Ian McKay, Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada’s Left History (2005).
I’m torn about the value of this book, for a number of reasons.
1) It contains a significant material that McKay has published elsewhere. At a little more than 200 pages, much of two of the five chapters were published in 2000. That being said, these chapters had been widely recognized as important reading for scholars of 20th-century Canadian history.
2) A goodly portion of the book (the first three chapters) reads like a very general introduction to socialist/Marxist/Gramscian thought. While this is entertaining to read, and well-written, it does not seem particularly necessary to add to material that is already widely available elsewhere.
3) The fifth chapter, which ‘maps’ Canadian left history between 1890 and 1990 over five stages is an extremely interesting and helpful initial reconnaissance of a widely overlooked area of national historical experience that is often misrepresented or misunderstood when it is investigated. Of the entire book, it is this fifth chapter that makes the text memorable.
Mackay does clarify usage of a number of terms that I note here for personal reference:
1) Matrix-events: A term from the Annales school. The shock of the new. “[…A] moment that reshapes hegemony at both its profoundest structural levels and its conscious levels.” (95)
2) Moments of refusal: When the order’s appearance of permanence gives way to an appearance of historical transience, resistance which before had been silent and passive breaks out in a multitude of unexpected and often violent ways. (103)
3) Moments of supersedure: A term from Gramsci. Those times when an individuals understanding of the world and its order significantly changes, when these changes are widespread, and when the urgency of discovery compels sharing with others.
4) Moment of systematization: As the heat of the moment of supersedure passes, the knowledge must be tested against other examples, and given a common language and program. It must also be tested against and applied to past methods and concepts of resistance.
5) Formations: Systematization leads to “a way of disseminating [each left organizations’] concepts through a much wider social network.” (112) Similar to Gramsci’s ‘historic bloc’; a new historical agent, united by an overriding political objective.
Thursday 17 December 2009
Robert Persig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (1974)
Robert M. Persig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (1974).
This book was certainly not what I thought it was. Perhaps gauged from the title, I had always thought it was something like Kerouac’s On The Road. …and it is. The book documents a motorcycle road trip across the American Midwest by a man and his son. On the other hand, it is quite different as well. We come to learn that the man is recovering from some sort of psychological collapse, brought on in part from his consideration of philosophical issues related to the nature of quality.
I read this text purely on the recommendation of someone whose opinions about such things I respect. The philosophic nature of the writing, the real sense of struggle with concepts and ideas struck me as being similar to Dostoyevskii at his best (in The Brothers Karamazov, for instance). On the other hand, as the text progressed, I found the portions dealing with the father’s mental illness less and less clear, and hardly necessary to the story. I fear that perhaps I might be missing some allusion to a famous or important philosophic parable, but none came to mind. If this comparison was intended, I wish it had been made ever so slightly clearer.
In the context of conversations with the recommender, the portion of the text I found most valuable dealt with ‘Gumptionology’, or “an examination of affective, cognitive and psychomotor blocks in the perception of Quality relationships. In other words, the things that cause us to “lose one’s enthusiasm for what one is doing.” Let me reiterate what Persig says about these blocks, as he attempts to explain them in relation to motorcycle repair (of course, they apply to many other tasks as well, which is part of the value of the text).
There are two types of ‘gumption’ blocks: those arising from external circumstances (setbacks) and those from internal conditions (hang-ups). My notes on these blocks are primarily for my own use, and so might raise as many questions as they answer (and if you have questions, feel free to raise them here…).
External:
1) Out of sequence re-assembly: discovering that you’ve taken something apart that you’re having trouble putting back together. Strategy for overcoming it: a) keep a notebook as you disassemble something, noting positions of parts and other observations that seem useful in the re-assembly process; b) keep the parts spread out on newspaper, in order, as you disassemble, so that in re-assembly you don’t overlook parts.
2) Intermittent failure. The problem that appears only occasionally, giving the illusion that it has fixed itself, or that you have fixed it. Strategy for overcoming: Take advantage of the opportunities for monitoring the problem. Compare and note what the context of the problem is; what else is going on when the problem appears that might indicate its roots, or be noted as another symptom of the problem.
