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Text of the page (random words):
icles of god one issue i had with this book is that she put her emphasis in bold and she used so much bolded emphasis that it became distracting i assume this is because she decided to put christ s words in italics funny thing is she also put t s elliot s poems in italics posted by unknown at 6 54 pm no comments labels love miracles religion spirituality the coldest girl in coldtown by holly black 2015 media 6 book 3 the coldest girl in coldtown by holly black reason for reading this was the january pick for my bookclub summary in this near future book vampires have emerged into the public eye due to an outbreak started by a sloppy newly made vampire who left his victims living instead of completely draining them vampires and the cold people infected with the vampirism disease but who haven t yet tasted the blood of humans and so haven t turned are forced to live in ghettos called coldtowns in this setting the story starts out with tana waking up to a vampire related disaster which begins both a physical journey away from the disaster and a spiritual journey of self discovery what i thought this book was fast paced and difficult to put down it asked some interesting philosophical questions do we all have monsters within us do we crave immortality and beauty at the price of humanity if not why are so many people attracted to paranormal romances is it because we want the ultimate bad boy or in the opposite line of questioning why do so many people seek good in what seems evil t posted by unknown at 9 49 am 2 comments labels fantasy fiction hollly black horror paranormal romance teen urban fantasy vampires young adult sunday january 18 2015 lecture 1 of the new testament the great courses by bart d ehrman the new testament the great courses course number 656 lecture 1 the early christians and their literature this was an introductory lecture which suggested a few ways to study the new testament 1 as a faithful believer 2 from a cultural perspective e g the nt s influence on western culture and on literature and 3 from the historical context of the initial audience erhman s course intends on studying the nt from the third perspective he gives some background information there are 27 books in the nt all written by christians of the 1st century many of these books claim to be written by direct apostles of jesus i e people who are considered to have been sent directly by jesus to spread his word all of the books were originally written in greek the 27 books of the nt comprise 4 major groups 1 the four gospels describing the birth life and death of jesus 2 the acts of the apostles describing the spread of christianity around the world 3 21 epistles 13 of which are written by paul with a focus on the beliefs and ethics of christianity 4 the book of revelation which is a piece of apocalyptic literature originally thought to have been written by the apostle john but later revealed to have been written by another john the belief that it was written by the apostle is why it attained popularity among early christians texts read the new testament a historical introduction to the early christian writings by bart d ehrman chapter 1 the new testament a student s introduction by steven harris chapters 1 3 an introduction to the new testament by raymond brown chapter 1 the new testament canon by harry y gamble posted by unknown at 2 19 pm 1 comment labels bible bible history church history early christians great courses history new testament new testament history chapter 3 the new testament a student s introduction by stephen harris in my final text for lesson 1 of the new testament the great courses course number 656 i read chapters 1 3 of the new testament a student s introduction by stephen l harris i found these notes from chapter 3 worth sharing since i was unaware of the differences between these groups before reading this text chapter 3 the diverse world of fist century judaism sadducees priests that conservatively stuck to a literal reading of the torah eschewing the oral traditions of the pharisees the sadducees were the ones who turned jesus over to the romans for execution they were the ones who stood the most to lose if there was fighting between the romans and the jews because the sadducees seem to have been the chief mediators between the roman rulers and the jews they disappeared after the sacking of jerusalem by the romans in 70ce pharisees these priests were also conservative but they also had an oral law which was later recorded as mishnah in 200ce although there seems to be a lot of dispute between jesus and the pharisees in the bible jesus most likely got along fine with most pharisees as can be seen in some biblical stories the disputes between jesus and the pharisees may have been biased by problems between the early christians and the pharisees around the time the gospels were written samaritins this is a group of people named after their capital city samaria related to the jews by religion but whom the jews in judea regarded as alien instead of worshiping at the temple at mount zion the samaritins worshiped at mount gerizim the samaritins recognized only the mosaic torah and not the prophets or other biblical writings essenes these are the people who are thought to have written the dead sea scrolls somewhere between the mid second century and late first century ce little is known about them but their practices seem to have many similarities to later christian practices though jesus is never mentioned outright it is supposed by harris that this is a non christian sect that anticipated some christian rituals rather than a group of early christians there also seem to be some parallels between the book of hebrews and essenes beliefs posted by unknown at 1 48 pm no comments labels bible biblical history book review history new testament notes stephen harris chapter 1 an introduction to the new testament by raymond e brown i ve finished reading chapter 1 of an introduction to the new testament by raymond e brown for the great course the new testament the great courses course number 656 by bart d ehrman notes on chapter 1 the meaning of the word testament has developed over time at first it was in reference to deals god had made with noah abraham david and moses most notably the one to moses in which the people of israel were made god s chosen people almost 600 years before the birth of jesus the prophet jeremiah predicted the days are coming when i will make a new covenant jer 31 31 where a covenant is a testament and new means renewed then before jesus died he referenced a new covenant testament in his blood through his death and resurrection therefore christians believed that god had renewed his covenant with his people this time including the gentiles only in the 2nd century do we see the word testament referring to a body of literature and in fact the idea of recording jesus story and sayings did not occur until after jesus death jesus didn t produce any written lectures nor did he in any of the christian writings suggest that his word be recorded letters were the first form of literature on christian beliefs and they were meant to answer immediate pressing problems in the community to which they were addressed therefore the letters of paul have a different tone and emphasis in each sometimes to the point of seeming contradictory by the late 60s anybody who had had direct contact with jesus had died the passing of