Master Trader Overbeck, the viewpoint character for the beginning of the story, is surprised that Ram Gupta, Nikolai Sarychev, Mamoru Noguchi and Philip Feinberg, lacking any common faith, nevertheless enthusiastically join in with Juan Hernandez's preparations for a Christmas party. They:
fill rooms and passages in the dome with ornaments of foil or sheet metal, color-coded wire and painted paper;
bake cookies;
laugh and whistle, boosting efficiency with their cheerfulness;
also decorate outdoors when, after some argument, Overbeck agrees to that.
When I was yet again back at College, in 1988-89, the course itself was, of course, entirely secular although some students held their own prayer meetings or investigated an Evangelical C of E parish church across the road. At Christmas, there was enough support for a student-run carol service with Gospel readings, for which there was even a rehearsal. I said that I would meditate in my room at the same time as the service and afterwards drank non-alcoholic beer while the others had something stronger. Now all that we need to do is to extend good will and fellowship throughout the rest of the year...
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
In this tumultuous, coronavirus plagued year, we can certainly use some good will and fellowship!
Ad astra! Sean
If there's one thing we can be fairly sure about Christ's birthday, it's that it wasn't on December 25th -- not if shepherds were watching their flocks by night in Galilee. It's perishing -cold- there that time of year; sheep are brought in and kept in stone pens in the village.
That was also the Birthday of Mithras, btw., and a holiday in the related cult of Sol Invictus.
Mithras' Birthday, of course, is in THE KING OF YS.
As I understand it, the Nativity stories are completely unhistorical anyway.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Actually, in the recently reread THE DAVINCI HOAX, by Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel, the authors argued that the mystery religions and gnostic cults shallow people like Dan Brown claimed shaped Christianity, only came along by and after AD 100, long after the New Testament books had been written. And that Christianity influenced THEM, not the other way.
Because of works like David L. Dungan's A HISTORY OF THE SYNOPITC PROBLEM, and William Farmer's THE GOSPEL OF JESUS, I no longer accept the Q theory or Markan Priority, plus a late dating for Matthew, Mark, and Luke (I accept John's Gospel came last, around AD 90). The Oxford Fragments of Matthew, texts from that gospel found with legal documents dated to the 12th year of Nero's reign in Egypt, demolishes Q and Markan Priority. Esp. if we assume it took about ten years for Matthew's Gospel to reach Egypt from Antioch in Syria.
I've also wondered why, if Luke wrote his Gospel and Acts after AD 70, why the latter book ends with St. Paul's first Roman Captivity, around AD 61. If Luke had written after 70, it would have been so natural to mention Nero's persecution of the Christians, the martyrdom of Peter and Paul around AD 67, the Jewish War, the fall of Jerusalem. But, he did not, which I consider internal evidence for an early dating for Luke's works.
And moderate scholars like Fr. Raymond Brown and Fr. John Meier have argued in books like ANTIOCH AND ROME: NEW TESTAMENT CENTERS OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY, that more history can be found in the gospels and the NT than "Modermists" or secularists care to admit. A theme Fr. Meier discussed in much greater detail in his four volume MARGINAL JEWS series.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment