I finished Bart Ehrmann's The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot. I have to admit, I wasn't really interested that much in the Gnostic mythology: the aeons dropping from the pleroma, the realm of Barbelo, the demiurge. But I thought that the alternate reading of the story of Jesus's betrayal was interesting. And I was really interested in something that ( Read more... )

So, as I said, I've been reading Bart Ehrman's The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot. I'm enjoying it. He begins the book with the story of how he first laid eyes on the actual ancient codex in an apartment over a pizza shop in Switzerland. He was contacted by National Geographic who was considering doing a documentary on the gospel (they later did) as ( Read more... )

This morning in church, the first scripture lesson was from the Song of Songs 2:10-13.

My beloved spoke and said to me,
   “Arise, my darling,
   my beautiful one, come with me.
See! The winter is past;
   the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
   the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
   is heard in our land.
The ( Read more... )

The May Preview Massachusetts magazine is out on the streets. I have in it a story about the Berkshire Theatre Festival and its production of the Brian Friel play, Faith Healer. Here are the first few paragraphs:This is how the Berkshire Theatre Festival's season will begin: one actor, Colin Lane, on stage, delivering a monologue. Just Lane, the ( Read more... )

Doctorow, yesterday. Rivers. A date. As in, says my wife's friend who sits next to her at the breastfeeding support group, "I heard you two had a date last night." I responded that it ended in a typical way for new parents: my cell phone vibrated in my pocket and we both scurried outside. It turned out it was not a baby emergency, but just mom-in- ( Read more... )

Today, I'm carrying around with me a book of essays by E.L. Doctorow called Creationists. It's a deft turn of phrase. At once, he conflates the anti-Darwinists with the novelists. (It is, of course, "creative writing" as we academic-types are so fond of calling it.) In his first essay, he reads the Genesis account from the King James Bible. Many of ( Read more... )

redbaydreamer sent me a link this morning to a new campaign by the UCC to start a dialogue between religion and science. Although I'm now a member of a Methodist Church, I still feel a strong connection to the UCC. I continue to admire the UCC's articulation of liberal theology, a theology that tries to grow and grapple with our expanding notions about the ( Read more... )

The old Stockbridge casino, where the Berkshire Theatre Festival is housed, is at a bend in the road on Route 102. We almost missed it. I had expected it to be in the town of Stockbridge for some reason. And had not we seen the big orange banner hanging on the white building, mentioning the Carol, we might not have turned around to find it after we ( Read more... )

Today, I read an interesting post on left-leaning politics and regligion at the Public Humanist blog. Much is made of Mitt Romney's Mormanism and how it might affect his candidacy. There are some scurrilous rumors about Barack Obama's religious ties, although he is a member of a UCC church. I was interested in the fact that John Kerry is a member ( Read more... )

I'm reading a manuscript about a Catholic nun who travels from Alsace to Texas in the 1870s. I get to a part where she is recalling her training in the convent in Lorraine where the Bible is read in German. And, the protestant that I am, I ask: "When did the Catholic bible get translated into vernacular languages?" (I'm thinking of Wycliffe and ( Read more... )