3) Setback: parts are hard to find, expensive, and don’t always fit like the originals. Strategy for overcoming: a) find a cooperative parts dealer, and get to know them well; b) always take the old part with you to show the parts dealer exactly what it is you are looking for; c) consider machining your own parts, if you have some money and time to spare.
Internal:
Affective (“value traps”)
1) Value rigidity: “If your values are rigid you can’t learn new facts.” The problem might be staring you in the face, but your value system (where you expect and look for the problem) can’t accommodate for problems from outside the spectrum you’ve prioritized. Strategy for overcoming: a) look at the machine like you look at your line when you’re fishing: slow down, observe, look for subtle inconsistencies, set your presumptions aside.
2) Ego: “If you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new facts is weakened.” You tend to make stupid mistakes, or work too fast based on overconfidence or a desire to impress. Strategy for overcoming: “Deliberately assume you’re not much good…”
3) Anxiety: the opposite of ego; assuming that you are no good, which paralyzes you. Strategy for overcoming: a) read a lot about the task, b) make a list of what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, and why.
4) Boredom: you’ve lost your ‘beginner’s mind’ and assume that what you’re doing doesn’t require real attention or thought. Strategy for overcoming: a) Walk away for a while and do something else to refresh your mind; b) be attentive to the aesthetics of the familiar.
5) Impatience: Underestimating the amount of work and attention required, and the carelessness that results. Strategy for overcoming: a) allow more time than you think you’ll need; b) scale down the scope of what you want to do to ensure it is manageable within your skills and experience.
Cognitive (“truth traps”)
1) Yes-no logic: Elementary two-term discrimination. Strategy for overcoming: Consider the Japanese word mu, “no thing.” A test or experiment that comes up with an answer outside the two-term binary is not a failure, but an indicator that the test might be internally limited in its capacity to measure the problem.
Psychomotor (“muscle traps”)
1) Inadequate tools: Pretty straightforward. Strategy for overcoming: if you depend on your tools, adequately invest in them.
2) Bad surroundings: Pretty straightforward, as well. If you want to do a job well, don’t force your body to enter into the task in an uncomfortable position, temperature, lighting, or sound environment.
3) Muscular insensitivity: Not paying proper respect to precision parts and material elasticity. Precision parts require precision handling, and although you might be working on something that appears rugged, most machines involve some parts that are sensitively tooled. Strategies for overcoming: In short, respect. Your machine is a lot of costs, and a refined and really, quite miraculous object. Treat it accordingly.
In summary, in what I think was the most thought-provoking and wisest statements in the book, Persig offers this advice: “It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the way the experts do it. The making of a painting or the fixing of a motorcycle isn’t separate from the rest of your existence."
This book was certainly not what I thought it was. Perhaps gauged from the title, I had always thought it was something like Kerouac’s On The Road. …and it is. The book documents a motorcycle road trip across the American Midwest by a man and his son. On the other hand, it is quite different as well. We come to learn that the man is recovering from some sort of psychological collapse, brought on in part from his consideration of philosophical issues related to the nature of quality.
I read this text purely on the recommendation of someone whose opinions about such things I respect. The philosophic nature of the writing, the real sense of struggle with concepts and ideas struck me as being similar to Dostoyevskii at his best (in The Brothers Karamazov, for instance). On the other hand, as the text progressed, I found the portions dealing with the father’s mental illness less and less clear, and hardly necessary to the story. I fear that perhaps I might be missing some allusion to a famous or important philosophic parable, but none came to mind. If this comparison was intended, I wish it had been made ever so slightly clearer.
In the context of conversations with the recommender, the portion of the text I found most valuable dealt with ‘Gumptionology’, or “an examination of affective, cognitive and psychomotor blocks in the perception of Quality relationships. In other words, the things that cause us to “lose one’s enthusiasm for what one is doing.” Let me reiterate what Persig says about these blocks, as he attempts to explain them in relation to motorcycle repair (of course, they apply to many other tasks as well, which is part of the value of the text).
There are two types of ‘gumption’ blocks: those arising from external circumstances (setbacks) and those from internal conditions (hang-ups). My notes on these blocks are primarily for my own use, and so might raise as many questions as they answer (and if you have questions, feel free to raise them here…).