the first generation of christians led to writings of a more permanent nature these include the deuteropauline writings such as ii thes col eph i and ii tim and titus which were written after paul s death the deuteropauline letters have a more permanent and universal tone than earlier letters the gospels also had a more permanent tone than early pauline letters but relevance to christian problems would still have influenced which works were preserved mark s gospel emphasized the suffering of christ on the cross which would relate easily to the sufferings of early christian persecution the gospels of matthew and luke probably written about 20 years later are much more focused on the jesus tradition including sayings of jesus which are hypothesized to originated in an earlier document dubbed q the acts of the apostles was probably meant as a continuation of luke s gospel it moved the story of christianity beyond jerusalem and judea to samaria and beyond the book of revelation is an example of apocalyptic literature with roots in ezekiel and zechariah apocalyptic literature was quite common at the time unfortunately many modern readers have forgotten that the book was written to 1st century christians who would be quite familiar with the symbolic meaning of apocalyptic literature they therefore interpret the book of revelation literally there are three reasons early christian writings were preserved 1 apostolic origin books that were purported to be written by apostles of jesus or paul had special place among christians 2 which christian communities the literature was addressed to for instance very little literature survives from jerusalem or judea which was torn apart by the jewish revolt in 66 70 3 conformity with the rule of faith there is also a question of why we need 4 gospels instead of just 1 this was discussed in my notes on gamble s book brown suggests that concentration on one gospel could be used to support theology rejected by a large number of christians an example of this problem is the beliefs of the marcionites also mentioned in detail in my notes on gamble the marcionites believed that the creator god is not the same as the all loving god of the nt therefore the ot and teachings of judaism should be rejected brown suggests that one reason the church embraced four gospels was to refute marcion s belief that only the gospel of luke and the letters of paul should be considered as canon brown also suggests that the church embraced the ot to refute marcion s rejection of it however in his book gamble cautioned against putting too much emphasis on one driving factor for the church s choices and i agree with him on that posted by unknown at 1 36 pm no comments labels bible biblical history book review history new testament notes raymond e brown wednesday january 7 2015 fire ash fire ash by jonathan maberry reason for reading this is the fourth and final book in a series that i ve been reading i m making a goal this year to get farther in finish as many series as possible summary in this fourth and final book in the rot ruin series benny chong lila and nix battle the genocidal reapers while keeping the zombies at bay but they might have to become monsters to fight monsters and who is more of a monster the zombies or the humans thoughts this book was filled with action and adventure with a dash of intrigue like most maberry books that i ve read the action got a little too much at times to the point of feeling a little b rate but maberry has some interesting plots and his philosophy about who really is the monster is quite interesting overall a good finale if you liked the first three books you ll like this one as well posted by unknown at 5 17 pm no comments labels coming of age fiction horror plague post apocalyptic rot ruin samurai science fiction survival teen young adult zombies sunday january 4 2015 the new testament canon by harry y gamble the new testament canon by harry y gamble reason for reading this is one of the supplementary books for the great course the new testament the great courses course number 656 by bart d ehrman thoughts this short guide to biblical scholarship glossed over some of the reasons certain books and not others were chosen for the new testament canon this is a very heavy topic with lots of scholarship and this book tended to disagree with most of the specific theories in favor of the broader theory that there s no evidence that any specific movement had a great impact on the formation of the new testament canon but added all together they did have an impact i found this book rather dense at times it assumed prior knowledge of the topic which i m only beginning to study notes chapter 2 the history of the new testament canon the history of the new testament nt canon must be pieced together on fragmentary evidence there are a couple types of evidence that are useful 1 the contents of the ancient manuscripts of the nt together with scriptural aids like concordances or prologues this evidence is mainly from the fourth and fifth centuries 2 the use of early christian documents written from the second through the fifth centuries by noting early scholars allusions to various texts we can deduce which of these early texts were widely accepted the gospels which were incorporated into the nt did not gain clear prominence until the late second century mark written around 65 appears to have been the first narrative gospel but it originally ended at 16 8 and thus lacked any post resurrection narrative of jesus john too was originally lacking sections that were later accepted as gospel chapter 21 was not composed by the same person that wrote the rest of the gospel of john additionally the story of the adulteress john 7 53 8 11 wasn t originally part of the gospel of john these discrepancies might have cast doubt on the authoritative truth of these gospels furthermore having too many gospels especially ones that seem to contradict each other cast doubt on the adequacy of any gospel the first evidence for a collection of four gospels was in a document written by irenaeus bishop of lyons in gaul writing around the year 180 there is also evidence of a four gospel collection in the muratorian canon list which claims that the diversity of the gospels matters nothing for the faith of believers this comment suggests that some people had indeed found the discrepancies in the gospels disturbing the formation of a four gospel collection was neither a necessity nor a natural outcome of the history of gospel literature in the early church it is a compromise which balances an unmanageable number of gospels and a single self sufficient gospel writers of the period tend to speak of the group of gospels as gospel singular thus there are not four gospels but a fourfold gospel thus a balance is reached between two extremes there are several theories as to why paul s letters gained the widespread appreciation that led to their placement in the canon one theory is that because his letters were highly valued by the communities he wrote to they all sent his letters to neighboring communities so that everyone could share but if this were the case why did some letters survive and others disappear and why did the author of acts of the apostles not mention the letters if they were so important another theory goodspeed s is that paul s letters were highly valued by one scholar who went out of his way to collect as many of them as he could he then wrote the letter to the ephesians in paul s name as an i...