Looking Forward to This One

What did he see out there in the desert for 40 days?

Hadn't heard of this 2015 film until just now, but "Last Days in the Desert" by Rodrigo Garcia looks like a winner. His participation in S**r W**s I-III notwithstanding, I've always admired Ewan McGregor as an actor. His dual role in this meditation on the story of John the Baptist's most successful follower should be at least as intriguing as my favorite gospel, Martin Scorsese's 1988 interpretation of Nikos Kazantzakis' 1953 novel, "The Last Temptation of Christ".

The stories of the life and death of the man, Yeshua from Nazareth, contain many mythic elements and myths need to be unpacked in order to understand what the storytellers were trying to convey.

UPDATE: There's a premier event Thursday, May 12, in Phoenix.  I plan to attend so I purchased my ticket online.  I don't Facebook much, but for those who do, here's that link.

UPDATE 2: Son Erik is going to join me for the movie and dinner afterwards...

UPDATE 3: "Last Days in the Desert" was quite good, every bit as much as I'd hoped. It will probably be too nuanced for the literalist crowd but that's to be expected, unfortunately.

Hanging With Some New Homies

Not sure what the Deconstructionists are about...

...but their enthusiasm is infectious.

The Deconstructionists Podcast is hosted by John Williamson and Adam Narloch, who appear to be sincere seeker who just may be hobbled by their presupposition that the form of Christianity they profess is self-evidentially true.  Still, their giggling, "Yeah, man!" and "Oh, wow!" exclamations are so true I can't not listen.

I've asked them - but have yet to hear their reply - the following questions...

Still working through what you mean by deconstructionism. I do wonder a little if everything is on the table as you deconstruct your religiosity. Your method - post modernism, maybe? - seems to allow a certain credulity when it comes to what moves you. You referred to John 7:53-8:11, the story of The Woman Taken In Adultery as though it features Jesus' own words. It's one of my favorite bible stories too but it was not in the original manuscripts and is first found in the form we recognize in Codex Bezae (~400-500 CE) and is widely accepted to be an interpolation. Further, the discussion of Dr. Masuru Emoto was enthusiastically accepted at face value, when his work is widely regarded as pseudoscience derived from poor technique. [See] https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4433 I so hope your definition of deconstructionism means more than simply discarding ideas you don't like and keeping your favorites. I'm not a Christian but I have no interest in being an angry atheist either. Ironically, I've been studying the history of religion, the science of mystical experience, and the nature of the religious impulse for some time now. There are those, myself among them, who found no there there when they took it all apart.

And...

Unless and until you face the possibility that some of the story didn't happen at all, or at least not in the way traditionally expressed, have you honestly dug deeply enough? If you are genuinely serious about your deconstruction/reconstruction project read everything L. Michael White, , Elaine Pagels, Candida Moss, Paula Fredriksen, Pamela Eisenbaum, Bart Ehrman, A.N. Wilson, [and] Reza Aslan have written. If you don't have time for all that at least read Ehrman's "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium," "The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament," and "How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee." You may scream and chuck these books across the room but at least you'll have stuck your hand into "The Box."

Not quite sure these young fellas can escape the core presuppositions but I'm going to listen all the way through. They are worth a try.

The Purple Cat

Used books stores are such fun...

There's a new used book store at the Willow Crossroads in Prescott, Arizona.

I finally visited The Purple Cat used book store this afternoon. Owned and operated by Shari Graham, this tidy little shop has small but growing Sci Fi, Fantasy, and Horror sections in the back left corner. Ms. Graham has a deep supply of military SF by the likes of David Weber. The titles are varied and the aisles are well lit. I went in looking for a copy of The Keep, by F. Paul Wilson. Didn't find it, but I left with six other volumes instead; that's how used book stores work.  Give The Purple Cat a visit next time you come to Prescott.

The Purple Cat
3180 Willow Creek Rd. #A4
Prescott, AZ 86301
928-776-0116
thepurplecataz.com

My 2016 Goodreads Challenge

Is 26 books in 52 weeks...

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. In progress [36]

An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar: Talking about God, the Universe, and Everything, by Randal Rauser and Justin Schieber. In progress [35]

Hiking the Southwest's Geology: Four Corners Region, by Ralph Lee Hopkins. In progress [34]

New Year's Eve.  Time to call it...

Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest, by Stephen Plog. [33]

Themes in Southwest Prehistory, edited by George R. Gumerman. [32]

Christmas Eve...

Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang. [31]

Only a couple weeks left...

Neanderthal: Neanderthal Man and the Story of Human Origins, by Paul Jordan [30]

Arrowheads and Projectile Points: Identification and Values, by Lar Hothem. [29]

2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson. [28]

Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior, by Bart Ehrman. [27]

There. Met the goal.  Still, almost two months to go...

