Jumanji (1995 film)

Children's horror comedy that has no doubt been responsible many a nightmare since 1995.

Instead of being a nice safe board game, Jumanji keeps throwing all manner of malevolent real-life dangers our young players' way - from fierce jungle animals to natural disasters to never seeing your parents again - and it all begins its smashing within the delicate safety of the kids' home.

Worse, when each challenge is escaped, it still never really goes away. The result is a town outside the window that is becoming increasingly ravaged by earthquakes, swarms of poisonous wasps, and fast-growing flesh-eating plant life.

Oh, and a big game hunter called Van Pelt, but he's one of the movie's comic reliefs. The sequence where they all fight back at him using whatever's on sale at the local supermarket is just like watching a Home Alone short. (yes, I'm pulling that face now...)

There is danger almost all the way through this one, ramped up considerably by there being no corporeal intelligence to bargain with at the centre of it all. Had this been an episode of Doctor Who, then you can bet the evil game's box would have presently begun bragging out loud about its plans, and laughing. Long, and heartily.

There are a few moments where a needed explanation appears to have been cut, but these seem to me to be minor. I'm thinking of the (lone) cop who almost runs Alan over but then tries to arrest him (!), the medics who vanish when bugs attack the car, and why on Earth Sarah agrees to play the game again. But hey, maybe that was just the Moviemix channel deciding to drop some lines for time.

Jumanji is a well-made epic ride, and all the more impressive for pulling together so many different genres. For the most part I found it very well thought through, and although many of the effects have not dated terribly well, the conviction of the whole cast ensure that they have lost nothing of their dread-factor.

But really, don't throw the game away, just burn it already.

This afternoon, somewhere beyond the bottom of our garden, I could hear a drum kit beating away.

I've always assumed that sort of thing to merely be a neighbour playing around with an actual drum kit, but now... (shudder)...

(Available here. Don't buy the wrong product.)

Who? (film)

Rogers: "First we don't know who he is, second we don't know what he is, and third, we do know who sent him."

From 1973, this is one of my all-time favourite films.

During the Cold War, top secret American scientist Lucas Martino suffers a near-fatal 'accident' along the East German border. The local enemy military powers employ cutting edge technology to restore him to health, reconstructing his body to a hitherto unknown extent. Despite the salvage of his eyes, Lucas now has a metal head, a metal arm, and an artificial cardiovascular system. There is very little left of his external body from which his identity can be confirmed. Even his voice, when he relearns to use it, is only similar.

So, given that he will be impossible to physically identify, why not send back to the US a sleeper agent in his place?

This film, then, is 93 intensive minutes of US interrogator Sean Rogers (Elliott Gould) refuting every last supposition that the man received back into his custody is indeed the real Lucas Martino.

We don't know who whether or not this scientist is the real Martino either. Neither do we therefore know whether to root for him. Rogers is definitely the good guy. 'Martino' might be the good guy too. They're not necessarily enemies.

Rogers' real nemesis is Colonel Azarin (Trevor Howard) - the Russian bigwig who throughout this film we witness in flashback, pumping the recovering Martino for every last detail of his personal life. The parallel editing between Azarin extracting this information from the real Martino in the past, and Rogers extracting the same info from the mystery man in the present, speaks its message loudly. The two agents, on opposing sides, have rather a lot in common.

I don't normally like films that are told in a non-chronological order, but here it is a thing to behold. These two military enemies (Rogers and Azarin) are on different sides of the world, never meet, and are separated in time by about four months, but nonetheless the intricacy of their head-to-head battle of wits is staggering. And caught in the middle is the long-suffering man who might or might not be Lucas Martino.

'Martino': "Questions! Questions! What about skin pores? Enzyme patterns? Voice prints?"
Rogers: "Physical tests for a body like yours just have not been invented yet."

In the present, the metal man protests that the fingerprints from his good arm will confirm his identity, until Rogers points out that they will only prove who that arm came from. His eyes may well be the same ones too, but no detailed record of the real Martino's eyes exists. (today they'd probably cover the DNA test etc. options with the same argument)

Even 'Martino''s artificially regulated respiratory system refuses to shed any light for or against him. His robotic heartbeat, breathing and so on remain constant, whatever his feelings.

'Martino': "You think panic has something to do with the heart racing, the nerves getting tense, the breath getting labored? Mine doesn't. But I'm in a constant state of panic, Mr. Rogers. My mind is poised for flight. I'm on the edge of screaming all the time, except that if I did more people would stare at me and that would make me scream more until I wouldn't be able to stop!"

Whatever known information our man volunteers about his life before the accident, no matter how personal, could have been extracted from the real Martino by fair means or by foul.

General Deptford (right): "The only person who could possibly have all that information, those memories, that knowledge of how to act, is Martino himself."

Rogers (centre): "Or someone taught to be Martino."

Haller (left): "Security isn't the only thing that matters, if we haven't learned that yet..."

Rogers: "Haller. When we send an agent over the line to them, we just don't give them the right papers and let them get on with it. We give them the right coins, doorkeys, cigarettes, we give them photographs printed on the right kind of paper with the right kind of chemicals, we even put the right fluff and dust in his pocket, and that's not all. We give him memories of things that never happened to him. We train him to walk and talk their way. To write and read, drink and eat... smile, laugh, cry their tears, and it's all false, every single thing. But if he's good, it becomes real, and he's no longer an agent. He's a baker, or a mechanic, or a train conductor, and no matter what they do to him, he remains a train conductor. He's as bewildered and scared as a train conductor would be, and if necessary he screams and bleeds and dies like a train conductor."

Haller: "He dies. And what if that man really is a train conductor, huh? What then? Doesn't your Colonel Azarin ever stop to wonder?"

Rogers: "If he starts acting like that matters, he won't be doing his job. He's finished. If I start to believe that our metal man is Martino, I'll be going soft on him and I'll be finished too."

Haller: "Uh-huh. You're just not willing to admit you could be wrong are you?"

Rogers: "Ohh, no, no, I could be wrong, I know that. I have been. I've made mistakes. Every time I remember them I break out in cold sweat. I wake up in the middle of the night wondering when the next time's gonna be, because one day, Mr Azarin might put a really good one over on me. Could be now. And if I make a wrong decision, my friend, all our kids could end up snorting vodka and eating borsht with chopsticks."

As the subject is presently released 'back' into American civilisation and observed from a distance, just about every choice 'Martino' makes can be interpreted as exactly what an enemy agent posing as Martino would do to keep up the act. The fact that it's also what Martino himself would probably do doesn't help any. Ultimately it seems that while this fellow can easily prove himself to be an imposter, it's fast becoming impossible to come up with any scenario that can prove to Rogers that he's genuine.

'Martino' visits an old girlfriend, apparently unaware that this behaviour has been anticipated, and her apartment appropriately bugged in advance. She's convinced that he's the same guy, and accurately predicts the man she once loved's next choice.

But if she could predict it, then arguably so too could a Russian impersonator. Everywhere you look in this film it's stalemate. Perhaps a bit like the Cold War itself.

What about his scientific genius? Well they could ask him about the top secret US work that he was engaged on before the accident, but then in asking those questions they would be risking giving away information about it to a potential ringer. And again, any information that he volunteers could have been extracted from the real Martino.

I suppose my high praise for this low-budget 1973 drama says alot about what I look for in a good movie - a strong script. They've taken their idea here and really run with it! I say this because some of the other elements in this one can be kind of ropey.