External:
1) Out of sequence re-assembly: discovering that you’ve taken something apart that you’re having trouble putting back together. Strategy for overcoming it: a) keep a notebook as you disassemble something, noting positions of parts and other observations that seem useful in the re-assembly process; b) keep the parts spread out on newspaper, in order, as you disassemble, so that in re-assembly you don’t overlook parts.
2) Intermittent failure. The problem that appears only occasionally, giving the illusion that it has fixed itself, or that you have fixed it. Strategy for overcoming: Take advantage of the opportunities for monitoring the problem. Compare and note what the context of the problem is; what else is going on when the problem appears that might indicate its roots, or be noted as another symptom of the problem.
3) Setback: parts are hard to find, expensive, and don’t always fit like the originals. Strategy for overcoming: a) find a cooperative parts dealer, and get to know them well; b) always take the old part with you to show the parts dealer exactly what it is you are looking for; c) consider machining your own parts, if you have some money and time to spare.
Internal:
Affective (“value traps”)
1) Value rigidity: “If your values are rigid you can’t learn new facts.” The problem might be staring you in the face, but your value system (where you expect and look for the problem) can’t accommodate for problems from outside the spectrum you’ve prioritized. Strategy for overcoming: a) look at the machine like you look at your line when you’re fishing: slow down, observe, look for subtle inconsistencies, set your presumptions aside.
2) Ego: “If you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new facts is weakened.” You tend to make stupid mistakes, or work too fast based on overconfidence or a desire to impress. Strategy for overcoming: “Deliberately assume you’re not much good…”
3) Anxiety: the opposite of ego; assuming that you are no good, which paralyzes you. Strategy for overcoming: a) read a lot about the task, b) make a list of what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, and why.
4) Boredom: you’ve lost your ‘beginner’s mind’ and assume that what you’re doing doesn’t require real attention or thought. Strategy for overcoming: a) Walk away for a while and do something else to refresh your mind; b) be attentive to the aesthetics of the familiar.
5) Impatience: Underestimating the amount of work and attention required, and the carelessness that results. Strategy for overcoming: a) allow more time than you think you’ll need; b) scale down the scope of what you want to do to ensure it is manageable within your skills and experience.
Cognitive (“truth traps”)
1) Yes-no logic: Elementary two-term discrimination. Strategy for overcoming: Consider the Japanese word mu, “no thing.” A test or experiment that comes up with an answer outside the two-term binary is not a failure, but an indicator that the test might be internally limited in its capacity to measure the problem.
Psychomotor (“muscle traps”)
1) Inadequate tools: Pretty straightforward. Strategy for overcoming: if you depend on your tools, adequately invest in them.
2) Bad surroundings: Pretty straightforward, as well. If you want to do a job well, don’t force your body to enter into the task in an uncomfortable position, temperature, lighting, or sound environment.
3) Muscular insensitivity: Not paying proper respect to precision parts and material elasticity. Precision parts require precision handling, and although you might be working on something that appears rugged, most machines involve some parts that are sensitively tooled. Strategies for overcoming: In short, respect. Your machine is a lot of costs, and a refined and really, quite miraculous object. Treat it accordingly.
In summary, in what I think was the most thought-provoking and wisest statements in the book, Persig offers this advice: “It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the way the experts do it. The making of a painting or the fixing of a motorcycle isn’t separate from the rest of your existence."
Monday 16 November 2009
Pierre Berton, "Prisoners of the North" (2004)
Pierre Berton, Prisoners of the North (Toronto, ON: Doubleday, 2004).
Berton is one of Canada’s most eminent ‘popular historians’, meaning he is one of those writers who:
a) spends significant time exploring a place or time period through the experiences of exceptional (or exemplary) individuals, and
b) he provides very little guidance as to how he has arrived at what he claims to be fact (better said, he does not provide the reader with a convenient means to check what in his stories is fact, what is supposition, and what is creative interjection). This would be more problematic if Berton attempted to shake the foundations of Canadian history. He does not do this. His proposals about history are rarely earth-shaking.
I admit that this book offered me new information, however, on a number of historical figures I was not familiar with: among them, Lady Jane Franklin (spouse of the ill-fated Northwest Passage explorer); 'Klondike' Joe Boyle, a Dawson (Yukon) entrepreneur who rose to fame as a WWI soldier in Romania; John Hornby, a lone explorer who died in the Northwest Territories trekking from Edmonton to Hudson’s Bay. The book also covers the work of explorer/anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and poet Robert Service. One or two of these figures might deserve larger consideration in the writing of Canadian history, but on the whole, I think the people Berton’s memorializes serve better as emblematic symbols of certain types of Canadian experiences and people.
