The Origin of Satan

This book is by Elaine Pagels.

Before reading this book, I had understood that the current "mainstream" understanding of Satan is different from that of most pre-Christian Jews, but I was not sure how we got to this point. I was not expecting what this book proposes as the explanation, but it does sound reasonable.

According to Ms. Pagels, the idea of Satan as waging a battle against God has a lot to do with the situations the Jews faced during the times not long before the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent sectarian fighting that led to the separation of the Jews and the Christians. This continued to develop with the persecution of the Christians by the Romans and later during the campaign of the orthodox Christians against heretics in the early church and beyond. Demonizing an opponent is a simplified way of putting it.

One side benefit to me is a new perspective on the Gospel of Thomas and even more so on Valentinus and the Gospel of Phillip. I had written off the latter two as too way out, but Ms. Pagels' explanation of them makes me want to take another look. I will start with some of her other books on these subjects.

The Satan book did get a little dry in the middle at times, but it was mostly a good read. Give it a try and see what you think.

Unitarian Universalism - a Narrative History

This book is by David Bumbaugh.

First, the book is strange in how it is laid out. The chapters or sections are more or less all run together. It would have been easier to read if these had been better offset from each other. This and other font and editorial issues made the book appear as made by amatuers.

That being said, the writing was better than the appearance, but did leave something to be desired in places. It did "breeze along" in many spots giving it a very superficial feel. Of course, it was covering a lot of territiory in a short space.

I would have prefered more information on the philosophy of the individuals mentioned, although, here and there some was offered. I did gain new respect for Emerson and Parker given what was quoted from them.

One thing that remains a mystery to me after reading this book is how the humanists managed their "take-over" in Unitarianism. This is really glossed over.

As the book moved along, and especially in the section on Univeralism, there seemed to be merely a list of dates, conventions and social concerns with not a lot of substance. An exception to this was the situation surrounding the UU involvement in civil rights; it turned into kind of a disaster which was a surprise to me. I must say that I did have to respect the UU board for trying to avoid some hypocrisy in this instance at the cost of loss of political correctness.

All in all, it is worth a read if you want an overview of the subject and are not bothered by what it lacks. It is not overly dense, so one can read it quickly.

Let me know what you think.

The Old Testament

In April 2006, I started reading a selected list of books of the Old Testament. I finally finished today. My list was Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah and Zechariah.

Of these, I think I liked Proverbs and Ecclesiates best; lots of great condensed truths. There were several portions of the others that I liked also. I did find Psalms, Isaiah and Jeremiah to be a bit long for what they had to say to someone like me.

This whole project was something new for me. I had never read such large portions of the Bible all together. It had some interesting effects. If nothing else, I now know where a lot of expressions come from and their context.

I will now move on to selections from the Apocrypha, and then I plan to read the entire New Testament. I am using the RSV; the notes are helpful. It will be interesting to see where this takes me from here. Will keep you posted.

Out of Egypt

I just finished this book by Andre Aciman. It was great!!!

Funny how you find good books sometimes. I had some credit at a used bookstore and could not find anything I really wanted, so settled for this book. As it turns out, I could not have done better if they had had something on my list.

This book is the memoir of a Jewish family that lived in Egypt from about 1905-1965. The author is a member of this family. This was a family of many real characters. Their lives were very interesting even when doing "everyday" things. Of course the setting, Alexandria, Egypt, did have something to do with that I guess.

But in addition to that, this family was sort of an ex-patriot family living among other ethnic really ex-patriot groups - a very odd status in many ways. They all lived in Egypt in its transition years from colony to Nasser/independence. The Nasser Egyptian goverment did not treat these people that well, but then they were not all that "nice" about the Egyptians. They were decent ot their Egyptian servants I guess, but did seem to hold others in contempt in many ways.

An inside view of an unusual situation and time. An excellent read. Give it a try. It has been out over 10 years, but I bet it can still be found pretty easily.

The Upanishads

These are the more philosophical and last part of the Vedas of India. I read the Easwaran translation.

This was my first major foray into the actual holy literature of India. There is a lot to gain reading this! Some of the longer pieces are only excerpted which may be a little unfortunate, because I saw more complete versions that had a few very interesting things that were left out here. But, I guess the translator here did not want to overwhelm people new to the study. Overall, he did a good job I think. The Upanishads were easy to read and appreciate in the way he presented them; of course, only the "major" ones are presented with a few "minor" ones thrown in at the end.

I think that the main point to get from these works is that all things are united in God somehow, even though they look very diverse on the surface. If we truly realize this, then we cannot hate and would love instead. The other lessons taught seem to flow from this point, more or less.

In future, I look forward to studying more of India's wisdom. I will soon be looking at the Bhagavad Gita and other works. Stay tuned for reports on these. I do recommend taking a look at the Upanishads in the meantime.

Sons

This book is by Pearl S. Buck and is the first sequel to THE GOOD EARTH. I thought it was very good, as are all of her other books that I have read.

In this book, the farmer from the previous book dies, and then the book follows the lives of his three sons - the lazy one, the merchant and the solidier - over many years. The ending seems to have something to do with the rise of Mao, but it is never stated for sure. Of course, the book was written in the very early 1930's, so maybe Ms. Buck did not know exactly what all the revolution was about yet.

What is interesting about her writing style is that she looks into the minds of all the characters and in fairly simple sentence structure gives you a lot of detail. Might sound tedious, but it is actually very easy to read and sails right along. You want to know these people.

There is a third book in the series which I now have and will read and report on in future. If you liked THE GOOD EARTH, be sure to read SONS also.