For example, the old trick scalpel that appears to draw blood instantly instead of after a moment. Elliott Gould, sorry to say, phones in his performance throughout. Finchley's sudden accidental death happens out of nowhere, apparently because there are simply no more scenes left with him in. The undercover spies trailing 'Martino' stick out like a fancy dress temp handing out leaflets for a Blues Brothers gig:

Most notably, there's also a three minute car chase in the middle that really doesn't belong in this kind of a talkative drama.

Rogers: (regarding the car chase)"That wasn't even real out there!"

(Elliott Gould, again not really acting)

Strangest of all though is the soundtrack, much of which is dubbed, including all of the enemy doctor's scenes. I don't recognise his face, but, darn it, I do know that voice...

And then there are all the flashbacks to Martino's pre-classified youth. Like in V For Vendetta, we never see the main character's natural face in this, so these scenes are all presented from his point of view. When filming of course this required the relevant performers to deliver their entire scene to camera in a single take, and while some of them misjudge their delivery, others are stunning. His girlfriend on the boat is flawless, even despite Martino's lines being added to the soundtrack in post-production, and really not matching.

The real Martino's blood-curdling scream when, in the Russian hospital, he first discovers that he now has a metal face is absolutely terrifying, made all the more so by the apparent print-through on the soundtrack, which provides us with several quiet echos of the moment in the seconds leading up to it. Terrifying. Sorry to use the same word twice, but no other synonym fits it quite so exactly. It. Is. Terrifying!

All this and Benson's governor James Noble as a General - really, he's funny without even trying to be. I hope the army uses him as a spokesperson whenever they have to break bad news.

Ultimately at the heart of this film is its own title Who? What makes a person who they are? Their body? Their history? Their choices? Their attitude?

It's one of those films that really does keep you guessing right until the very last scene. Is he Martino, or isn't he? It's got to be one or the other. But whichever it is, there's no crowing afterwards, "Oh of course I figured it out before that!" It's not a mystery for the audience to unravel. It really can go either way. And yes, at the end they are brave enough to explicitly show us the answer.

Even so, I could still build a case for the opposite...

If you can't find Who? on a low-budget movie channel near you (at time of writing it doesn't even have a page on wikipedia), then you might find it under its reissue titles of The Man In/With The Steel Mask or the vastly dumbed-down Robo Man.

In a Lucas Martino-ish way, some of these posters might help you, or not:

He looks nothing like that.

He looks even less like that.

These two characters never meet each other.

Oh fer goodness' sake... this is just NOT THAT KIND OF A MOVIE!

What's that? Which title is the film's real one? Well, does it matter?

Isn't it still the same movie underneath?

(available here) (NB. Do check it contains the right disc)

Why Won't They Listen? The Power Of Creation Evangelism - Ken Ham

It's important to point out that this is not a book arguing for creationism, as throughout this is presumed to already be the reader's existing stance. Rather, this book is arguing for creation to be recognised as the foundation of Christian evangelism.

And there it makes a robust case. It doesn't seem so much that the theory of evolution is a bad thing, more that its inconsistency with the book of Genesis cannot be ignored by Christian evolutionists for very long.

For example, without the context of mankind's fall from perfection in the garden of Eden, going on to offer forgiveness for our completely unforeshadowed shortcomings can easily seem irrelevant.

"In other words, one cannot really understand the good news in the New Testament of Jesus' death and resurrection, and thus payment for sin, until one understands the bad news in Genesis of the Fall of man, and thus the origin of sin and its penalty of death." [p. 24]

Throughout this book Ken catalogues in some detail the cracks that emerge in Christian theology, as tensions between modern evolutionary Christianity and the ancient book of Genesis are realised, uncertainty develops, and problems emerge.

There are a few points in here that I would question. One would be page 79's emphasis that Jesus endorsed creationism, which later appears trumped on page 108 by the argument that Paul would sometimes begin by looking at a group of people's existing beliefs. So surely Jesus could have been doing that too?

Another would be chapter nine's assertion that merely discussing surface morality issues won't attract new Christian believers, as I reckon that common ground between people is quite widely regarded to be a good starting point.

Most of all though I found myself disagreeing with the book regarding the sheer enormous numbers of Christians who believe in evolution (a popularity which I wish a few more non-Christians would acknowledge). For while this book agrees that the old Earth theory is now endorsed throughout the church, the assertion that this is a bad thing strikes me as a self-defeating argument. While evolution may prevent some from becoming new believers, and even cause a few Christians to presently give up on their faith, the enormous number who can and do reconcile, or at least live with, the disparity might just have discovered something there…

On the other hand, such a contradiction is hardly exclusive to just the Christian evolutionists. There also seem to be enough atheist evolutionists out there who manage to balance the tension between the impossibility of intelligent design vs. using intelligent design themselves, eg. when they write their own book.

As I say though, I can't really challenge an argument built upon another guy's beliefs. The author of this book is convinced of the inerrancy of the Bible, and is a creationist, and it's that foundation upon which the reasoning of this book is constructed. I might as well try to tell an Aussie how to be Australian. I'm in favour of Australia, but I don't know what it's like to have grown up looking at the rest of the world from that perspective.

I do still have the creationist book Refuting Evolution 2 by Dr Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D on my list of books to read, so I may have a bit more to type in response to that. After all, I do think that evolution is a more delicate theory than creation, (eg. it requires millions of years of further unknown events to not trump the tiny amount that we can observe in the present) hence my sympathies lying more with the young Earth theory. I just find thousands of years less of an ask than millions.

Perhaps this book should drop that question mark from its title though, and instead just call itself 'Why They Won't Listen'.

(available here)

Ben Hur - A Tale of the Christ (2003 movie)

***Contains spoilers***

If you thought that the version of Ben Hur that stars Charlton Heston was painstakingly drawn out, well… ha ha… you'd be RIGHT!!!

(I'm Steve, I'm trying the veal here on Brighton Pier all week…)

There seems to be an unwritten law that Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben Hur: A Tale Of The Christ must be adapted into every medium possible. Silent movie, talking movie, stage play, TV series… next there'll be a lego Top Trumps board-game for the PS3 of it, you mark my words.

This 2003 direct-to-DVD (remember those?) animated telling is, at time of writing, the best of the lot, but I probably only think that because it's what I always say after finishing each new one.

Charlton Heston returns to introduce it on-camera, narrate it, and even voice the lead character, a casting for which the actress playing his mum might be grateful, given how she sounds comparatively younger.

In fact as well of the interest of seeing (well, hearing) Heston return to such a famous role, this version has tons going for it.

The plot absolutely bullets along. If you're put off by the idea of enduring the main character's long years in slavery again, here it's all over in a drumbeat. The result is a tale that held me throughout, and didn't drag at all. Even his childhood friendship with Messala is recapped at the outset as having already happened in the past, rather than asking us to invest too much time in exposition.

Secondly, this telling is relatively nice. I always find that the joy in all these different versions lies in their differences, and while shocking inhumanity still befalls our heroes (eg. the prison) it tends to be implied. Over the years, the doomed Messala has become something of an old friend to this viewer, so to see him finish this one recovering from his injuries and becoming friends with Ben Hur again is a real aww moment.

Best of all though, is this production's pride in its Christian message. Not for these guys the 2009 stage play that avoided even mentioning Jesus' crucifixion - here Jesus is a talking face like all the other characters, and unashamedly present to lead mankind back to God by rising from death. The film even opens with Mary and Joseph enacting the traditional (as opposed to Biblical) Christmas story, complete with miracles, angels and shepherds, making this DVD as much an Xmas special as an Easter one. Even the ascension is in here!