On the whole, Prisoners of the North is entertaining and informative, no doubt. The historian in me would like more information, however, as to where Berton collected the information for his writing.
Berton is one of Canada’s most eminent ‘popular historians’, meaning he is one of those writers who:
a) spends significant time exploring a place or time period through the experiences of exceptional (or exemplary) individuals, and
b) he provides very little guidance as to how he has arrived at what he claims to be fact (better said, he does not provide the reader with a convenient means to check what in his stories is fact, what is supposition, and what is creative interjection). This would be more problematic if Berton attempted to shake the foundations of Canadian history. He does not do this. His proposals about history are rarely earth-shaking.
I admit that this book offered me new information, however, on a number of historical figures I was not familiar with: among them, Lady Jane Franklin (spouse of the ill-fated Northwest Passage explorer); 'Klondike' Joe Boyle, a Dawson (Yukon) entrepreneur who rose to fame as a WWI soldier in Romania; John Hornby, a lone explorer who died in the Northwest Territories trekking from Edmonton to Hudson’s Bay. The book also covers the work of explorer/anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and poet Robert Service. One or two of these figures might deserve larger consideration in the writing of Canadian history, but on the whole, I think the people Berton’s memorializes serve better as emblematic symbols of certain types of Canadian experiences and people.
On the whole, Prisoners of the North is entertaining and informative, no doubt. The historian in me would like more information, however, as to where Berton collected the information for his writing.
Sunday 1 November 2009
Ann Fessler, "The Girls Who Went Away" (2007)
Subtitle: "The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade."
Fessler has produced a striking text, filled with short testimonials from women whose babies were taken from them (this is one of the core arguments of the text, that these women rarely voluntarily sought to "dispose" of their children) during the 1950s and 1960s. Building around a solid skeleton of statistical and policy history regarding adoption and pregnancy among unmarried young women, the text offers a concise and clear introduction to a complex and challenging issue. The real strength of the text, however, is the testimony from voices rarely consulted.
Saturday 31 October 2009
Hans Jonas, "The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God..." (1958)
Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God & the Beginnings of Christianity (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958).
This is one of the most thought-provoking books that I have ever read. Jonas explores and unravels the intricate fabric of Gnostic religious thought that developed concurrently with early Christianity. The two faiths competed, responding to some of the same pressures rising within Judaism, the Greek cults, and other Middle Eastern religions. Where Jonas’ book is particularly thought-provoking is that he spends almost no time at all placing these beliefs within a socio-political context, instead exploring their philosophical origins, the basic tenets of their faith, and including examples (where they exist) of liturgy and theological writing from the Gnostics themselves.
Just one example of the intriguing concepts Jonas shares from the Gnostics is a comparison of the Greek and Gnostic conceptions of the term cosmos. While the Greeks perceived the word as addressing ‘the all’ as we think of it today, they also perceived this all-encompassing nature to intimate a kind of perfection – a universal order – that was intoned respectfully. The Gnostics, on the other hand, perceiving that the world itself was made faultily, by a flawed and imperfect god among other, higher gods, perceived the cosmos as the ultimate indication of imperfection within the human experience. Instead of perfection, the cosmos was an indicator of what humans needed to transcend. The cosmos’ imperfection was proof of Gnostics ideas regarding God.
The Gnostic Religion was written in the middle of the twentieth-century, and much has been discovered and written about the Gnostics since this time. Jonas updated his text with a chapter related to what were then the new discoveries at Nag Hammadi, but many of these texts had not been fully translated or released in ‘official versions’. Nonetheless, the book conveys a convincing sense of the theological environment in which Gnostic religious thought arose, by identifying different streams of thinking within Gnostic thought avoids the unhelpful reduction of this thought to ideology, and indicates some of the complexity and evolution within this body of thinking.
Fully considered, an excellent book, although with its rather involved theological discussions, perhaps not a good start for those new to thinking about Gnosticism, or those unfamiliar with philosophy or theological thinking.
