Saturday at the S Dillon Ripley Center next to the Smithsonian Castle went to a series of 4 lectures, basically all day, on the historical evidence or lack thereof for Jesus.
Getting there was a trial. Just missed the 8 o'clock train at Franconia-Springfield for a 9:30 lecture downtown. Oops, no way to get there on time via Metro, so we hoofed over to the taxi stand on the ground floor of the adjunct Metro garage, to find out that everyone else had had the same idea and the last taxi was taken. So D got all discouraged and thought we shouldn't go, and my thought was, after all this trouble and the cost of the tickets, I was going by God. After a few minutes, a taxi arrived and a mostly silent Ethiopian man took us over and dropped us off behind the Castle, 40 minutes early and $40 lighter. We got front row seats to the lecture!
My boss and her husband were there in the expensive balcony seats, and at lunch, we bumped into each other outside and were introduced. I noticed she did not invite us to lunch, but that was okay - we hustled over to American Indian Museum cafeteria, because it has real food. Note: very expensive for what you get. But good.
Okay, so - Jesus? A real guy? Ehrman, and religion prof at UNC Chapel Hill, says, it is probably true that there was an historical Jesus - a Jew from Palestine, probably Nazareth, who came to the Passover in Jerusalem around 30 - 34 CE and got crucified by the Romans. He is not bothered that Jesus is only really mentioned in Jewish sources, not Roman or Greek, because he wasn't important enough at the time of his death to have gotten a mention. It was only later, when his religion got rolling in terms of followers, did he rate a mention, then only in passing by Jewish historian Josephus.
Further note: When using Metro to get to time-sensitive things, remember that D chronically underestimates how long it takes to get anywhere on Metro, always, and don't let him over-ride you when you have actual experience on how long a trip takes. In fact, he had no idea that it takes just under 20 minutes to walk from inside the Ripley to inside the American Indian Museum caff, even though we did this several years ago. He has a map of the buildings in his head, but it's as if the placement of all these buildings is theoretical and the model includes no stuff like "walking around this building to the entrance will add 4 minutes to the time." Even weirder, I mentioned as we entered the museum that it took 20 minutes, and on the way back, he didn't leave us 20 minutes to return, and the lecture had started by the time we got back. I found that kinda puzzling.
You know, this is like that conversation I had with a runner friend1 of mine who told me that he ran from our building down the Mall to Hains Point and back for lunch, and I said, whut? Because in my head I have a model of how long it takes to walk the Mall to the Lincoln Memorial and you can't do it and come back in an hour, much less get to Hains Point. It looks impossible, but, of course, in my model of the Mall, I am not running. I am walking at about 2 miles an hour, less on the uphill return. His model? Is running (scribbles calculation on a napkin) about 6.288 miles per hour. So his model of distance as time is different. So, is D's chronic underestimation based on driving a car at 25 - 65 miles per hour messing up his ability to calculate overland walking distances? Like my walking and not running makes it look impossible to run to Hains Point and back in an hour?
Or do I just hate getting to events late a whole lot more, so I pad the time unconsciously?
1A nice man with an elaborately ridiculously Swedish name but whose European parents were not, in fact, from Sweden; this caused a weird-but-delightful exchange several years ago with a colleague of The Non-Swede in which I asked where The Non-Swede had got to this week and was told that he had gone home to Sweden for two weeks. I explained to the colleague that Non-Swedes' mother did not live in Sweden because none of them were from there, and he argued with me about it - The Non-Swede had told him his mother was from a little town in the north, near the border of Sweden, so it had to be Sweden. Well, maybe you're right, I acceded, not asking him if people not in Sweden could live near its borders. Man, are all those Norwegians are going to be surprised.