The many tales of Ben Hur are doubtless not over yet, but it's good to see that the standard is still up there amongst those opening stars.

(available here)

Trainspotting (film)

I nearly didn't watch this film. In fact, I nearly didn't watch it twice.

A few months ago I videoed it and the audio didn't come out. No idea why, something to do with the digital switchover making everything somehow better.

Tonight I turned on to try to watch it live on Film4, and suddenly found myself turning off again just as it was due to start. Why you ask? Before said channel had decided to preface it with someone (the director?) presenting clips of it! I ask you, I was only trying to watch his film in the way I thought he had intended. (albeit on TV)

Then of course I realised that I was now about to miss a film that I wanted to see, so it became a case of deliberately turning the sound off (HEAVY IRONY) and trying not to look at the screen, while at the same time trying to look at it a bit to guage when the film was starting. How long was this going to go on for? A minute? Twenty minutes? Please Film4. Just. Show. The. Movie. It's really easy. Please.

(Hey, maybe he was talking about a completely different movie, how would I know?)

One of my favourite lines in the Bible is Deuteronomy 30:19b (Good News Version):

"Choose life."

Trainspotting is about a group of people who choose the polar opposite.

"We would've injected vitamin C if only they had made it illegal."

Narrator Renton believes that the only two options in life are conformity, or drugs. Well, he hasn't got out of Scotland much.

In fact, even despite managing to kick his habit and begin a successful new life in London, by the end of the film he still hasn't worked out that other lives are available. (as many as the planet's population) His narration lists a bunch of choices, but he's putting them all in the one box.

It all makes for a movie which I found difficult to come to with much of an angle. I couldn't root for a bunch of crooks, other than for their restoration obviously, which they mostly weren't aiming for. Neither could I root for main character Renton to make a clean break, because he was narrating the whole tale in retrospect with such scorn for those outside of the drug scene, that I had to expect such hopes to come to nought.

Even the movie's tone - placing such stereotyped characters in stylized comic situations - was never going to offer enough realism for drama, and yet this film didn't seem to think that it was exactly a comedy either.

And yet the short sketches that pack out this movie do tell a bigger story quite clearly, most of the time. I couldn't figure out how Tommy had got the others all the way out into the country without telling them they were going hiking - what on Earth other reason is he supposed to have given them?

The sparing trip sequences are done well too, and I would much rather have watched an entire film in this hallucinogenic style, than to keep cutting back to long spells of bleak old real life again. The characters seem to have felt the same way. Maybe that was the point.

Ultimately Trainspotting seems to come down squarely against both of Renton's life alternatives. If it does have a message (and there's no reason why it has to), then I'm afraid I missed that stop.

Perhaps I should have listened to the guy explaining it at the start.

(available, legally I trust, here)

The Muppet Christmas Carol*

For a movie with the word 'Christmas' in its title, this film sure does a nice line in Eastery resurrection.

For in 1992 this was the first muppet movie to be made after the sad, sudden and downright early death (53) of their main creator Jim Henson.

Would the rest of his team be able to pull it off and keep the muppets alive without his voices, puppeteering and inspired leadership, or was this going to be derivative proof that the muppet magic had died with him?

Thank God it was the former!

I still remember the thrill that I got in the cinema in 1992 as the opening titles rolled, promising that after a few years of silence, the muppets were about to live again. There's an animated caricature of Kermit that fills the screen. Then the credits begin rolling, slowly listing each of the main muppets by their character name. "Starring Kermit the Frog…" This was just the reassurance that I wanted, that the muppets were real living entities. I remember smiling that Gonzo was still getting billed under his stage name of "The Great Gonzo". It's a shame that more recent productions have dropped this running gag.

It's strange, but when I first saw this at the cinema I also felt that there were elements lacking. I thought that Kermit's voice wasn't quite right yet, but that didn't matter because he was still authentically Kermit. I thought that there were too many humans and not enough muppets as usual, but that didn't matter because it was quite a serious drama in places. I thought that the songs weren't as catchy, but that didn't matter because I would overheard people at work singing them, years later.

Well, perhaps the real shortcoming was me.

And you know what? Over the years The Muppet Christmas Carol has grown on me with repeated viewings, and apparently I'm not alone. I have no figures to back this up, but the way that I hear people talk about it, today I'd estimate that it has become the best-loved of all the muppet movies. Even just a month ago I found myself listening to Rob enthusing on about it. Not bad for a make-or-break new beginning. Actually, a triumph.

Despite how I have long since come to love the film myself, I still find its popularity a surprise. I haven't seen all the other muppet flicks, but I suspect that this is the only one that looks quite so cold and depressing throughout. There are few bright colours in Ebeneezer Scrooge's miserable corner of London, and the whole thing is shot to look like exactly the genre that it's going for - a ghost story. The spirits of Christmas past and future look nothing like muppets, and particularly in the latter's case, are genuinely chilling.

That said, this film is, bravely, much bigger on muppet warmth than muppet jokes. I guess that's how it overcomes all the cold snow and loneliness.

And those songs? Wow. Having just watched the film again tonight, I don't think the muppets have ever had a finer collection. Those lyrics are much deeper than I'm used to. And I've heard many of them enough times now for them to have become familiar - another luxury that I didn't have on that first viewing at the cinema 20 years ago.

Scrooge himself remains a weak and easily defeated villain - he cracks so quickly - however given how this weakness has been present in every version of this story that I've ever seen, I suspect that's simply a shortcoming of the original book, which I've never read.

Humbug? Unemployed? Sour? Nah.

Even the vegetables love this movie.

10/10.

(available here)

Wise Sayings From The Psalms by various

I have no particular opinion on this book, because it does exactly what it says on the title.

33 short extracts from the Biblical book of Psalms are presented in this pocket-sized hardback booklet, grouped into the headings Introduction, Praise, Petition, Peace, Purity and Provision. (they really should have called that intro Preface)

It occurred to me that there were about the right number of them to read one a day over a month, so I've been using this as my daily-ish Bible reading guide for about the past 40 days. In practice, I have to admit though that I've usually just read each excerpt, and then promptly forgotten all about it. I've tried to address this by reading each passage twice, slowly, and then rerereading it again the following day, but they just haven't consciously sunk in. Still, it does mean that I've got through the book three times! Perhaps I needed to give it more daily time, and/or have some questions to guide me…

The one quotation that did sink in though was also the shortest one: page 31's famous Be still, and know that I am God. I need to be told that one a bit more often in my life.

There are umpteen different translations used for this compilation, which is an attitude that works for me here.

Does this make me a psalmreader?


(available here)

The Polar Express (movie)

*** Contains spoilers about life ***

It's not often that I watch a movie because it has a bad reputation, but after what I'd read about CGI fairy tale The Polar Express, I just had to check out these characters' eyes.

Specifically, would they turn out to be as blank and zombie-like as I had heard?

No, they didn't. There are a couple of uncanny mocap moments, but for maybe 99 of these 100 minutes, this movie worked its magic flawlessly.

As our kid sneaks out in the middle of the night to catch the eponymous Polar Express to Santa's home at the North Pole, almost the entire story unfolds in one long unbroken scene, really enabling us to go along with him on the journey too. Despite the minor awkwardness of portraying human beings with animation, the actual world here looks so perfect as to make the whole ride enthralling. The fuzzy picture (digital!) isn't enough of a handicap to dampen things either.