This is one of the most thought-provoking books that I have ever read. Jonas explores and unravels the intricate fabric of Gnostic religious thought that developed concurrently with early Christianity. The two faiths competed, responding to some of the same pressures rising within Judaism, the Greek cults, and other Middle Eastern religions. Where Jonas’ book is particularly thought-provoking is that he spends almost no time at all placing these beliefs within a socio-political context, instead exploring their philosophical origins, the basic tenets of their faith, and including examples (where they exist) of liturgy and theological writing from the Gnostics themselves.
Just one example of the intriguing concepts Jonas shares from the Gnostics is a comparison of the Greek and Gnostic conceptions of the term cosmos. While the Greeks perceived the word as addressing ‘the all’ as we think of it today, they also perceived this all-encompassing nature to intimate a kind of perfection – a universal order – that was intoned respectfully. The Gnostics, on the other hand, perceiving that the world itself was made faultily, by a flawed and imperfect god among other, higher gods, perceived the cosmos as the ultimate indication of imperfection within the human experience. Instead of perfection, the cosmos was an indicator of what humans needed to transcend. The cosmos’ imperfection was proof of Gnostics ideas regarding God.
The Gnostic Religion was written in the middle of the twentieth-century, and much has been discovered and written about the Gnostics since this time. Jonas updated his text with a chapter related to what were then the new discoveries at Nag Hammadi, but many of these texts had not been fully translated or released in ‘official versions’. Nonetheless, the book conveys a convincing sense of the theological environment in which Gnostic religious thought arose, by identifying different streams of thinking within Gnostic thought avoids the unhelpful reduction of this thought to ideology, and indicates some of the complexity and evolution within this body of thinking.
Fully considered, an excellent book, although with its rather involved theological discussions, perhaps not a good start for those new to thinking about Gnosticism, or those unfamiliar with philosophy or theological thinking.
Monday 26 October 2009
Friday 23 October 2009
Conservative Party history: Flanagan, "Harper's Team" (2007); Plamondon, "Full Circle" (2006)
Tom Flanagan, Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power (Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007).
Bob Plamondon, Full Circle: Death and Resurrection in Canadian Conservative Politics (Toronto, ON: Key Porter, 2006).
Loathe as I am to do anything which might smack of granting endorsement to the current Canadian government, I am curious how the neo-Tories are beginning to write the history of their coming together as a unified political front. Since 1984, we’ve seen the federal Progressive Conservatives take their largest majority (211 seats) and smallest representation in the House of Commons ever (2 seats) [Plamondon shares the great joke that circulated during Jean Charest’s tenure as PC leader, that Charest’s wife was sleeping with half the PC caucus], we’ve witnessed the rise and fall of Preston Manning’s Reform Party, the conversion of Reform into the Canadian Alliance, and finally, the collapsing of the Alliance and PCs into the Conservative Party of Canada.
Flanagan and Plamondon approach much the same material, but with quite different points of focus. Flanagan speaks directly as a party insider, sharing his insights, observations, and concerns as an election and policy strategist. The book is, in the end, the story of Stephen Harper’s rise from the perspective of someone close to the man. Plamondon, on the other hand, is absent from his own story. He narrates the longer duration evolution of conservative party politics in Canadian from the mid-1980s, primarily by telling the stories of three very different men: Preston Manning, Peter Mackay, and Stephen Harper (although Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, and Belinda Stronach also figure prominently). His own role in this evolution, however, is never stated.
While it may be small-minded, I couldn’t help but be distracted by the number of typos in Plamondon’s book, as well as his rather heavy-handed potshots at political opponents (at the same time, I admit that the NDPs record during this time does leave much to be desired).
Flanagan’s book is great for those who want to know how the neo-Tories strategized their rise. It is a well-written guidebook for campaigners. Plamondon decently articulates a trajectory of a political movement that has influenced Canadian development for the last 20 years, and to his credit, captures some of the ‘insider’ battles, spite, and compromises that led Canadian conservatives out of the political wasteland. Neither author, however, convincingly gets inside the head of the current Prime Minister, alternately characterizing him as vindictive, hard-headed, and hungry for power, or pragmatic and willing to compromise to achieve his vision for Canada. As he has now served as Prime Minister for a few years, and may (gasp of horror) for a few more, this is an important challenge to resolve.
