- An Adam Dalgliesh Mystery
By P. D. James
One disadvantage of reading one book from a series is that you have to tolerate a lot details, romantic ones typically, of the main characters that absolutely unrelated to the development of the story. And this is the case with the Lighthouse, in which many pages and even some short chapters you can safely skip.
The story develops in the same fashion as Murder on the Oriental Express or Gosford Park. It contains fairly interesting suspensions and surprises, but the ending is rather disapointing. It comes with a sudden enlightenment upon the detective (by SARS?) that only connects to a few unexciting details revealed earlier. Like most of the suspense, it ends rapidly with a very unnessesary scene at the lighthouse. Another tiger head and snake tail.
As for the writing, apart from the dragging details about major characters romantic relationship, the book is full of pretnetious quotes which make the reading less serious.
Misquoting Jesus
- The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
By Bart D. Ehrman
Interesting Points:
1. The original version of the Bible was written in Greek, and was lost.
2. Jesus was a Rabi who believed in and taught Torah. His interpretation of God's wordswas different than Mose's sometimes. E.g. adultery (M: should not commit; J: should not even look at a married woman with lust) ; divorce (M: should be documented; J: it's an act of adultery).
3. Ancient world had a low literacy rate (less then 10-15%); Christian circle was even lower, because it composed of poor people.
4. Someone who could only sign his name may be regarded as literate.
5. Ancient Greek was written in the same way as Chinese, scriptuo continua. There's no punctuation mark, no upper/lowercase letters, no space between words. (Godisnowhere = God is now here or God is nowhere.)
6. Most of the copying was done by professional in Roman world, but in early Christian world, by people who wanted the books (indicating more mistakes).
7. Examples of later add-ons: a) John 7:53-8:12, The Woman Taken in Adultery. (Only appears in John, not appeared in the earliest available versions, unique style and vocabulary.) b) The last twelve verses of Mark, about what happened after Sabbath. (In addition to the common evidence, Mary Magdalene was introduced as she never appeared before.) The verses were added to avoid an abrupt ending of the Gospel whick was actually common in Mark's (according to Mark, the disciples rarely understand Jesus.)
8. Alexandria, Egypt had the most scupulous scribes, and therefore, preserved a pure form of early Christian writings.
9. At the beginning of the 4th century, church began to use professional scribes.
10. The Bible used by the Western Church - Jerome's Latin translation.
11. The explanantion of Trinity only appeared in the published Latiin version of the Bible, not in the original published Greek version (16th century), but was added to the Erasmus' Greek version by translating the passage from Latin. Erasmus' version later became the base for King James' English version.
12. John Mill's Apparatus, some 30 thousands of variations to the Textus Receptus, the "original" Greek Bible.
I read the first half of the book with great enthusiasm, though it is only a background knowledge on bible textual criticism. This is the part that relates to what I did for several years with early historical texts in Chinese and this is the part the author can speak with confidence and authority. The core of the book, which is the last three chapters, are understandably dragging to me. The reasons are given by many reviews to the book available online.
One of the major criticism of the book is that it elaborates the only examples one could find while indicating that there are more. This may sound very unscientific to a lay person, but a textual critics would sympathize that that one single spark is exciting enough to lure one to spend the rest of his career on the topic - you believe that you have a sound theory developes from it, and eventually, that's still the only thing you got. This totally reminds me of the good old days with Shiji, the feeling that I had come close to something, and in the end, the very reason I leave it all behind.
One other thing I have to agree with those reviews is that, the title is somehow misleading. It's an obvious attempt to sell the book. On the other hand, the author has mastered the penmanship well to deserve a best-selling. Still a fun reading against all the odds.
By Bart D. Ehrman
Interesting Points:
1. The original version of the Bible was written in Greek, and was lost.
2. Jesus was a Rabi who believed in and taught Torah. His interpretation of God's wordswas different than Mose's sometimes. E.g. adultery (M: should not commit; J: should not even look at a married woman with lust) ; divorce (M: should be documented; J: it's an act of adultery).
3. Ancient world had a low literacy rate (less then 10-15%); Christian circle was even lower, because it composed of poor people.
4. Someone who could only sign his name may be regarded as literate.
5. Ancient Greek was written in the same way as Chinese, scriptuo continua. There's no punctuation mark, no upper/lowercase letters, no space between words. (Godisnowhere = God is now here or God is nowhere.)
6. Most of the copying was done by professional in Roman world, but in early Christian world, by people who wanted the books (indicating more mistakes).
7. Examples of later add-ons: a) John 7:53-8:12, The Woman Taken in Adultery. (Only appears in John, not appeared in the earliest available versions, unique style and vocabulary.) b) The last twelve verses of Mark, about what happened after Sabbath. (In addition to the common evidence, Mary Magdalene was introduced as she never appeared before.) The verses were added to avoid an abrupt ending of the Gospel whick was actually common in Mark's (according to Mark, the disciples rarely understand Jesus.)
8. Alexandria, Egypt had the most scupulous scribes, and therefore, preserved a pure form of early Christian writings.
9. At the beginning of the 4th century, church began to use professional scribes.
10. The Bible used by the Western Church - Jerome's Latin translation.
11. The explanantion of Trinity only appeared in the published Latiin version of the Bible, not in the original published Greek version (16th century), but was added to the Erasmus' Greek version by translating the passage from Latin. Erasmus' version later became the base for King James' English version.
12. John Mill's Apparatus, some 30 thousands of variations to the Textus Receptus, the "original" Greek Bible.
I read the first half of the book with great enthusiasm, though it is only a background knowledge on bible textual criticism. This is the part that relates to what I did for several years with early historical texts in Chinese and this is the part the author can speak with confidence and authority. The core of the book, which is the last three chapters, are understandably dragging to me. The reasons are given by many reviews to the book available online.
One of the major criticism of the book is that it elaborates the only examples one could find while indicating that there are more. This may sound very unscientific to a lay person, but a textual critics would sympathize that that one single spark is exciting enough to lure one to spend the rest of his career on the topic - you believe that you have a sound theory developes from it, and eventually, that's still the only thing you got. This totally reminds me of the good old days with Shiji, the feeling that I had come close to something, and in the end, the very reason I leave it all behind.
One other thing I have to agree with those reviews is that, the title is somehow misleading. It's an obvious attempt to sell the book. On the other hand, the author has mastered the penmanship well to deserve a best-selling. Still a fun reading against all the odds.
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