Best of all however, is the film's script, which holds strong throughout the mystery, and often serves up some good observations…

Conductor: "Thing about trains - it doesn't matter where you're going, what matters is deciding to get on."

Boy: "What did he [Santa] look like? Did you see him?"
Conductor: "No Sir, but sometimes seeing is believing, and sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see."

Hobo: "One other thing. Do you believe in ghosts? Interesting."

My only two real problems with this movie were both concerning its attitude.

1. The moral of the story is, on the face of it, that you should believe in Santa. Ultimately, every kid who does right by this film, unless they die first, will one day suffer for it. The only way of restoring their love for it will be for them to eventually become parents themselves, and perpetuate the example by repeating it to their own kids. Here's a thought - how about simply admitting to kids that it's just a game? Y'know, so that no-one has to be defeated each year?

2. Christmas here has nothing whatsoever to do with Christ. Angels get mentioned at one point, and dismissed, which is remarkably un-Christmassy. Whatever your religious beliefs, there's no avoiding just how arbitrary are the pressures on our young protagonist here. At the end of the day, he's on a journey to believing what he's told to believe, which isn't much of a life-lesson either.

Still, I found the whole movie to be an absolutely enthralling piece of magic, and in places a lot like a lucid nightmare.

Ten out of ten. How Christmassy is that?

(available here)

Ben Hur (2010 TV series)

Take a well-loved epic movie, with a cast of thousands, even a remake that eclipsed the original in standing, and then remake it again on a fraction of the budget for TV.

It's a complete mystery where these notions come from. How can anyone have thought that success in this endeavour might be achievable? This oft-shown story of a Jewish Roman galley-slave's journey through revenge doesn't even need updating, since the 1959 movie with Charlton Heston hasn't dated at all. After all, it is set 2,000 years ago, you can hardly go replacing all the scrolls with mobile phones.

And yet, a couple of years ago, Canadian TV had a (cough) stab at it anyway.

And you know what? I've never read the book, but I reckon they've done a pretty good job of such an impossible task. Despite the few times that Judah Ben-Hur meets his nemesis Octavius Messala after their rift, that central relationship smoulders, and the way that Judah's bitterness toward his enemy takes him over is realised here, in my opinion, better than in any other version that I can recall. (admittedly I saw the others a few years ago now)

When it comes to the famous chariot race, the adaptors have wisely gone for something of a cross-country course, requiring very few extras at any given point on the circuit. It's more reminiscent of the podrace in The Phantom Menace. When Judah eventually wins in this version, it's in quite an unexpected way, and the look on his face says that even he was trying to pull-up his horses at that moment.

In a subplot, there's another bloke who people are calling the King of the Jews who seems mostly irrelevant to proceedings, although when Judah helps him up with his cross near the end, it's unknown why he doesn't try to help him any further than that.

All in all, an okay telling of the story, but as I say, still a mystery why they didn't just repeat the talkie again, or make something fresh. :)

Lucas On Life / Lucas On Life 2 by Jeff Lucas

If anything demonstrates just how poor a reader I am, it would have to be the dichotomy of how much I have enjoyed these books vs. how long it has taken me to read them.

Well over a year.

I mean it's not as if I've spent some of that time on the other side of the world is it? Well obviously I have, but I took volume one with me, specifically to finish reading it.

And these are both even really really easy books to read. They're compilations of various short quirky articles that vicar Jeff Lucas has written over the years about instances in his life that, for whatever reason, are genuinely interesting. Usually that reason has a lot to do with being funny. So with the best part of a hundred of these things, you would have thought that I could just take the easy way out and read one a day.

Alas, I had no free slot in my day for reading. Funnily enough my Bible-reading has suffered a lot in the last year too…

So in the end I mainly read book one in just a few sizeable chunks. This obviously worked well enough that I eventually made it to the end of the book, however I do think that I did most pieces a disservice by diluting them so. Early on there are even several items that retell the same events, which stands out when you're reading them together, and makes you wonder why they haven't been redacted together.

This year I've read book two, and taken my own advice by generally making it a daily activity. Most stories in here are hugely involving, and Jeff clearly has an axe to grind about what what he sees as religious extremism. Anecdote after anecdote berates certain brands of Christianity for losing sight of God, and the freedom that he proffers in its place is nothing short of inspiring.

Towards the end, both books become a bit serious. The final few entries of book one (admittedly therefore the ones most prominent in my mind as I type this) are powerful witnesses to God's interest in Jeff's life, and as such offer the sort of encouragement that I think all Christians wish they heard a bit more often. By comparison, the final few entries of book two are more teaching orientated, and as such found it harder to hook me.

I'd like to quote a few examples of the sort of thing that the bulk of these books contain, but to do that I might just have to spend next year reading them all over again.

Which probably wouldn't be such a bad thing…

Book one is available here.
Book two is significantly harder to track down. I guess they shouldn't have reused the same cover. :)

The Bible - God's Word To The Nations version

Will your long-winded speeches never end?
- Job 16:3a

English Bible translations are a bit like online dating profiles: If they're beautiful, then they're probably not faithful. If they are faithful, then they're probably not beautiful. If they are both faithful and beautiful, then you're still reading their introduction.

(wah-wahhh)

If I've said it once on this blog, then I've probably said it five times: All contemporary English translations of the Bible begin with a preface crowing about how their's is the first and only one to win on both scores.

Unless it's the God's Word version.

GOD'S WORD, produced at the end of this century by God's Word to the Nations Bible Society, fills a need that has remained unmet by English Bibles: to communicate clearly to contemporary Americans without compromising the Bible's message. This new translation consciously combines scholarly fidelity with natural English. [page v]

Oh. I was wrong. It is exactly the same as all the others. Sorry everyone.

Traditionally, the Scriptures have been translated into English by teams of Bible scholars serving part-time. This translation employed full-time Bible scholars and full-time English editorial reviewers. GOD'S WORD is the first English Bible in which English reviewers have been actively involved with scholars at every stage. [page v]

Hrrrm. Aside from the inaccurate implication that full-time scholars are somehow better than part-time ones (eg. mothers), the English reviewers that they have employed can't even get the tone of the introduction right.

If any of the preface's aloof self-championing is intended to either demonstrate humility, or score respect, it's going to be an uphill battle to succeed. Further down the first page, the efforts of other translators get called "awkward", "misleading", "incomprehensible" and even "amusing".

Well then, let's hope that this translation doesn't go and contain any verses that sound awkward.

"Please don’t do two things to me
so that I won’t have to hide from you:
Stop oppressing me.
Don’t let your terror frighten me.

- Job 13:20-21

He will eat cheese and honey until he knows how to reject evil and choose good. Indeed, before the boy knows how to reject evil and choose good, the land of the two kings who terrify you will be deserted.

- Isaiah 7:15-16

Or misleading.

Never worship in the way that it's being done here today, where everyone does whatever he considers right.

- Deuteronomy 12:8

When you sit down to eat with a ruler,
pay close attention to what is in front of you,
and put a knife to your throat if you have a big appetite.

- Proverbs 23:1-2

Then the LORD told me, "Love your wife again, even though she is loved by others and has committed adultery. Love her as I, the LORD, love the Israelites, even though they have turned to other gods and love to eat raisin cakes."

- Hosea 3:1

Or just plain incomprehensible.

