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rinueI love the Old Testament, and will sometimes read it for pleasure - Exodus rules, start to finish, Job is always fun to debate, and the Song of Solomon is wicked awesome. I like to pick apart 1st and 2nd Kings; I like to make backhanded comments about the Deuteronimists.
The New Testament was a big disappointment to me. I think the trouble is, I heard way too much about Jesus before I ever read it, and saw too many fictional interpretations, from Aslan to Jesus Christ Superstar. From these diverse sources, and my own logical conclusions about what kind of person the Son of God/Messiah/Ultimate Saviour would have to be, I constructed a model of Jesus that rested heavily on the turning over tables, telling-it-like-it-is, harrowing of hell, use-the-force aspects of the story. The whole "blood of the lamb" thing never quite fit in, and while I liked the temptation in the desert and the betrayal in the garden, I always found the death on the cross (necessary for the previous scenes) heavy-handed and unnecessary, which made the ressurection less a revelation than an attempt to ret-con a bad narrative decision.
It was a terrible let down when I finally read the Gospels and found out Jesus was kind of sanctimonious. I guess I should have seen that one coming.
The New Testament was a big disappointment to me. I think the trouble is, I heard way too much about Jesus before I ever read it, and saw too many fictional interpretations, from Aslan to Jesus Christ Superstar. From these diverse sources, and my own logical conclusions about what kind of person the Son of God/Messiah/Ultimate Saviour would have to be, I constructed a model of Jesus that rested heavily on the turning over tables, telling-it-like-it-is, harrowing of hell, use-the-force aspects of the story. The whole "blood of the lamb" thing never quite fit in, and while I liked the temptation in the desert and the betrayal in the garden, I always found the death on the cross (necessary for the previous scenes) heavy-handed and unnecessary, which made the ressurection less a revelation than an attempt to ret-con a bad narrative decision.
It was a terrible let down when I finally read the Gospels and found out Jesus was kind of sanctimonious. I guess I should have seen that one coming.
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Date: 2006-11-07 03:23 pm (UTC)Also, I've heard that Dan Bern is the messiah (http://danbern.redacorn.net/lyrics/jerusalem.html). Man, they just give that title to anyone these days.