Bob Plamondon, Full Circle: Death and Resurrection in Canadian Conservative Politics (Toronto, ON: Key Porter, 2006).
Loathe as I am to do anything which might smack of granting endorsement to the current Canadian government, I am curious how the neo-Tories are beginning to write the history of their coming together as a unified political front. Since 1984, we’ve seen the federal Progressive Conservatives take their largest majority (211 seats) and smallest representation in the House of Commons ever (2 seats) [Plamondon shares the great joke that circulated during Jean Charest’s tenure as PC leader, that Charest’s wife was sleeping with half the PC caucus], we’ve witnessed the rise and fall of Preston Manning’s Reform Party, the conversion of Reform into the Canadian Alliance, and finally, the collapsing of the Alliance and PCs into the Conservative Party of Canada.
Flanagan and Plamondon approach much the same material, but with quite different points of focus. Flanagan speaks directly as a party insider, sharing his insights, observations, and concerns as an election and policy strategist. The book is, in the end, the story of Stephen Harper’s rise from the perspective of someone close to the man. Plamondon, on the other hand, is absent from his own story. He narrates the longer duration evolution of conservative party politics in Canadian from the mid-1980s, primarily by telling the stories of three very different men: Preston Manning, Peter Mackay, and Stephen Harper (although Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, and Belinda Stronach also figure prominently). His own role in this evolution, however, is never stated.
While it may be small-minded, I couldn’t help but be distracted by the number of typos in Plamondon’s book, as well as his rather heavy-handed potshots at political opponents (at the same time, I admit that the NDPs record during this time does leave much to be desired).
Flanagan’s book is great for those who want to know how the neo-Tories strategized their rise. It is a well-written guidebook for campaigners. Plamondon decently articulates a trajectory of a political movement that has influenced Canadian development for the last 20 years, and to his credit, captures some of the ‘insider’ battles, spite, and compromises that led Canadian conservatives out of the political wasteland. Neither author, however, convincingly gets inside the head of the current Prime Minister, alternately characterizing him as vindictive, hard-headed, and hungry for power, or pragmatic and willing to compromise to achieve his vision for Canada. As he has now served as Prime Minister for a few years, and may (gasp of horror) for a few more, this is an important challenge to resolve.
Friday 16 October 2009
Bart Ehrman, "Jesus Interrupted..." (2009)
Bart Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) (Harper, 2009).
Like Barry Wilson, Ehrman engages in critical analysis of how the texts selected for the Bible were written, how the messages of these texts co-relate, and how the various texts were selected for inclusion into the Biblical canon. He also considers some of the texts that were not included in the canon, exploring the history and themes within the texts, the arguments that raged around whether they should be included in the Bible.
Both authors cover information familiar to scholars of the Bible but that rarely fails to astound those whose critical inquiry has been limited to discussions held in church, or for whom the Bible is foreign territory. Essentially, the message is that the Bible is a product of distinctly human efforts developed over the course of more than a hundred years, that the authors of most of the books of the Bible are not known (despite the various books being named after disciples), and that there are a multitude of contradictions and inconsistencies even between the books accepted into the Biblical canon.
Both authors also describe at length the battles over the right to claim the legacy of Jesus, comparing the faith that developed around Jesus’ brother James in Jerusalem, which adhered closely to Jesus’ attempts to revitalize and strengthen a strict Jewish tradition, and the faith developed by Paul and his adherents that sought to discount many of the distinctly Jewish traits of Jesus’ teachings.
Ehrman's book is well-written and eminently readable, although not - at least to my mind - one of his best works.
See my comments on Wilson's book, How Jesus Became Christian elsewhere on this blog.
Like Barry Wilson, Ehrman engages in critical analysis of how the texts selected for the Bible were written, how the messages of these texts co-relate, and how the various texts were selected for inclusion into the Biblical canon. He also considers some of the texts that were not included in the canon, exploring the history and themes within the texts, the arguments that raged around whether they should be included in the Bible.
Both authors cover information familiar to scholars of the Bible but that rarely fails to astound those whose critical inquiry has been limited to discussions held in church, or for whom the Bible is foreign territory. Essentially, the message is that the Bible is a product of distinctly human efforts developed over the course of more than a hundred years, that the authors of most of the books of the Bible are not known (despite the various books being named after disciples), and that there are a multitude of contradictions and inconsistencies even between the books accepted into the Biblical canon.
