Tag Archives: Bart Ehrman

New to the Stacks: 2020

Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez, Garcia Gabriel (Pearl Ruled)
The Shore of Women by Sargent, Pamela – read
When Will There Be Good News? by Atkinson, Kate – read (No Review)
The Book of Joan by Yuknavitch, Lidia – read (No Review)
Out of mesopotamia by Salar, Abdoh
In Search Of The Lost Chord: 1967 And The Hippie Idea by Goldberg, Danny read (to do list)
To Hold Up the Sky by Liu, Cixin
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by O’Connor, Flannery- read (No Review)
The Wives of Henry Oades by Moran, Johanna- read (No Review)
Spirits and Thieves by Rhodes, Morgan – read (No Review)
The Rush’s Edge by Smith, Ginger – read
The women’s revolution, Russia 1905-1917 by Cox, Judy – read
George Orwell Illustrated by Smith, David
Marx’s Capital by Smith, David -read
The Fire Next Time by Baldwin, James – read
Sex in the world of myth by Leeming, David Adams Read
The goddess by Leeming, David Adams
The conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven by Schultz, John
A People’s History of the United States by Zinn, Howard – reading
The Weight of Ink by Kadish, Rachel – read
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Clarke, Susanna
Thinking in Pictures by Grandin, Temple
My Beloved World by Sotomayor, Sonia
The Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut, Kurt
Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology by Reynolds, Richard – read (No Review)
The Relentless Moon by Kowal, Mary Robinette
The Language Of The Night by Le Guin, Ursula K.
Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissists in Their Struggle for Self by Golomb, Elan
Watchmen as literature by Van Ness, Sara J.- read (No Review)
Parable of the Sower by Butler, Octavia E.
Junk City by Boilard, Jon -read (No Review)
The Music Book by Osborn, Karen – read
Back to the wine jug by Taylor, Joe
Watchmen by Moore, Alan – read (No Review)
The Nickel Boys by Whitehead, Colson – read
The Water Dancer by Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Dark mirror by Gellman, Barton – read (No Review)
Playing in the Dark by Morrison, Toni
Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene by Ehrman, Bart D.
Berkeley at War: The 1960s by Rorabaugh, W.J.
Things that can and cannot be said by Roy, Arundhati – read
Cinderella Liberator by Solnit, Rebecca – read
Berkeley: The Student Revolt by Draper, Hal – read
The Books of Earthsea by Le Guin, Ursula K.
Robert Duncan in San Francisco by Rumaker, Michael -read (No Review)
History as mystery by Parenti, Michael – read (No Review)
Feminisms redux by Edited by Warhol-Down, Robyn and Herndl, Diane Price
American Audacity: In Defense of Literary Daring by Giraldi, William
A Book of Book Lists by Johnson, Alex – read (No Review)
Becoming Superman by Straczynski, J. Michael
Howl on Trial by Morgan, Bill and Peters, Nancy Joyce – read (No Review)
Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century by Franklin, H. Bruce
Legends edited by Silverberg, Robert – read (No Review)
Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Calvino, Italo
Why I Read by Lesser, Wendy
Side Life by Toutonghi, Steve – read (No Review)
This is how You Lose the Time War by El-Mohtar, Amal and Gladstone, Max
The Future of Another Timeline by Newitz, Annalee – read
Gideon the Ninth by Muir, Tamsyn – read
Sixteenth Watch by Cole, Myke – read (No Review)
The City In The Middle Of The Night by Anders, Charlie Jane – read
The Lost War by Anderson, Justin – read (No Review)
Small days and nights by Tishani, Doshi – read
The Shadow King by Mengiste, Maaza – read
Mickey Mouse: From Walt to the World by Deja, Andreas

The Daily Communiqué – 23 April, 2019 – Pauline Theology

Among my many interests is ancient religion and the intersection with ancient politics.  I regret that there’s not enough time in my lifetime to study this even more deeply.

Karen Armstrong is one of my favorites.  Her book, A History of God led to many other interesting books and articles.  A former Roman Catholic nun, her thoughtful and carefully researched books, are filled with provocative ideas.  Others I’ve read include Muhammad:  A Biography of the Prophet, and Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths.

Then there’s Bart Ehrman, the once born-again Christian, now atheist New Testament scholar at University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill.  Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, blew my socks  clear across the room.  A lot of things I remembered from my youthful days as an Episcopalian made a different kind of sense.  I’ve read many of Ehrman’s books and learned a lot about the history, and politics, of the early Christian church.

Reza Aslan is another author whose work I find important.  I’ve read Zealot twice.  Robin Lane Fox‘s Unauthorized Version: Truth And Fiction in the Bible, Jack Miles, Bishop John Shelby Spong … all important parts of my reading, and library.  Were I so inclined, I could go a few rounds with a street preacher.  I don’t have the energy or time, and arguing with an ideologue only frustrates us both.

All of this to say, LitHub has a fascinating article by Jay Parini about Paul, the founder of the Christian church.  Some of which reinforces what I’ve already learned, and what would upset Evangelicals if they ever bothered to actually learn their history.

Jesus’ last name was not Christ, it was a title.  And in Jesus’ time there were many wandering the desert claiming to be the Messiah.

Jesus was not a Christian, nor did he found the Christian church.  He was Jewish, trying to set Judaism back on the path of rightness.

Jesus was a rabble-rouser and was killed by the Roman authorities because his views interfered with their ability to govern and collect taxes from the Jews.

It was Paul who codified the teachings of Jesus into what is now recognized as the Christian church, long after Jesus died.  Paul traveled the region tirelessly preaching and writing about his interpretation of Jesus’ life.

Parini, like Ehrman, learned Greek (Koine Greek) in order to read the New Testament in the original.  What he found there was different from the popular notions of Christianity and the early church.

“This is astonishing. The whole universe of enlightenment will be found within the individual psyche, or soul … . The Christian message is, in effect, a message of reconciliation between the individual and the universe itself … “

This message, the one of being a part of the larger universe is one that speaks to me more thoroughly than any religious ideology.  And, I’m finding more and more thoughtful people who find resonance in it too.  However we go about making peace with ourselves and the ineffable, it’s important to realize it’s work that must be done in order to survive the chaos that is the world around us.