The man measured the distance from the inside of the lower gateway to the outside of the inner courtyard. It was 175 feet from east to north.

- Ezekiel 40:19

Do not answer a fool with his own stupidity,
or you will be like him.
Answer a fool with his own stupidity,
or he will think he is wise.

- Proverbs 26:4-5

Because Damascus has committed three crimes, and now a fourth crime,
I will not change my plans.
The Arameans have crushed the people of Gilead
with iron-spiked threshing sledges.

- Amos 1:3b

You have dug out two ears for me.[a]

a. Hebrew meaning of this line uncertain.

- Psalm 40:6b

And as for amusing...!

He delivered this message: "Oh no! Who will live when God decides to do this?

- Numbers 24:23

But if the priest examines the scabby disease and it does not look deeper than the rest of the skin and there is no black hair in it, the priest must put the person with the scabby disease in isolation for seven days.

- Leviticus 13:31

King Nahash of Ammon was severely oppressing the tribes of Gad and Reuben. He would poke out everyone’s right eye and allow no one to rescue Israel. There was no one among the Israelites east of the Jordan River whose right eye King Nahash of Ammon had not poked out.

- 1 Samuel 11:1a

How long will you lie there, you lazy bum?

- Proverbs 6:9a

The High and Lofty One lives forever

- Isaiah 57:15a (God's Word)

Well, amusement is relative. I have more positive stuff to say later I promise.

Features of GOD'S WORD

Layout

The features that distinguish GOD'S WORD from other Bible translations are designed to aid readers. The most obvious of these is the open, single-column format. This invites readers into the page. The single column takes the Bible out of the reference book category and presents it as the literary work that God intended it to be." [page vi] (apart from all the section titles)

Now, call me an exception, but it seems to me that packing all that tiny print into those enormous blocks, rather than 'inviting me into the page', is going to have just the opposite effect. Even finding the next line down on the left margin is tricky when your eyes, and perhaps fingers, have to return so far back from the right one. For the entire Bible. Still, it does disprove open theism. For if God had foreseen this printing, then he would never have discouraged his people's request for a ruler.

While avoiding very long, complicated sentences, which characterize many English Bible translations, GOD'S WORD strives to vary the word arrangement in a natural way. [page vi]

Uh-huh.

Huldah added, “But tell Judah’s king who sent you to me to ask the LORD a question, ‘This is what the LORD God of Israel says about the words you heard: You had a change of heart and humbled yourself in front of the LORD when you heard my words against this place and those who live here.

2 Kings 22: 18-19b

Those 58 words form just one sentence.

And yet, there are a lot of sentences in this tome.

Whoever kills a bull is like someone who kills a person.
Whoever sacrifices a lamb is like someone who breaks a dog’s neck.
Whoever offers a grain sacrifice
is like someone who offers pig’s blood.
Whoever burns incense is like someone who worships an idol.
People have certainly chosen their own ways,
and their souls delight in detestable things.

- Isaiah 66:3

Those five sentences form just one single verse. Perhaps this verbosity better reflects the original prose, but the rule of thumb in here seems to be to never say anything once, when you have the option of instead repeating it multiple times:

The wicked are dead.
They are no longer alive.

- Isaiah 26:14a

Then the Spirit lifted me and took me to the east gate of the LORD’s temple. (It’s the gate that faces east.)

- Ezekiel 11:1a

David quietly got up and cut off the border of Saul’s robe. But afterward, David’s conscience bothered him because he had cut off the border of Saul’s robe. He said to his men, “It would be unthinkable for me to raise my hand against His Majesty, the LORD’s anointed king, since he is the LORD’s anointed.”

- 1 Samuel 24:4b-6

I will take my sword out of its scabbard and kill the righteous people and the wicked people among you. I’m going to kill the righteous people and the wicked people among you. That is why my sword will come out of its scabbard to be used against everyone from the south to the north.

- Ezekiel 21:3b-4

Ahaziah also followed the ways of Ahab’s family, because his mother gave him advice that led him to sin. He did what the LORD considered evil, as Ahab’s family had done. After his father died, they advised him to do what Ahab’s family had done.

- 2 Chronicles 22:3-4a

You also saw the feet and toes. They were partly potters’ clay and partly iron. This means that there will be a divided kingdom which has some of the firmness of iron. As you saw, iron was mixed with clay. The toes were partly iron and partly clay. Part of the kingdom will be strong, and part will be brittle. As you saw, iron was mixed with clay. So the two parts of the kingdom will mix by intermarrying, but they will not hold together any more than iron can mix with clay.

- Daniel 2:41-43

Maybe I should have cited fewer examples than that, but that's kind of my point.

But the God's Word version doesn't just have a low opinion of all the other English translations - it also reckons that you might be a bit simple-minded too. The choice to use gender-neutral language where they interpret scripture as intending it, is a valid belief, but just listen to their decision process:

For example, traditionally, Psalm 1:1 has been translated, "Blessed is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked…" As a result, many readers will understand this verse to mean that only adult males, not women or children, can receive a blessing. [page vi]

I mean just who do they reckon is going to be dimwitted enough to think that? Apparently, "many readers". Or perhaps by taking that literally I'm proving their point…

My opinion here is that the editorial reviewers just don't seem all that great at editorial reviewing. I don't mind that at all, in fact I like this translation, I'm just really put off by the preface's judgement of others' work as inferior by comparison.

I have no observation on the work of the full-time scholars, none of whom are credited in this 1995 paperback edition.

Anyway the good news is that, if you can tear out the preface, keep taking a lot of deep breaths, and find a large print edition with narrower pages, (or just paste it all into a more reader-friendly layout and font from biblegateway.com) then you might just come to the same conclusion that I have about this Bible version - that it's one of my favourites.

Allowing for its extreme wordiness (I think this is the longest English Bible), the style of prose is very easy to read. When I got to read the whole of the book of Ruth at a church series a few years back, I first test-read it in a good dozen translations, until this one very narrowly beat The Message.

They also used to offer most of it for download as pdfs from their website (although various occasional verses somehow got missed out). This trumpeted the publishers' very proper interest in getting it out to as many people as possible, rather than just using it to make a profit. Then however they took it down, which since I had just started on their versions of the apocrypha, disappointingly compelled me to stop reading. That's not really on the agenda of any Bible translation is it?

The other thing about the pdfs was that they came with notes in the margin. These regularly explained the obvious and not-so-obvious, offered bizarre trivia, and even gave away spoilers, which at the very least made reading the whole thing a lot more fun…

Does God have
wings? (Psalm 61:4)
Talking about
God’s wings is a
metaphorical way
of referring to his
care and protection.
Just as a
mother hen
gathers her chicks
under her wings,
so God protects
his people.

How big was a
lyre? (Psalm 108:2)
This portable
stringed instrument,
often made
of cypress wood,
may have originated
in Syria. It
may have had 8 or
10 strings.

(yes but how BIG A LYRE was it?)

When was Solomon’s
temple
destroyed?(2 Chronicles 7:20)
The Babylonians
destroyed the
lavish temple in
586 B.C.—over
400 years after it
was built.

GAGH! DON'T tell me THAT!!! It's not even BUILT YET!!!!!

When was the
book of Isaiah
written?
Isaiah may have
written this book
over the course of
his life. He lived
from 771 B.C. until
681 B.C.

Whew!

A child will be born for us.
A son will be given to us.
The government will rest on his shoulders.
He will be named:
Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.