Best Easy Day Hikes: Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, by Erik Molvar and Tamara Martin [26]

Zion National Park: Impressions, James Randklev and Tom Til [25]

Bryce Canyon National Park: Impressions, by James Ranklev and Greer K. Chesher [24]

Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson. [23]

Looking For Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, by Antonio Domazio. [22]

The Keep, by F. Paul Wilson. [20]

Stalkers and Shooters: A History of Snipers, by Kevin Dockery [19]

The Collector's Illustrated Guide to Firearms, by Martin Miller [18]

Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power, 1941-1945, by Von Hardesty [17]

Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity by James O'Donnell [16]

Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan, by Clay Blair, Jr. [15]

The New AR-15 Complete Owner's Guide, by Walt Kuleck (with Greg King) [14] 

Brassey's Air Combat Reader, edited by Walter J. Boyne and Philip Handleman [13]

The Book of Job, by Stephen Mitchell [12]

Water-wise Plants for the Southwest, by Nan Sterman, Mary, Irish, Judith Philllips, and Joe Lampl; edited by Diana Maranhao [11]

Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, by Frank Moore Cross [10]

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari [9]

The Dark Forest, by Cixin Liu [8]

Breaking the Mishap Chain, by Peter Merlin, Gregg Kendrick, and Dwight Holland [7]

Doubt: A History, by Jennifer Michael Hecht [6]

SMLE (No. 1) Rifles Mk I and Mk III, by Charles Stratton [5]

Know Your M1 Garand Rifles, by E. J. Hoffschmidt [4]

Forty Years With .45/70, by Paul A. Matthews [3]

Is Space The Place? Yes, No, by Various [2]

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, by Bart D. Ehrman [1]

I have some catching up to do.

An Episode of Unbelievable Got Me Thinking

Such is my synthesis so far...

The Saturday, April 2, 2016 episode of Unbelievable - Did Jesus' followers believe he was God? Yusuf Ismail vs Jonathan McLatchie - was a thought provoking hour and a half. Yusuf Ismail was erudite and well spoken. Still I found it interesting that a Muslim apologist was chosen to argue for an evolving Christology - in which he does not believe. And it was amusing when the evangelical apologist, Jonathan McLatchie, quoted the Quran - to which he otherwise grants no warrant - to buttress his claims for the credibility of Paul.  Here are the comments I left in the discussion section below the episode:

As I read my early Church history, there were all flavors of Jesus followers: Ebionites, Adoptionists, Docetists, Separationists, Gnostics, Modalists, Patripassanists, and so on and so forth. Most of these believed Jesus to be divine in one way or another at some point in his life or ministry. Believing that the man Jesus had been raised from dead as the first fruits of a coming resurrection of all the faithful at the end of time is different from believing that Jesus' resurrection elevated him to the status of messiah, appointed lord, or divinely elected saviour, is different from believing Jesus was adopted by God at his baptism or conception, is different from believing Jesus to be a pre-existing deity, let alone co-equal and co-eternal with God.

There are Ebonite and adoptionist strains in Mark (60s CE). There's fuel for docetism and separationism in Matthew and Luke (70-80s CE). John responds to separationist and gnostic themes (90s CE). When one reads the gospels in parallel the evolution from a simple to a sophisticated Christology is striking.

But because "bible believing" evangelicals regard everything in the good book to be factual and moreover that all the red letter words actually came from Jesus' mouth they treat all the gospels as though they were composed during Jesus' ministry and simply were not recorded until 30, 40-50, and 60 years later. By doing so, rather than simply finding their theology in the NT and OT, Christians read their ever evolving Nicene, Constantinopolitan, and medieval Christologies into and over the stories there.

The Christian who reads the Pauline epistles as though they were written after Paul (and those writing in his name) had read everything in all the gospels might be forgiven for thinking the story was meant as a fully harmonized package. If one reads the papers in order Paul comes across more as the first franchisee, a little too desperate to establish his credibility and at times at odds with a more conservative Jesus movement (and its traveling preachers) in Jerusalem to whom he had to pay licensing fees. If one doesn't assume Paul really was Jesus' mouthpiece then a lot of his theology reads like he just made it up, riffing on hymns and statements of faith made by early Jesus followers.

The authors/editors/redactors of the later gospel traditions spent 30-60 years adapting the good news for their respective audiences, quote mining the OT, as well as responding to traditional, skeptical and heretical criticisms.

These ideas are not my own. I owe much to Karen Armstrong, Bart Ehrman, Pamela Eisenbaum, Paula Fredriksen, John Hick, Burton Mack, Jack Miles, Elaine Pagels, A.N. Wilson, L. Michael White, and others.