Both authors also describe at length the battles over the right to claim the legacy of Jesus, comparing the faith that developed around Jesus’ brother James in Jerusalem, which adhered closely to Jesus’ attempts to revitalize and strengthen a strict Jewish tradition, and the faith developed by Paul and his adherents that sought to discount many of the distinctly Jewish traits of Jesus’ teachings.
Ehrman's book is well-written and eminently readable, although not - at least to my mind - one of his best works.
See my comments on Wilson's book, How Jesus Became Christian elsewhere on this blog.
Book review: "What a Mighty Power We Can Be: African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality" (2006)
Theda Skocpol, Ariane Liazos, and Marshall Ganz, What a Mighty Power We Can Be: African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Princeton University Press, 2006).
This review was published in the online, open source journal, NeoAmericanist Vol 4/No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2009).
http://www.neoamericanist.org/review/what-mighty-power-we-can-be
This review was published in the online, open source journal, NeoAmericanist Vol 4/No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2009).
http://www.neoamericanist.org/review/what-mighty-power-we-can-be
Thursday 15 October 2009
Barrie Wilson, "How Jesus Became Christian" (2008)
Barrie Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian: The Early Christians and the Transformation of a Jewish Teacher Into the Son of God (St. Martin's Press, 2008).
Wilson covers much the same territory as Bart Ehrman is better known for: critical analysis of how the texts selected for the Bible were written, how the messages of these texts co-relate, and how the various texts were selected for inclusion into the Biblical canon. These respected authors also consider some of the texts that were not included in the canon, exploring the history and themes within the texts, the arguments that raged around whether they should be included in the Bible.
Both authors cover information familiar to scholars of the Bible but that rarely fails to astound those whose critical inquiry has been limited to discussions held in church, or for whom the Bible is foreign territory. Essentially, the message is that the Bible is a product of distinctly human efforts developed over the course of more than a hundred years, that the authors of most of the books of the Bible are not known (despite the various books being named after disciples), and that there are a multitude of contradictions and inconsistencies even between the books accepted into the Biblical canon.
Both authors also describe at length the battles over the right to claim the legacy of Jesus, comparing the faith that developed around Jesus’ brother James in Jerusalem, which adhered closely to Jesus’ attempts to revitalize and strengthen a strict Jewish tradition, and the faith developed by Paul and his adherents that sought to discount many of the distinctly Jewish traits of Jesus’ teachings.
Wilson offers a particularly intriguing suggestion, proposing that there is little to no historical support for many of the events described in Acts. From this observation, and after observation of theological and factual inconsistencies between Acts and the biblical texts that were likely written about the same time, Wilson concludes that the events described in Acts likely never occurred, and that they were possible written to provide a ‘missing link’ to support the philosophical, theological, and political aims of the Pauline branch of the early Church against the Jamesian/Jerusalem branch that adhered more closely to Jewish tradition and Jesus’ teachings.
I particularly found Wilson's book well-written and eminently readable. This may be partly due to the fact that Wilson was attempting to advance a quite new, contentious position.
See my comments on Ehrman's Jesus Interrupted... elsewhere on this blog.
Wilson covers much the same territory as Bart Ehrman is better known for: critical analysis of how the texts selected for the Bible were written, how the messages of these texts co-relate, and how the various texts were selected for inclusion into the Biblical canon. These respected authors also consider some of the texts that were not included in the canon, exploring the history and themes within the texts, the arguments that raged around whether they should be included in the Bible.
Both authors cover information familiar to scholars of the Bible but that rarely fails to astound those whose critical inquiry has been limited to discussions held in church, or for whom the Bible is foreign territory. Essentially, the message is that the Bible is a product of distinctly human efforts developed over the course of more than a hundred years, that the authors of most of the books of the Bible are not known (despite the various books being named after disciples), and that there are a multitude of contradictions and inconsistencies even between the books accepted into the Biblical canon.
Both authors also describe at length the battles over the right to claim the legacy of Jesus, comparing the faith that developed around Jesus’ brother James in Jerusalem, which adhered closely to Jesus’ attempts to revitalize and strengthen a strict Jewish tradition, and the faith developed by Paul and his adherents that sought to discount many of the distinctly Jewish traits of Jesus’ teachings.