- Isaiah 9:6

What are some
of the names
this chapter
uses to describe
God’s Son? (Isaiah 9:6)
Some of the
names are
Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty
God, Everlasting
Father, Prince of
Peace.

Today (end of Micah)
During your prayer
time, write down
the names of
friends who need
to change their
sinful lives. Carry
that paper with
you and pray for
them throughout
the day.

I think the thing that I will always be grateful to the God's Word for though, will be its translation of a single word - repent. Realising that such an old-fashioned word had no modern English synonym, they composed a dictionary definition instead: "Change the way you think and act." I really never had a clear concept of what repentance was until I first heard those words, and obviously, this fat translation of the Bible is littered with them.

“Tell them, ‘As I live, declares the Almighty LORD, I don’t want wicked people to die. Rather, I want them to turn from their ways and live. Change the way you think and act! Turn from your wicked ways! Do you want to die, people of Israel?’

- Ezekiel 33:11

Anyway, as I've been through the whole thing, I've compiled a bit of scrapbook of quotes which, for one reason or another, have struck me as worth saving. Here are 14 of them, all of which speak to me.

If your spiritual nature is your guide, you are not subject to Moses’ laws.

- Galatians 5:18

Then I will smash them like bottles against each other. I will smash parents and children together, declares the LORD. I will have no pity, mercy, or compassion when I destroy them.’ ”

- Jeremiah 13:14

Many sleeping in the ground will wake up. Some will wake up to live forever, but others will wake up to be ashamed and disgraced forever. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness on the horizon. Those who lead many people to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever.

- Daniel 12:2-3

Then I sent someone to tell him, “None of your accusations are true. You are making them up out of your own imagination.”

- Nehemiah 6:8

What strength do I have left that I can go on hoping?
What goal do I have that I would want to prolong my life?

- Job 6:11

A righteous person cares even about the life of his animals,
but the compassion of wicked people is nothing but cruelty.

- Proverbs 12:10

A heart that turns from God becomes bored with its own ways,
but a good person is satisfied with God’s ways.

- Proverbs 14:14

Every day is a terrible day for a miserable person,
but a cheerful heart has a continual feast.

- Proverbs 15:15

Today
Who do you have
a difficult time
being kind to? Ask
God to help you
be kind to that
person during the
next week.

- Proverbs 18 sidebar

Just as you don’t know how the breath of life enters the limbs of a child within its mother’s womb, you also don’t understand how God, who made everything, works.
Plant your seed in the morning, and don’t let your hands rest until evening. You don’t know whether this field or that field will be profitable or whether both of them will turn out equally well.

- Ecclesiastes 11:5-6

The LORD created the heavens.
God formed the earth and made it.
He set it up.
He did not create it to be empty
but formed it to be inhabited.
This what the LORD says:
I am the LORD, and there is no other.

- Isaiah 45:18

You covered yourself with a cloud
so that no prayer could get through it.
You made us the scum and trash of the nations.

- Lamentations 3:44-45

I went to the potter’s house, and he was working there at his wheel. Whenever a clay pot he was working on was ruined, he would rework it into a new clay pot the way he wanted to make it.
The LORD spoke his word to me. The LORD asked, “Nation of Israel, can’t I do with you as this potter does with clay? Nation of Israel, you are like the clay in the potter’s hands.
“At one time I may threaten to tear up, break down, and destroy a nation or a kingdom. But suppose the nation that I threatened turns away from doing wrong. Then I will change my plans about the disaster I planned to do to it.
“At another time I may promise to build and plant a nation or a kingdom. But suppose that nation does what I consider evil and doesn’t obey me. Then I will change my plans about the good that I promised to do to it.
“Now say to the people of Judah and to those who live in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the LORD says: I’m going to prepare a disaster and make plans against you. Turn from your evil ways, change your lives, and do good.’

- Jeremiah 18:3-11

A scroll was found in the palace of Ecbatana, which is in the province of Media. This was written on it:

MEMORANDUM

Date: Cyrus’ first year as king
From: King Cyrus
Subject: God’s temple in Jerusalem.

The temple should be rebuilt as a place to offer sacrifices. Its foundation should be laid. It should be 90 feet high and 90 feet wide with three rows of large stones and a row of wood. The king’s palace will pay for it.

- Ezra 6:2-4

Now that's what I call a modern English translation! :)

(with thanks to Shane)

Other Bible translation reviews:

Contemporary English Version (CEV)
Good News, AKA Today's English Version (TEV)
The Message
New International Version (NIV)

Love Wins by Rob Bell

It takes a lot to get me to read a book. Usually it's by recommendation.

In the case of Love Wins, it's more because of unrecommendation.

Upon its publication last year, it quickly became so divisive within the English-speaking Christian church that I felt it necessary to hold an opinion on it. Apparently author Rob Bell had typed some theologically unpopular thoughts regarding the nature of salvation. Well, so have I.

It's also because - again last year - I found myself flicking through a copy at work during a discussion about its impending availability locally. It immediately struck me as looking like a really quick read. Slow reader that I am, I don't think that about many books.

So now that I've got my own edition and read it cover to cover, in fact its chapters have struck me as overlength. Bell's style of using very short lines and para… what? Oh, right, what I think of the opinions he expresses.

Well, I'm actually not that clear on what the opinions that he's expressing are. I guess I probably should have read the book a lot more quickly than I did, to avoid forgetting about it between chapters. Despite making notes, I'm afraid that most of it has just not remained with me.

I think I need to to refresh my memory here. Perhaps I should trawl back through some of my sprawling and long-winded digital jottings. Mind you, be warned: When I agree with an argument, in case I'm wrong, I'll do my darndest to disagree with it...

If the message of Jesus is that God is offering the free gift of eternal life through him - a gift we cannot earn by our own efforts, works, or good deeds - and all we have to do is accept and confess and believe, aren't those verbs?

And aren't verbs actions? [p.11]

I disagree. Accepting, confessing and believing are verbs, but they are not usually actions. No two words mean exactly the same thing. That's why the book doesn't simply ask 'Aren't accepting, confessing and believing actions?'

[on heaven]
"Second, one of the most striking aspects of the pictures the prophets used to describe this reality is how earthy it is. Wine and crops and grain and people and feasts and buildings and homes. It's here they were talking about, this world, the one we know - but rescued, transformed, and renewed." [p.34]

The prophets would have to describe heaven through their own experiences, hence they had no choice but to describe heaven in earthy terms. How could they possibly get any other terms in which to describe it? They couldn't have had the words, and if they did, then we, being unfamiliar with those concepts, could not have understood them. So of course they described heaven in earthy terms.

"To name is to order, to participate, to partner with God in taking the world somewhere." [p.35]

Great!

"When we hear people saying they can't believe in a God who gets angry - yes, they can. How should God react to a child being forced into prostitution? How should God feel about a country starving while warlords hoard the food supply? What kind of God wouldn't get angry at a financial scheme that robs thousands of people of their life savings?" [p.38]

Again, WE have emotions such as anger, so we are inherently compelled to perceive God in terms that we can comprehend.

"Rewards are a dynamic rather than a static reality. Many people think of heaven, and they picture mansions (a word nowhere in the Bible's descriptions of heaven)…" [p.43]

Unless you count: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."

