The 50 book Challenge 2011
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The Curious Squid
- Lazy Spic Bastard
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Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
What, if you've finished one before Anna then you haven't mentioned it here!
We have no great war, no great depression.
Our great war is a spiritual war.
Our great depression is our lives.
Our great war is a spiritual war.
Our great depression is our lives.
JimC wrote:Ratz is just beautiful...
Where else could you go from the taste of raw egg to licking marmalade off tits in such a short space of time?
Pensioner wrote:I worked for 50 years and that's long enough for anyone, luckily I worked to live not lived for work.
Lozzer wrote:You ain't Scottish unless you live off Chicken nuggets, White Lightening and speak like an incomprehensible cow.
Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
Clinton has read one.
Libertarianism: The belief that out of all the terrible things governments can do, helping people is the absolute worst.
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The Curious Squid
- Lazy Spic Bastard
- Posts: 7648
- Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:51 pm
- About me: a sexually deviant misogynist sexist pig who's into sex trafficking, sexual slavery, murder, bondage, rape and pre-frontal lobotomy of your victims.
- Location: Glasgow, Scotland
- Contact:
Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
Ah, eh.......
We have no great war, no great depression.
Our great war is a spiritual war.
Our great depression is our lives.
Our great war is a spiritual war.
Our great depression is our lives.
JimC wrote:Ratz is just beautiful...
Where else could you go from the taste of raw egg to licking marmalade off tits in such a short space of time?
Pensioner wrote:I worked for 50 years and that's long enough for anyone, luckily I worked to live not lived for work.
Lozzer wrote:You ain't Scottish unless you live off Chicken nuggets, White Lightening and speak like an incomprehensible cow.
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Bella Fortuna
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I have no precious time at all to spend,
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Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
Thread ruined.Sent from my Bollocksberry using Crapatalk.
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Twoflower
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Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
1. The Secret Holocaust Diaries.
I'm wild just like a rock, a stone, a tree
And I'm free, just like the wind the breeze that blows
And I flow, just like a brook, a stream, the rain
And I fly, just like a bird up in the sky
And I'll surely die, just like a flower plucked
And dragged away and thrown away
And then one day it turns to clay
It blows away, it finds a ray, it finds its way
And there it lays until the rain and sun
Then I breathe, just like the wind the breeze that blows
And I grow, just like a baby breastfeeding
And it's beautiful, that's life
And I'm free, just like the wind the breeze that blows
And I flow, just like a brook, a stream, the rain
And I fly, just like a bird up in the sky
And I'll surely die, just like a flower plucked
And dragged away and thrown away
And then one day it turns to clay
It blows away, it finds a ray, it finds its way
And there it lays until the rain and sun
Then I breathe, just like the wind the breeze that blows
And I grow, just like a baby breastfeeding
And it's beautiful, that's life
Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
1. The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: Bart Ehrman (highly recommended)
Libertarianism: The belief that out of all the terrible things governments can do, helping people is the absolute worst.
Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
Do audiobooks count?
Libertarianism: The belief that out of all the terrible things governments can do, helping people is the absolute worst.
Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
Oh yeah, a review.
So, The Lost Gospels of Judas Iscariot.
In 1978 a 13 ancient books and manuscripts were found in a cave in Egypt by a bunch of peasants inside earthenware jars. Among the assorted stash of New and Old Testament pages and a Greek maths treatise, all written in Coptic, was a copy of the lost Gospel of Judas, a Gnostic and heretical text previously only known to historians in a book by Iranaeus, a bishop and heretic critic in the late 2nd century, as well as other books after which appear to have drawn sources from it.
I found this book to be one of the most interesting books I've read in a while. Although I had heard of Gnostics before in passing in other books on Christian history I knew nothing of their beliefs. They believed that their was a God above Yahweh, the ultimate, unnameable creator who was all perfect and had thought himself into existence. To them, Yahweh, and all other gods above material worlds, were imperfected off-shoots of the real god. Yahweh was actually a bit of a fuck up filled with imperfections like jealousy and wasn't it no wonder that this material world he created was also a mess.
To them only a few people, those with gnosis, or knowledge, of who they truly were, those sparks of the divine, would return back the the luminous cloud of ultimate reality. Most people, without the spark, were creations of the lesser god - Yahweh - and would simply die, as too would the creator and the rest of his creation. The Gnostics were trapped inside a mortal coil seperated by the true creator and their homeworld, Pleroma, ruled over by the mother of all creation, Barbelo, next to the nameless creator.
