it this author likes action better than words!  Perhaps he should be in movies instead of writing books! :-)

It is John's Jesus of "the ancient creeds, of tasteless religious art, of German passion plays and Hollywood movies.  He is the immobile icon loved by ecclesiasts and theologians. It is if John's symbolic reverence has made an icon too awesome to be touched by the soiled and unconsecrated hands of ordinary humans....The weight of human and fleshly, the sweaty and smudged is finally overcome in John by the weightless illumination of the divine."  (pg. 272)

The author states that this process of icon-making is what later lead Mary from being a simple Galilean woman to rising to Mother of God, perpetual virgin status of the Church.


"Many who are comfortable with the Synoptic tradition and even with Paul feel that here at the threshold of John's Gospel they must part company with the New Testament. They may be believers or half-believers, Jews, humanitarians, agnostics -- all of whom may cheer the insights and advances of Paul and the Synoptic evangelists but find themselves abashed and compassless once they come into the field of John's unearthly glow.  The author continues that it's not the deification of the God-man that makes them uncomfortable, but "a spirit of touchy exclusivity" that repeatedly surfaces throughout Western history with "devastating results."  For in John, the author claims, the Jews are often enemies, often "designated with contempt, the lost people who 'have no king but Caesar.'"  This gospel "is still capable of leaving Jewish readers purple with rage and Christians red with embarrassment."  (pg. 273-275)

For about two minutes I wondered if something was wrong with me for never being one of those Christians who found John's gospels embarrassing, but as I kept reading I found out why. 

Cahill points out that the Johannine church developed separately almost like an island cut off from the mainland (which - the "mainland" - grew slowly into "the Great Church of succeeding centuries.")  John's church didn't rely on a central administration of bishops and deacons, but "was wholly dependent on individual, prophetic inspiration - from 'the Spirit' -- and it rejected the notion that anyone but Jesus could be pastor, that is, their shepherd. ... For all its problems, the high Christology of the Johannine community gave its theology a profundity and piercing clarity that other churches lacked; and its Spirit-based social ambience encouraged equal participation by all, especially women, in its common enterprises of charity and prayer."  (pg. 276-277)


"Its insistence on there being but one way of thinking makes uneasy anyone who has ever had an unorthodox thought. It comes as no surprise that John is often the favorite evangelist of the uptight and unrelenting; and his rigidity can call to mind contemporary churchpeople of several unfortunate varieties.  The difficulties of John's Gospel are extreme enough that to this day Christian churches use its passages sparingly in their lectionaries, whereas the other gospels are proclaimed in full."  (pg. 277)

Am I one of those "unfortunate varieties" of church people because I happen to like John?  Maybe.  I am a bit rigid about certain doctrines!  I feel there are some matters too important to be wishy-washy about.   While many I know like John's gospel (not sure if he is their favorite evangelist since we all have different tastes), I must tell you that they don't seem to hate Jews or blame them for crucifying Christ.  I read a book a couple years ago by a Jewish American guy who appealed to his fellow Jews to understand that - although liberal Jews and conservative Christians may not agree on politics in the United States - we conservative Christians were great friends of the Jews in many matters.  He explained that while European Christians of the past were often anti-Jew and blamed Jews for killing Jesus, North Americans were strongly influenced by London-born John Nelson Darby who was very pro-Jewish. Darby made missionary voyages to North America in the 1800s and his beliefs became more popular here.  Therefore, instead of us seeing Jews as Christ killers, we see Jews as the ones who brought us Christ and the Bible we hold dear.  Our Savior was a Jew!  "Our" Paul! "Our" Isaiah!  "Our" David!" How can we hate the Jews?  In fact I grew up hearing that the Jews didn't kill Jesus. In reality, we all did if we believe he died for our sins for all of us are sinners.  I think this is why many of us were puzzled when Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ came out and Jews were fearful that we would blame them for killing Jesus. Huh? That thought never crossed my mind!

So although "my people" may like John, I wanted to clarify that we are among the Jews' best friends.  This is actually a point that annoys me quite a bit because my people often equate today's Zionist State of Israel with the Jews and thus conservative Christians are one of the most staunch supporters of Israel today despite the country's many war crimes and mistreatment of people.  My Syrian friends know this and is one reason they were quite surprised that Andrew and I were nice people. They figured we all were monsters, apparently. 

Lastly, the author admits to some of John's literature as being "the most beautiful of the New Testament."

On this point, I totally agree with Thomas Cahill.  What from John's Gospel or letters do you find most beautiful?  What do you greatly dislike?  Any favorite stories from John?

Any thoughts on any of this? Please share.

Luke's Jesus & A Favorite Parable

"Luke is preeminently the evangelist of God's mercy to sinners; and his gospel is the one that dramatizes most believably Paul's insistence to the Romans that 'God's love for us is shown in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.' Like the father of a prodigal child and like Jesus forgiving the executioners who drove the nails into his hands and feet, God does not wait for our repentance; he loves us anyway.