- Jesus' words in John 14:2 (King James Version)

D'oh! :)

"But heaven also confronts. Heaven, we learn, has teeth, flames, edges, and sharp points. What Jesus is insisting with the rich man is that certain things simply will not survive in the age to come. Like coveting. And greed. The one thing people won't be wanting in the perfect peace and presence of God is someone else's life. The man is clearly attached to his wealth and possessions, so much so that when Jesus invites him to leave them behind, he can't do it." [p.49]

Brilliant!

"… think about the magazines that line the checkout aisles at most grocery stores. The faces on the covers are often of beautiful, rich, famous, talented people embroiled in endless variations of scandal and controversy.

… are we seeing the first who will be last that Jesus spoke of?

When it comes to people, then - the who of heaven - what Jesus does again and again is warn us against rash judgments about who's in and who's out." [p.54]

Uh, isn't that what you just did? :) Or did I miss the subtlety there?

Sad to say it, but pages 54-58 - obviously too long to quote here - strike me as a poor attempt to reconcile scripture to theory. The summary on pages 58-9 is clear, but requires Jesus to have meant any of three different things whenever he used the word 'heaven'. Also, the author seems unaware that definitions for words from 2,000 years ago are only the definitions that we today infer that those words had back then. Quite apart from which, observing how hard he seems to be working here to get scripture to fit his theories, he probably didn't intend to suggest that God was such a poor communicator.

Anyway, having taken apart the use of the English word 'heaven' in translations, Rob inevitably moves onto that other place.

"To answer that question, I want to show you every single verse in the Bible in which we find the actual word 'hell.'" [p.64]

Now obviously, he does not actually mean the actual word 'hell', because that is a word in English. He must mean any word in the Bible's original lexicons that has been translated into English as the word 'hell'. He just about makes 34 references, even fewer of which he concedes mean what is traditionally thought of as 'hell', and even fewer of which he quotes.

"And that's it.
Anything you have ever heard people say about the actual word 'hell' in the Bible they got from those verses you just read." [p.69]

I have two big pushbacks here:

a. I have not just read them, because Rob hasn't quoted them all.

b. Most of Rob's hypothetical 'people' won't have read the same English translation as he, and as a result may be privy to a whole pile of additional uses of the word in the Bible.

To check this out, I've run a quick whole keyword search on the number of instances of the word 'hell' occurring in each of the full English Bible translations available on biblegateway.com. In Rob's favour, I'm surprised to find that most do produce quite a low number of matches. But not all.

Remember now - Love Wins found about 34, give or take: (cue Alan "Fluff" Freeman music)

21st Century King James Version: 54
American Standard Version: 13
Amplified Bible: 13
Common English Bible: 19
Complete Jewish Bible (I guess the one Jesus would have used): 0
Contemporary English Version: 20
Darby Translation: 12
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition: 108
Easy-To-Read Version: 16
English Standard Version: 14
English Standard Version Anglicised: 14
God's Word Translation: 35
Good News Translation: 21
King James Version: 54
New King James Version: 32
The Message Bible: 57 (r3sp3ct dude)
New American Standard Bible: 13
New Century Version: 17
New International Version: 13
New International Version 1984: 14
New International Reader's Version: 22
New International Version - UK: 13
Today's New International Version: 13
New Life Version: 35
New Living Translation: 17
Wycliffe Bible: 88
Young's Literal Translation: 0

So out of those 27 translations (admittedly some of them very similar, such as all the NIVs), five contained a significantly higher number of instances of the word 'hell'. What's that? You don't count da funky Message Bible? Okay then - four. Clearly, still too many for the assertion that "Anything you have ever heard people say about the actual word 'hell' in the Bible they got from those [34-ish] verses you just read."

Still, as you can also see, his argument comes out of this battle strong, if not successful. Most of the translations above come out with even fewer references than Rob's!

Nonetheless, the argument on page 68 that the word Gehenna means the city dump is a double-edged sword. The reasoning goes that Jesus was using it as a metaphor for the terrible earthly consequences of our actions. Yet if Jesus were looking for an understandable way to convey the actual fire of literal eternal torment in hell, then equally Gehenna would be the perfect metaphor for that too. Ultimately, there is no argument to be made either way by explaining this word.

Despite this, I found Rob to really be getting into his stride in this chapter. He gives a great illumination of the rich man and Lazarus story, including the folly of exaggerating a hierarchy. His view of man's freedom - including freedom to hurt - being an enormous gift of grace from God is inspiring.

"Failure, we see again and again, isn't final,
judgment has a point,
and consequences are for correction." [p.88]

YES!

He goes on to realise Satan more in his accuser persona, and then to disassemble the idea of 'eternal punishment'. Universalism, I think he argues, is not an interpretation of the Bible, but rather one of its foundations.

"It's not 'Does God get what God wants?'
but
'Do we get what we want?'

And the answer to that is a resounding, affirming, sure, and positive yes.
Yes, we get what we want.

God is that loving.

If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own god, God graciously grants us that option." [p.116-7]

In chapter five Dying To Live the book moves onto emphasising how much Jesus' death on the cross accomplished. However here again I found the argument sprawling, with repeated asking of the same growing set of questions Twelve Days Of Christmas-style, rather than just presenting them once.

"Think of what you've had to eat today.

Dead. All of it. If you ate plants, they were at some point harvested, uprooted, disconnected from a stalk or vine, yanked from the ground so that they could make their way to your plate, where you ate them so that you can… live. The death of one living thing for another.

… [so] when the writers of the Bible talk about Jesus's resurrection bringing new life to the world, they aren't talking about a new concept. They're talking about something that has always been true. It's how the world works." [p.130-1]

Except that the vegetables I ate today are still dead. And I sincerely hope are going to remain so. Granted, all metaphors break down sooner or later, but not usually this quickly.

"How many people, if you were to ask them why they've left church, would give an answer something along the lines of, 'It's just so… small'?" [p.135]

In my opinion, a minority.

In chapter six the author gently crushes his own argument for Jesus' divinity at its launch, but then proceeds to go on and impart it anyway. Hey, there's a lot to be said for positive-mindedness.

"If you find yourself checking out at this point, finding it hard to swallow the Jesus-as-divine part, remember that these are ultimately issues that ask what kind of universe we believe we're living in. Is it closed or open? Is it limited to what we can conceive of and understand, or are there realities beyond the human mind?" [p.147]

After this, you just know that he's going to plunge on and explain the limited understanding of the whole undiscovered universe that he believes in his own human mind… ouch...

"Or are they referring to the very life source of the universe who has walked among us and continues to sustain everything with his love and power and grace and energy?" [p.156]

Yes, I really hope so too, but I cannot know for definite either.

After embracing the idea of the kingdom of heaven as working its way through the universe like yeast through dough, presently we get to a terrific examination of the prodigal son story. Like the parable of the rich man and Lazarus earlier, I found tons of great illuminations in here.

Yet still, there is this ongoing swinging between beautiful realisations of truth, and, well, things you can't edit once the book has been printed.

"God has no desire to inflict pain or agony on anyone." [p.177]

Except in the Bible! :)

"When the gospel is understood primarily in terms of entrance rather than joyous participation, it can actually serve to cut people off from the explosive, liberating experience of the God who is an endless giving circle of joy and creativity.

Life has never been about just 'getting in.' It's about thriving in God's good world." [p.179]

Awesomely inspiring.

"God is not a slave driver." [p.181]

Tell that to poor Ezekiel! :)

"When you've experienced the resurrected Jesus, the mystery hidden in the fabric of creation, you can't help but talk about him." [p.181]

Again, I beg to differ.