In Gnostic terms, Jesus was one of these sparks of the divine who came into the body of a mortal man - Jesus - to bring all the others home. Jesus could only be understood, not by his death, by hidden meanings in his words. The Christians who believed Jesus had died and was coming back to bring in a new age and a new material world had it all wrong.
In the Gospel of Judas, Judas is the one apostle who truly understood Jesus. The "betrayal" was really an act done deliberately by him under Jesus instruction so Jesus could be released from his flesh and return. To Judas he says, "...you will exceed them all [the other apostles], for you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."
But there's more to the book than this. Ehrman sets the scenario of Jesus as a man of his time. One of many apocryphal Jews going around at the time and for 150-200 years before who believed that God was going to come in and smite their enemies (the Romans), destroy most of the world and start a new slate. He gives plausible scenarios for why Judas betrayed him and sets out placing where the Gospel of his namesake fits into all of this.
The book is written very clearly in simple language with no obfuscation or navel-gazing woo.
5 stars
So, The Lost Gospels of Judas Iscariot.
In 1978 a 13 ancient books and manuscripts were found in a cave in Egypt by a bunch of peasants inside earthenware jars. Among the assorted stash of New and Old Testament pages and a Greek maths treatise, all written in Coptic, was a copy of the lost Gospel of Judas, a Gnostic and heretical text previously only known to historians in a book by Iranaeus, a bishop and heretic critic in the late 2nd century, as well as other books after which appear to have drawn sources from it.
I found this book to be one of the most interesting books I've read in a while. Although I had heard of Gnostics before in passing in other books on Christian history I knew nothing of their beliefs. They believed that their was a God above Yahweh, the ultimate, unnameable creator who was all perfect and had thought himself into existence. To them, Yahweh, and all other gods above material worlds, were imperfected off-shoots of the real god. Yahweh was actually a bit of a fuck up filled with imperfections like jealousy and wasn't it no wonder that this material world he created was also a mess.
To them only a few people, those with gnosis, or knowledge, of who they truly were, those sparks of the divine, would return back the the luminous cloud of ultimate reality. Most people, without the spark, were creations of the lesser god - Yahweh - and would simply die, as too would the creator and the rest of his creation. The Gnostics were trapped inside a mortal coil seperated by the true creator and their homeworld, Pleroma, ruled over by the mother of all creation, Barbelo, next to the nameless creator.
In Gnostic terms, Jesus was one of these sparks of the divine who came into the body of a mortal man - Jesus - to bring all the others home. Jesus could only be understood, not by his death, by hidden meanings in his words. The Christians who believed Jesus had died and was coming back to bring in a new age and a new material world had it all wrong.
In the Gospel of Judas, Judas is the one apostle who truly understood Jesus. The "betrayal" was really an act done deliberately by him under Jesus instruction so Jesus could be released from his flesh and return. To Judas he says, "...you will exceed them all [the other apostles], for you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."
But there's more to the book than this. Ehrman sets the scenario of Jesus as a man of his time. One of many apocryphal Jews going around at the time and for 150-200 years before who believed that God was going to come in and smite their enemies (the Romans), destroy most of the world and start a new slate. He gives plausible scenarios for why Judas betrayed him and sets out placing where the Gospel of his namesake fits into all of this.
The book is written very clearly in simple language with no obfuscation or navel-gazing woo.
5 stars
Libertarianism: The belief that out of all the terrible things governments can do, helping people is the absolute worst.
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Coito ergo sum
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Coito ergo sum
- Posts: 32040
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Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
Oddly, I just read "Hondo" by Louis L'Amour. It's the first Louis L'Amour book I've read. Wasn't bad, actually. Western. 
Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
1. A Devil's Chaplain- Richard Dawkins
2. The Anatomy of Evil- Michael H. Stone
2. The Anatomy of Evil- Michael H. Stone
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Ayaan
- Queen of the Infidels
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Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
1. Weddings Can Be Murder - Christie Craig
2. Death of a Red Heroine - Qia Xiaolong
2. Death of a Red Heroine - Qia Xiaolong
"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea." ♥ Robert A. Heinlein
“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself; (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”-Walt Whitman from Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.~Ripley
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Millefleur
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Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
It's amazing what you get done when you attempt to break your dependence on the internet..
1. Uncle Tom' Cabin.
1. Uncle Tom' Cabin.
Men! They're all beasts!
Yeah. But isn't it wonderful?
Yeah. But isn't it wonderful?
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Bella Fortuna
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Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require. - Location: Scotlifornia
- Contact:
Re: The 50 book Challenge 2011
1. Moab is My Washpot - Stephen Fry
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