Luke is, in Dante's words, 'il scriba dela gentilezza di Cristo,' ' the scribe of the kindness of Christ.'  Luke's portrait of Jesus is one that has had the most effect on the West; it is, in fact, Luke's Christ that has made an indelible impression on the world's imagination."   (pg. 207)

The author states while Matthew disdained religious hypocrisy as the "one thing that can make a Christ-like life impossible," for Luke this was wealth.  (pg. 190)

In speaking of a sequence of events in Luke's gospel the author writes, "Luke is building up a purposeful sequence, which begins by answering the question 'Who is my neighbor?' and goes on to remind the reader that unfailing kindness (even to strangers)  is possible only if we keep Jesus in mind -- that is, if we pattern our lives on his -- and that such a resolve can be accomplished only if we pray as Jesus did, asking Jesus's loving Father (who is also our Father) to watch over us."  (pg. 188)

Desire of the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill

The Father Lovingly Welcomes His Son Home

¹¹Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. ¹²The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. 

 ¹³"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. 

 ¹⁷"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! ¹⁸I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' ²⁰So he got up and went to his father.

      "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

 ²¹"The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 

 ²²"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate. 

 ²⁵"Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' 

 ²⁸"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!' 

 ³¹" 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³²But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' "

Paul's Jesus

I know I said this book, Desire of the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill, was about Jesus so you're likely confused about last night's post concerning Paul. I don't blame you!  :)  I think the author is trying to give background to Jesus - the world just before he was born and also people surrounding him or immediately following his life here.  Chapter three was The Cosmic Christ: Paul's Jesus.  I shared what I did yesterday because I often hear people say Paul invented Christianity. Also I literally laughed when the author said what he did about Paul wondering about the Meaning of his hostess asking if he wanted one lump or two.  This guy writes with some subtle humor!

I know a lot of people don't like him, but I do like Paul. To me he is an example of how Jesus can change a person's life. He was a religious man bent on purifying his religion because some new innovation was starting to creep in. He wanted his people to be pure before God and not start having these wrong thoughts about this crazy Jesus person being their Messiah or worse yet - God!  He was a good Jewish man and knew the shema as well as the next Jew!

Anyway, you see how Paul went from this religious terrorist to sharing news about Jesus' offer of free salvation?  He never spread his religion by force - no telling people to convert, die or pay the tax to live as a second-class citizen.  Not that he could anyway seeing how Rome was in control, but again, he never twisted arms to make people convert. Really, how can anyone force another to convert? Does that really "take" in God's eyes if you convert for the sake of not wanting to be killed, taxed or even for the love of a man (for those who convert in order to marry)?

I enjoy authors who draw word pictures for me.  So I liked reading and imagining this:

"Dimly, we can see [Paul] entering a new booth, engaging in conversation whomever he can -- potential customers, their servants, his fellow merchants. We can see him taking a room in the tiny house of some merchant from a neighboring booth, gradually gathering a small community around him, instructing them in the Gospel and watching it take root among them.  Then far into the night, sometimes with the help of a friendly scribe, sometimes alone, he scratches his letters to the church-communities he has had to leave behind, trying to find the right words, the words that will catch fire in their hearts and enable them to keep going.  If nothing else, the overwhelming loneliness of this man -- always beginning again, always 'a stranger in a strange land,' always opening and closing his letters by naming distant friends, always recalling his ties of affection to those he has had to leave behind -- should impress us."   (pg. 127)


The author states that Paul made a case for the equality of women reminding the Corinthian church that although the story of creation claims woman came from man (the rib story), from thereon out men have always come from woman - including the Messiah!  Although Paul never stated that the rich and poor should have the same income, he would have "no part in treating anyone according to income....Within the community of believers everyone was to be treated equally."  (pg. 142)

I especially loved how he summed it up here:

"The cosmic Christ, whose glory knocked Paul from his horse on the road to Damascus, who sums up in himself the whole of the created universe, eventually leads Paul to thoughts that no one has ever had before -- thoughts about the equality of all human beings before God.  In this ancient world of masters and slaves, conquerors and conquered, a world that articulates at every turn, precisely and publicly, who's on top, who's on the bottom, Paul writes the unthinkable to his Galatians..."There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."  (pg. 147)



Another thing of note, the author reminds us that when Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, he asked Paul "why are you persecuting me?"  Jesus was in heaven, but the persecution of the believers was felt personally by Jesus and he identified the Church with himself.  Also Paul had these thoughts concerning Jesus setting us free:  "Like Moses leading the People out of Egyptian slavery, Christ the Redeemer has ransomed us all from the slavery of sin.  We must go forward into freedom, not backward into chains."  (pg. 148)  Paul didn't think a gentile had to become a Jew and keep all the Law (which was given to the Israelites not everyone). In his view, this freedom in Christ was meant to free us from "all human rules and conventions."


Next chapter deals with the Gentile (non-Jewish) Luke's Jesus.