"Many have heard the gospel framed in terms of rescue. God has to punish sinners, because God is holy, but Jesus has paid the price for our sin, and so we can have eternal life. However true or untrue that is technically or theologically, what it can do is subtly teach people that Jesus rescues us from God.

Let's be very clear, then: we do not need to be rescued from God. God is the one who rescues us from death, sin, and destruction. God is the rescuer." [p.182]

I so agree.

"This is crucial for our peace, because we shape our God, and then our God shapes us." [p.182]

If one is sincerely seeking truth, then I don't agree that this is always true. I cite Paul of Tarsus, who was shaped by a different God to the one he had himself shaped.

"In Romans 5 we're told, 'At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.'" [p.189]

By this point I was lost as to why Christ had died.

"What Jesus does is declare that he,
and he alone,
is saving everybody." [p.155]

I love that idea.

So, in conclusion, just what is the case that Rob Bell is making here?

I think it was:

Maybe God is so great that everyone goes to heaven.
Maybe heaven is here, and is at least partly up to us to restore it.
Maybe there is no hell, in the traditional sense, but we can corrupt this world into a similarly terrible place if we collectively choose to.
Maybe the verses that he quotes actually are the only ones on that subject in the Bible.
Maybe there is no heaven, in the traditional sense, at all.
Maybe there is no afterlife.

The whole thing carries a momentum that suggests he's both building to a point and rerealising Christianity, but neither of these journeys seem to me to come to fruition.

I'm also reminded of a feeling I once had while watching a video of a Christian man enthusing beliefs about God that he seemed to hope were true so strongly that they had become an assumption. A moment after recognising this feeling, I realised that that guy had been Rob Bell too.

I think I love Rob's vision. It makes a lot of sense to me, and sounds awesome. As I've read this book, I've found great teaching in the parables that he's examined, and a renewed understanding of Jesus divinity. And yes, I feel inspired to take more responsibility over this world and its occupants.

I think I just have two problems though:

1. The absence of life after death. I spent the entire book waiting for him to get onto covering this. If God is that loving, then he can't let babies die.

2. The book-long attempt at making the argument Bible-based.

I can't help thinking that the vision described in Love Wins would function a lot more clearly if it didn't keep trying to reconcile 66 other books on the same subject into agreeing with it. It would probably be easier to mount this argument without the Bible.

But maybe this book is one stage on the journey towards discovering that agreement.

Garden Bird Songs And Calls by Geoff Sample

Is this a book with a free CD, or a CD with a really big inlay booklet?

Geoff Sample provides about 70 minutes of detailed British birdsong recordings, enhanced by equally detailed written notes. Although much information is duplicated in both (handy for revision), the prose differs in each. On the one hand the book contains more facts than the CD's narration, but on the other… well, there is simply no substitute for actually hearing the noisy critters.

I've just tried listening to the whole CD while reading the entire 30-page book at the same time, and while they do complement each other admirably, my brain's attempts to concentrate on both written words and audio at the same time were literally sending me to sleep. (clearly I'm no bird-brain)

This combination doubtless works best if you're trying to learn this stuff. Then you can dip into each in isolation as and when necessary. By the end of this I gave in and just lay back with my eyes closed taking in the beautiful melody.

And I have to hand it to the recordists. Convincing the natural world to perform in front of a microphone must be both time-consuming and highly frustrating, yet thanks to these guys I can enjoy these spectacular charms of nature in comfort. The pheasant on track 94 sounds human!

Next time I go out to the garden, I'd better pay a bit more attention.

The Message® //Remix™ 2.0 - The Bible In Contemporary Language by Eugene H Peterson

Reprinting of the always funky Message Bible, but jazzed up even more with a stone-effect cover, chapter numbers in fashion-ready three-digits, and more forward-slashes than The Passion Of The Christ.

I'm sorry, I can't do it, I still can't take this seriously.

Well now that's just not fair. As I may have implied in my earlier review of this paraphranslation, at its worst, the Message is only funny for the wrong reasons. At its best, I think it's the most accessible version out there.

What this printing really has to its credit though are translator Eugene H Peterson's opening commentaries on most of the books. (he combines a few of them)

Here again, my opinions falls into two camps. This review contains six quotes - three critical, three positive.

"But more often than not we become impatiently self-important along the way and decide to improve matters with our two cents' worth. We add on, we supplement, we embellish. But instead of improving on the purity and simplicity of Jesus, we dilute the purity, clutter the simplicity." [p.1763 regarding Hebrews]

Hang on, doesn't that call into question the very existence of these introductions? Well, his opinions can be quite subjective on occasions.

"But this letter, to one member of the Colossian church, he wrote with his own hand." [p.1760 regarding Philemon - I personally think it was just the one verse that Paul wrote himself.]

On others, as so many historians do, he falls victim to believing that history matches his own perception of it.

"It is impossible to overstate either the intensity or the complexity of the suffering that came to a head in the devastation of Jerusalem and then continued on into the seventy years of exile in Babylon." [p.1194 regarding Lamentations]

Surely Peterson's understanding of these millennia-old matters must come from written statements that are similarly lacking?

However this is just the sort of individual voice missing from the introductions in so many other sandpapered presentations of the Bible. If you want to disagree with Peterson, then all you really have to do is read the actual book that he's talking about - it's right there!

This can be a bit hit and miss. In some cases he seems to be casting around to find an angle. In others, such as some of the wisdom books, he appears to already have a stance, and the result can be wonderfully illuminating.

"Ecclesiastes is a John-the-Baptist kind of book. It functions not as a meal but as a bath. It is not nourishment; it is cleansing. It is repentance. It is purging."

And when he has a particular axe to grind about life, well, just listen to him clearly articulate it.

"When Christian believers gather in churches, everything that can go wrong sooner or later does. Outsiders, on observing this, conclude that there is nothing to this religion business except, perhaps, business - and dishonest business at that. Insiders see it differently. Just as a hospital collects the sick under one roof and labels them as such, the church collects sinners. Many of the people outside the hospital are every bit as sick as the ones inside, but their illnesses are either undiagnosed or disguised. It's similar with sinners outside the church.

So Christian churches are not, as a rule, model communities of good behavior." [p.1780 regarding James]

Awesome.

I didn't want to read the whole translation again, so I've read many of these intros before my reading of the corresponding book in a different version. I'm sure that's probably compromised some moments, but equally it does challenge his opinions to stick to the original text rather than to his own.

At the back is something that I've been looking for for a long time - a list of the books in chronological order, which I'm about to take on board in my reading of most of the epistles in the God's Word.

Finally, sorry to say it, but I find Peterson's own prose to be a bit easier to read than his translation work. Well I suppose that one or the other had to come out as preferable.

In this final quote, Peterson's second sentence roundly sabotages everything that follows it, but if you can hold that in tension, then it's still a sincerely great observation.

"But happiness is not a word we can understand by looking it up in the dictionary. In fact, none of the qualities of the Christian life can be learned out of a book. Something more like apprenticeship is required, being around someone who out of years of devoted discipline shows us, by his or her entire behavior, what it is. Moments of verbal instruction will certainly occur, but mostly an apprentice acquires skill by daily and intimate association with a "master," picking up subtle but absolutely essential things, such as timing and rhythm and "touch."" [p.1724 regarding Philippians]

I like Peterson's writing. The guy's love and perception of God's presence within everything are both affirming and inspiring.

Perhaps he should have called this book the Messages.