So What Are you Reading?: Generations
- Thread starter captcalhoun
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I'd forgotten that two of the Apocryphal parts of Daniel were among the earliest detective stories known to western civilization: Susanna is a forensic procedural howcatchem (in which two frustrated would-be gang-rapists accuse their intended victim of adultery, and Daniel keeps the two accusers apart, so they can't get their stories straight), while the first half of Bel and the Dragon (again, a howcatchem) is the prototype for Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez," with Daniel using the "ashes on the floor" gambit to debunk idolatrous priests.
At any rate,Hosea (as I mentioned, always a source of amusement) Joel Obadiah Jonah Micah
About to start Nahum.
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Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Malachi First Esdras
About to start Second Esdras (the bulk of which is a series of apocalyptic visions, most of them so surreal that they make the most surreal parts of Daniel and Revelation seem comparatively tame.)
At any rate,
About to start Nahum.
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About to start Second Esdras (the bulk of which is a series of apocalyptic visions, most of them so surreal that they make the most surreal parts of Daniel and Revelation seem comparatively tame.)
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*wonders if I’ve been reading the wrong version of ye holy writ
I began reading the entire KJV, cover-to-cover, between Fat Tuesday evening and dragging myself out of bed at zero-dark-thirty for Easter Vigil, as a Lenten discipline, simply because it's difficult. The KJV had always been my preferred translation, because of the slightly archaic language, and it eventually occurred to me that a number of the more modern translations have strong, built-in, eisegetic biases. But note that I am not the kind of yutz who actually thinks Adam, Noah, Moses, David, Solomon, the Prophets, Jesus, and the Apostles, all spoke Jacobean English. On the other hand, I do like the juxtaposition of "and he knew her not" circumlocution with "pisseth against the wall" earthiness.
It wasn't long before I realized that because there is little time to get bogged down in the details, reading the Bible at that breakneck pace gives one an unparalleled view of "the big picture," and of the Bible as a history Humanity (and this is a deliberate nod to a book by The Rev'd Adam Hamilton) "getting it less and less wrong."
Then I bought, and read, a KJV Apocrypha Supplement (the link is to the Cambridge University Press edition I bought). A year or so later, having reached a point where just reading the canonical parts was getting to be too easy, I added the apocryphal parts, as much of it in context as practical (saving only First Esdras, Second Esdras, and Second Maccabees for the end).
I don't assert that the apocryphal parts necessarily should be canonical, and indeed, there is a lot of the canonical Bible that perhaps shouldn't be (and is only there because it provided support for imperial agendas). But it does make for good reading. Tobit, for example, is in many ways a classic hero-on-a-quest tale (nod to Joseph Campbell), in which Tobias goes on a quest (with an angel as his mentor/sidekick) to redeem a loan, and in the process, he rescues a young woman from a demon, marries the young woman, and returns with a cure for his father's (the eponymous Tobit's) blindness. All in under 7 1/2 (very dense) pages. Judith is generally regarded as a work of costume fiction, and a more elaborate retelling of the story of Deborah (in Judges), in which a woman achieves a military victory in a hopeless situation.
At the moment, I'm between Second Esdras and Second Maccabees.
And why, specifically, do I leave First Esdras, Second Esdras, and Second Maccabees for after the last canonical Old Testament books?
First Esdras is essentially an alternate version of the canonical Ezra and Nehemiah. And with First and Second Chronicles pretty much a retelling of First and Second Samuel and First and Second Kings, there's already enough redundancy, and unlike Chronicles, this isn't even from a different point of view.
Second Esdras is arguably on the shakiest ground of any of the apocryphal books, given that the first two chapters and the last two chapters are generally regarded as later additions, possibly of Christian, rather than Jewish origin. In between is a series of apocalyptic prophesies, some of which (as I mentioned) are even more surreal than the most surreal parts of Daniel and Revelation.
Second Maccabees is simply a shorter, less detailed, more conversational retelling of First Maccabees. And while the Chanukah story is to be found in First Maccabees, don't expect to find anything about the "Miracle of the Oil" (a seeming one-night supply of consecrated lamp oil somehow lasting eight nights), because it's not there.
