Ah, the sweet smell of descent into the blogging version of spam. Except instead of you wasting my time by filling my mailbox with it, I waste your time by making you read it. Bwah-ha-ha, says I.
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1) One book that changed your life:
In the Likeness of God - There aren't any really good candidates, but the more I think of the gap between what the Body of Christ should be, and what it looks like now, the more sense this makes to me.
2) One book you've read more than once:
What's so Amazing About Grace? - I choose this one because it is a good reminder of what I want to be.
3) One book you'd want on a desert island:
Taking a cue from George MacDonald - Wooden Ship-Building.
4) One book that made you laugh:
Mort. Though I really enjoy just about any Discworld novel.
5) One book that made you cry:
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I remember reading this for the first time, crying almost uncontrolably when Gandalf died.
6) One book that you wish had been written:
Just Friends: How to Tell What She Really Thinks Without Looking Like An Ass
7) One book you wish hadn't been written:
I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I'm against anything that can be used to give a guy hope where none exists. This did that effectively to me.
8) One book you're currently reading:
Moby Dick. I'm revisiting classics I never read before.
9) One book you've been meaning to read:
The Cost of Discipleship. I keep starting, not finishing, and restarting it.
10) Tag five others:
Travis-And/Or-Michelle, Christy, Sole Comfort, Romanós, Ken Lund
5 comments:
I'm really not sure how this works. Am I supposed to leave you my responses in a comment? I hope so, 'cause here they are…
1) One book that changed your life:
The Jerusalem Bible (1966 original version) — Reading about Yahweh in the Old Testament made me believe there really was such a Being. It was all predictable from that point on, my life as a follower of Jesus began.
2) One book you've read more than once:
We cannot count the Jeruslem Bible because I read it over and over again every day. So, I would say, any of the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. I read them frequently thruout the year, whenever I feel my childhood starting to slip away.
3) One book you'd want on a desert island:
Again, the Jerusalem Bible! I know I sound rather maniacal about this. I'm sorry, but be sure to include one in my casket, if you happen to attend my funeral. Perhaps I wasn't really dead, and I'd like to read the psalms while I'm waiting to be rescued.
4) One book that made you laugh:
The book of Proverbs ALWAYS makes me laugh. Those Old Testament comics were great!
5) One book that made you cry:
Jesus Freaks II (by DC Talk) — I cried when reading two of the stories. Ordinary crying when I read the story of an Orthodox priest in a communist prison, lying close to the dying communist that was responsible for getting him on death row, hearing his confession, forgiving him, and praying for him. Uncontrollable crying when I read the story of Nate Saint and the mission to the Indians in Ecuador, where all the men were speared, and their wives and children later went and evangelized the tribe. I can't explain this one, but I cried and cried. (I cried and cried, too, when I saw the film of the story, End of the Spear. After seing the film, I told my wife I was called to be a missionary from then on, and starting from then I have been "numbered with the transgressors.")
6) One book that you wish had been written:
Idiot's Guide to Finding the Right Church… Early!
7) One book you wish hadn't been written:
The Qur'an.
8) One book you're currently reading:
The Greek New Testament.
9) One book you've been meaning to read:
Honestly, here's nothing new that's worth reading. The Bible has never bored me. It's the one book I never get tired of.
10) Tag five others:
I beg off on this one, 'cause I don't really even know if I'm doing this right!
That works just fine. It's lighthearted, but for those that respond it's a way to get to know them a litle better.
I'm curious: what is it about the Jerusalem Bible and Greek New Testament that so appeal to you?
The Jerusalem Bible (the original translation, not the one currently being promoted under the name "New Jerusalem Bible") was a product of the School of Biblical Studies in Jerusalem in the post-war years, finished and published in 1966.
As I said in my Tagged comment, the use of the divine name Yahweh somehow made the person of the Godhead (I hate to say it that way) very real, tangible, non-religious, and immediate. Yahweh is a God I could believe in, could follow. As I was evolving out of the "New Age" spirituality that had seduced me in college years, to meet the God of the universe under a personal name was compelling. I can't really explain it any better.
What happened to me was, I began my pilgrimage back to the Father and to Orthodoxy by becoming first a Jew! I read the JB cover-to-cover, in order. One thing I liked a lot and still do, is the fresh, natural, yet poetic and rhythmic writing style, that conveys the enigmas of the Word of God with a sense of awe. Even though it was modern English, it was in the dialect of awe and beauty. The psalms are rhythmical and I have in fact made songs out of some of them. The rhythmical translation is very easy to memorize as well. One more thing, the Old Testament Apocrypha are presented in the same order as they exist in the Greek Old Testament, which is the authoritative Bible version of the Orthodox Church, rather than the Hebrew (which actually dates a little later). The Wisdom books of the JB Old Testament are particularly well-translated.
The New Testament of the JB is also very good, especially in the books by John, where the translation is very vigorous. Revelation is also very dynamic in the JB translation.
The Jerusalem Bible was the version that brought me to Christ, and I have never left it.
Now, why the Greek New Testament? I am coming to realize that in the Orthodox Church it is essential that we do not give up koiné Greek as a living language, that in fact we need to incorporate more biblical Greek in our everyday Christian English, as an anti-dote to the religious syncretism of words that are mostly Roman Catholic in origin, and tend to bring unwanted baggage with them (sacrament, for example, in Greek, is mysterion, no baggage, a pure concept that once learned remains fixed in the memory, ready for action).
I am also finding that the Greek NT will be beneficial to evangelicals if they learn to read and understand it the Greek way, and learn to speak its words as the living language that it is. Unfortunately, the way NT Greek is taught in colleges and non-Orthodox seminaries, it is presented as a dead language, and so the very possibility that it can be a spoken language of faith is not even considered. Among the Greek Orthodox, under pressure from the contemporary "scene", it is starting to erode. This can't happen. The time is close. (O kairós enghís estín.)
Also, to read and understand certain books of the NT, particularly Revelation (Apokálypsis tou Yisoú Christoú), unveils and reveals a lot. By this, I certainly don't mean that the modern translations, NIV, JB, NKJV, etc., should be abandoned. No! The Word of God has to be studied, taught and proclaimed in the best vernacular, but those who CAN enter into the Greek SHOULD, and you never know till you try.
What I have found with the Greek NT is, because I have the English pretty well memorised, the Greek, as I read it (out loud, of course!) almost translates itself.
I am depending on God to vindicate what I am doing. It seems I have always been out on the forward edge of the movement of His armies. Could that be why I take so many hits?
Sorry, my brother, for this loooong comment. You asked. I told.
Go with God!
Ask for it I did, and I'm glad I got it. I'm sure I've talked longer about less important topics, so I would be in no position to judge, even if I cared to do so.
Sole Comfort posted a list on her blog.
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