A Portrayal of Paul

"Paul did not invent the faith of the early Church in the continuing reality and presence of Jesus.  If Paul became in his own lifetime the most articulate spokesmen for this faith, he was never much more than an articulator who knew how to zero in on the most essential argument and could thread his discourse with the welcome colors of his own very personal experience.  If Paul had never left the Pharisaical school, the Jesus Movement that became Christianity would have survived and probably even prospered (if with a more limited scope), but it would have been a Christianity that lacked (at least for some time) Paul's intellectual edge as well as his emotional edginess.

"For beyond his education, by which he intertwined antiquity's most rigorous intellectual traditions, we cannot neglect to consider the man's natural temper: neither flatterer nor diplomat, neither charmer nor salesman, Paul was not the sort of man you would immediately associate with the effort to pitch a new idea, let alone a whole new worldview and way of life.  Devoid of small talk, anecdotes, and the sort of chatter that puts people at their ease, Paul was an either/or kind of guy, an absolutist for whom the matter under discussion would always be All or Nothing. An intellectual overachiever, pushed repeatedly to success by a keenly competitive father, Paul had no time for ordinary social niceties and neither gave nor expected to receive normal social comforts. One can imagine him sitting uncomfortably in some conventional parlor, staring penetratingly at his hostess while trying to find some Meaning in her inquiry as to whether he took one lump or two."

pg.120  Desire of The Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill


Past Post:  Why I Like the Apostle Paul

Is Jesus Worthy of His Place in Western History?

The weather has finally (finally!!) turned a bit cooler here and it feels like autumn rather than late June!  I've spent a lot of time enjoying fresh air while reading some Christian fiction books I borrowed a few weeks ago when we ate at my church friend's house.  I love sitting out on my porch in my Cracker Barrel rocking chair looking up occasionally to see the lovely sky or the flitting butterflies or fast-moving hummingbird that visits.

Today I went by the library.  Yes, despite the fact I have five more books from Cindy sitting in the other room, I was in town, walking my errands while parked at the library and well, it just drew me in!  Amber's recent post made me remember Karen Armstrong so I searched the library catalog and saw what books they offered from her.  Ended up with the biography of Muhammad and since I was in the area, I thought I'd see if there was a biography about Jesus.  There were a couple actually, but I selected Desire of the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill.  This actually is third in a seven part series of "cultural impact" on Western civilization, but I didn't realize that until I started reading the introduction.  Anyway, he declares on page 8 that "this unlikely character has long been accounted the central figure of Western civilization," that is Jesus of course. He reminds us with our calendars "we even count our days by his appearance on earth."  It makes me wonder just a bit how a Jewish man became the central figure of the West since, errrr, Palestine is more East than West, isn't it?  People do sometimes claim Christianity is a Western religion and I've even heard it's "a white man's religion," but of course I disagree!

Thomas Cahill wants to answer some hard questions: did Jesus make a difference? does he have a right to be at this central place in our culture?  is he worthy of his place in history?

Part I in the book deals with "Greeks, Jews, and Romans: The People Jesus Knew." I did not take extensive notes, but decided I did want to record a few notes just for the sake of learning and remembering something from this book.  By the way, the book's subtitle is "The World Before and After Jesus," and the first chapter deals briefly with the immediate history leading up the birth of Jesus just to give a little background of what the region was going through at that time, who the national heroes likely were and so forth.  Can you imagine Jesus giving his "love your enemies" speech to people not far from societies who revered Alexander the Great?  :-)

Just a few things of interest to me from chapter one.

Alexander conquered because he *ahem* wanted to spread Greek culture to the needy world (sounds like some people who go forth and conquer so people can 'enjoy' American democracy).

Romans put "security first, prosperity second, and pleasure far down on the list.  They had nothing in common with the sybaritic, effeminate East that had so attracted Alexander...The Greeks thought they were the most intellectually discerning...but the Romans prided themselves on having crucial talents that the Greeks, for all their complexity, lacked: realism and practicality."  (pg. 52)

In speaking of Roman expansion the author notes that the Parthians "(today they are Iranians)" and Scots were the only people ever to stop the Romans.  (pg. 54)

"Whereas Greeks and Romans and all other ancient peoples tended to see history as an ultimately empty succession of triumphs and tragedies -- and human beings as evanescent phenomena appearing briefly on the surface of historical events -- the Jews believed that history had a beginning (in God's act of Creation) and would have an end and that each human being, created by God, had an individual destiny to fulfill and was not merely a momentary glimmer on the ever-recurring waves of fate.  And as in so much material written by Jews in the disappointing centuries after the Babylonian Captivity, there is even in this peculiar collection of oracles the assertion of a promised Messiah, a king sent from God."  (pg. 61)  -- The author says verses like those he quoted from Isaiah - to a late first century B.C. reader often were thought to refer to Augustus since he brought in the Pax Romana, a time of long-lasting peace.