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Over the weekend I finished reading Star Trek Strange New Worlds: The High Country, and then read Star Wars (2015 Marvel comic series) Vol. 10: The Escape, written by Kieron Gillen, with art by Angel Unzueta, Andrea Broccardo, and Salvador Larroca. I finished that last night and in honor of the 25th anniversary of the premiere of Farscape, I started reading @KRAD's post-Peacekeeper Wars comics, starting with rereading the first miniseries The Beginning of the End of the Beginning.
The Gospel According to St. Matthew.
i'm reading
Headlong Flight (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Dayton Ward
got it for cheap on my Kindle
can't get into it.. anyone read this?
Is it pretty good?
Headlong Flight (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Dayton Ward
got it for cheap on my Kindle
can't get into it.. anyone read this?
Is it pretty good?
The Gospel According to St. Mark St. Luke.
Decades ago, I used to play a weekly game of a scaled-up version of RISK, with a group of fellow model train enthusiasts (speaking of which, why have we never seen any model train hobbyists in ST?). The host (the owner of the local model train shop) was a rather extreme Fundamentalist. And at one point, he was falling into the trap (or is it a trope?) of using "gospel" as if it meant "irrefutable truth." I turned to one of the other players, a fellow I knew to be active in his church, and asked "Do you want to tell him or should I?" We then, more-or-less in unison told him what the word really means: "Good News."
Decades ago, I used to play a weekly game of a scaled-up version of RISK, with a group of fellow model train enthusiasts (speaking of which, why have we never seen any model train hobbyists in ST?). The host (the owner of the local model train shop) was a rather extreme Fundamentalist. And at one point, he was falling into the trap (or is it a trope?) of using "gospel" as if it meant "irrefutable truth." I turned to one of the other players, a fellow I knew to be active in his church, and asked "Do you want to tell him or should I?" We then, more-or-less in unison told him what the word really means: "Good News."
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Mostly stuff for book club so far this year:Lessons in Chemistry and The Frozen River. I also finished Persuader. On my own, I'm finishing up the first Vampire novel: Toreador. And I'm making my way through Pillars of Earth, which I expect will take me at least another month to get through. Starting Spells for Forgiving once I finish up Toreador this week.
For Star Trek, I have another Picard book I want to read and some Peter David ones that I picked up on sale recently.
For Star Trek, I have another Picard book I want to read and some Peter David ones that I picked up on sale recently.
A couple notes on the A Time To reading journey:
Sow/Harvest still holds up. You get some juicy story bits with all of the leads, and the Dokaalan story is helped out by the novel format.
In A Time to Love, I am mystified as to why Chapter 7 is 31% of the book (over 80 pages). It was broken up into lots of little sections, but there was nothing I could see that unified all of it besides being in the same book.
Sow/Harvest still holds up. You get some juicy story bits with all of the leads, and the Dokaalan story is helped out by the novel format.
In A Time to Love, I am mystified as to why Chapter 7 is 31% of the book (over 80 pages). It was broken up into lots of little sections, but there was nothing I could see that unified all of it besides being in the same book.
The Gospel According to St. John.
And you do realize, I hope, that the titles of the "A Time To" miniseries come straight out of Ecclesiastes.
And you do realize, I hope, that the titles of the "A Time To" miniseries come straight out of Ecclesiastes.
I thought it was The Byrds.
I will also note that while the author probably wasn't St. John the Apostle, he certainly wasn't St. John Talbot.
David Warner hated the name St. John Talbot. He thought American screenwriters gave British characters stupid names.
The Acts of the Apostles.
I'm co-teaching a college class with a sociology professor this semester, and when he made an offhand comment about how the gospels were not actually written by the Apostles, it was like he'd lobbed a hand grenade into the lecture theatre.
Of course, there is no list of "The Twelve" that includes a Luke, or a Mark.
And I suspect that some of those who reacted violently probably also believe that Adam, Noah, Moses, Joshua, Saul, David, Solomon, and all of the other Prophets, Judges, and Kings, all spoke perfect Jacobean English.
(I prefer the KJV because the language is beautiful, because the language is archaic enough to force you to think, because it is relatively low in eisegetic bias, and because the juxtaposition of "and he knew her not" circumlocution with "pisseth against the wall" earthiness ["adult male" doesn't carry the connotation of "lowlife" that "pisseth against the wall" does] is rather amusing.)
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