novels, comets, movies
Ivan Karamazov issues the following challenge to his devout brother Alyosha, before sharing with him the now-famous parable about the Grand Inquisitor, in Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov": Tell me straight out, I call on you—answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy … Continue reading The Grand Inquisitor and Rebellion
Jesus -- Freed us from death by dying (and conquering death): Rom 5.18, Heb 2.14-17, 1 Cor 15.21 Freed us from daily sacrifices by becoming a sacrifice: Heb 7.27 Freed us from the Law's curse, by becoming a curse: Gal 3.13 Freed us from the Law, by being born subject to the Law: Gal 4.4-5 … Continue reading After reading Hebrews
Huck Finn's dilemma: send his friend Jim back to slavery as he has been taught he must do, or go against his church's teaching by helping Jim to escape, and then go to eternal hell as punishment I've started reading David Bentley Hart's "That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation." It is … Continue reading That All Shall Be Saved
My two favorite, and possibly the best, translators of the Bible today were interviewed together on a podcast about a year ago: https://mindingscripture.com/episode-4-translation-of-scripture/ Speaking broadly and perhaps simply, Robert Alter produced a translation of the Hebrew Bible that shows in English that the original was great literature, while David Bentley Hart produced a New Testament … Continue reading Podcast with Robert Alter and David Bentley Hart
My blog is new, so I've never picked out favorite books for a year, but here we go. My ten faves for 2021, fiction and nonfiction, out of the 66 books I read: 1. New Testament -- the recent translation by David Bentley Hart 2. Notre Dame de Paris Translated by Alban Krailsheimer 3. Lonesome … Continue reading Favorite books of 2021 (and 2020)
I picked up “Pilgrim’s Progress” only because I was reading “Little Women,” which I found made constant reference to Bunyan’s earlier novel. So I put down Alcott and started “Pilgrim,” and it was a mixed experience – riveting in many places, but often hard-going. As often happens when I pick up a new author, the … Continue reading Pilgrim’s Progress