Wilson offers a particularly intriguing suggestion, proposing that there is little to no historical support for many of the events described in Acts. From this observation, and after observation of theological and factual inconsistencies between Acts and the biblical texts that were likely written about the same time, Wilson concludes that the events described in Acts likely never occurred, and that they were possible written to provide a ‘missing link’ to support the philosophical, theological, and political aims of the Pauline branch of the early Church against the Jamesian/Jerusalem branch that adhered more closely to Jewish tradition and Jesus’ teachings.
I particularly found Wilson's book well-written and eminently readable. This may be partly due to the fact that Wilson was attempting to advance a quite new, contentious position.
See my comments on Ehrman's Jesus Interrupted... elsewhere on this blog.
Thursday 8 October 2009
Saturday 29 August 2009
Halifax, Aug. 2009
Fish and chips at the Henry House. Best I've ever had.
This shot and the one below are of the headstones for those bodies recovered from the Titanic wreckage, or who died soon thereafter, and are buried in Halifax.
Saturday 11 April 2009
The Farm (Minto/Normanby township line), Apr. 2009
Home. c. 1970. Almost 100% likely a photo by my mom.
The mixed rail/slat fence didn't last too long.
Almost all of the photos below show the property I grew up on, which for convenience I call 'the farm', until I was 12 (1970-1982).
The pictures below were taken about 40 years after the one above.
This is the house, viewed from the end of the driveway. Everything's changed a lot since the late 1970s/early 1980s.
This is the view from the road, to the east of the house. What we used to call 'the garden'... and where I used to play a form of golf (we only had a driving iron and a putter, and half the field was plowed, so it was kind of an all or nothing thing).
This is the road heading north, towards Clifford. The knoll just ahead used to be bigger, and was a bit treacherous when cars would come rocketing up out of the swamp and think they were home-free, particularly as we were walking home from the school-bus, which stopped down about where the clump of trees is on the left side of the road.
This is the field directly across from the house. We were regularly amazed by how far we could see.
This is the field directly across from the house, just to the right of the picture above.
The two shots above are the road heading south, down into the swamp, and even a little further, to 'the river' (see below).
All right, I was getting all arty. If you look carefully, you can see migrating birds in the sky. I was remembering how big the sky seemed when I was a little kid, and amazed by how far we could see, and wander without anyone really being too alarmed that we'd be snatched by perverts in a van or something. The shot is taken of the gap between where Stroeders and the Augers used to live (the Augers' farm is on the bottom far right).
All right. This isn't 'the farm' proper, but 'the river' (looking north from the bridge), which when I was kid, almost loomed larger as a place of significance. My siblings might understand, or perhaps other people who grew up in the country. I'm sure few others would
The mixed rail/slat fence didn't last too long.
Almost all of the photos below show the property I grew up on, which for convenience I call 'the farm', until I was 12 (1970-1982).
The pictures below were taken about 40 years after the one above.
This is the house, viewed from the end of the driveway. Everything's changed a lot since the late 1970s/early 1980s.
This is the view from the road, to the east of the house. What we used to call 'the garden'... and where I used to play a form of golf (we only had a driving iron and a putter, and half the field was plowed, so it was kind of an all or nothing thing).
This is the road heading north, towards Clifford. The knoll just ahead used to be bigger, and was a bit treacherous when cars would come rocketing up out of the swamp and think they were home-free, particularly as we were walking home from the school-bus, which stopped down about where the clump of trees is on the left side of the road.
This is the field directly across from the house. We were regularly amazed by how far we could see.
This is the field directly across from the house, just to the right of the picture above.
The two shots above are the road heading south, down into the swamp, and even a little further, to 'the river' (see below).
All right, I was getting all arty. If you look carefully, you can see migrating birds in the sky. I was remembering how big the sky seemed when I was a little kid, and amazed by how far we could see, and wander without anyone really being too alarmed that we'd be snatched by perverts in a van or something. The shot is taken of the gap between where Stroeders and the Augers used to live (the Augers' farm is on the bottom far right).
All right. This isn't 'the farm' proper, but 'the river' (looking north from the bridge), which when I was kid, almost loomed larger as a place of significance. My siblings might understand, or perhaps other people who grew up in the country. I'm sure few others would
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