Good News of Miriam - Novel - Chapter 17

Having a precious jewel in one’s possession sounds great, the problem is holding onto the jewel.

Unfortunately, after I spent some quality time with Jesus that day, I kept running into what I will call the committee.

Those surrounding Jesus were a mixed bunch of people. There was an outer core of James, his brother, Mary (another Mary), his mother along with assorted cousins and half brothers and half sisters. There was also this Simon person. They also called him Rocky or Peter as a nickname, perhaps as an invention of sarcasm. It takes intelligence to understand and appreciate the dark humor of sarcasm.  I learned that well from my Greek plays, especially the more formal comedies.  In any case, sarcasm was completely lost on this Simon person.  And lost on James too as well I might add. These were the original ones of his hard core Galilee base.

This outer core, with the exception of Rocky, were all family. This family did not seem to be a very close family that I could see.

The closest circle were what I called the worldly ones. They were Matthew the tax collector, and two brothers James (another James) and John.

James and John, the brothers, were called the “sons of thunder”. Whenever they were around, their loudness and boyish enthusiasm centered all attention about themselves and the subjects that they were to talk about or address.

When one brother spoke or preached, the other usually joined in to accent a point of conversation or start a play on words.  And there were many words to choose from with many local dialects.  In a way, if James got silence on any given line of a preaching idea and it went dead in the faces of the local native, it was John that then threw in an assortment of words, local, Hebrew, Greek, Latin or even Persian to finally get a response on the faces of those being preached to.

If I had not known differently I would have thought these two were theatre folk doing short comedies and using plays on words as comedic technique to emphasize some fact stated.  That and using their gesture of the hands waving or slapping each other in the chest as each made points to a story or a debate within a story.  They had the talent but not the polish of the theatre people I had recently met and associated with. 

All in all, the best of them, this Jesus crowd, had a country bumpkin air about them.  Even if the sophisticated Jerusalem urban types would see this country cousin veneer, some could see through to the strength, self confidence and even arrogance of the northern Galilee local culture in these two brothers.

Even Jesus with his charisma could not compete with their energy and this horsing around of James and John once it was ignited. The only time I saw Jesus laugh was when James and John got together into their verbal mischief and childish pranks.  It was they who went ahead of the group and scouted out any town or village that would be willing to welcome Jesus as a visiting preacher.

This Matthew, James and John sub-committee were also the one time followers of the martyred John the Baptist figure.

I have heard lately that Jesus was supposed to have been a cousin of this Baptist fellow. I heard no such thing when I first encountered Jesus.

The next layer surrounding Jesus had to do with the rabbis and scholarly crowd.

It was here that Jesus was most successful. His knowledge of most of the Jewish sacred and semi-sacred texts was phenomenal. He had a perfect memory.

I understood from my old friend Hiram that there were many sacred Jewish texts floating around. Some cults were focused on one or two ancient books. Only a handful of scholars had any idea what the true inventory of sacred books was in the Jewish culture.

There was something Jesus had once disclosed to me. As a recognized child prodigy with a perfect memory, he was made to recite volume after volume of Jewish law. In fact, Jesus looked back with regret. His name and fame as a child was that of someone more like a freak going from town to town and from synagogue to synagogue for a small fee or donation.

Jesus wept. He felt that he had been denied a childhood because of his talents.  And like many children denied a childhood, he had seen too much of the complex and many times corrupt workings of the adult world.

Let us get back to the committee…

For more sample chapters:

Good News of Miriam

Lady Gaga – Judas – Lebanon – Censorship

“I am in love with Judas.” (lyric)

Lady Gaga's Born This Way banned in Lebanon

“ - Lebanese officials have reportedly banned Lady Gaga's new album, deeming it "offensive to Christianity". Police have impounded copies of Born This Way, currently No 1 from London to Tokyo. Its recent single, Judas, has been criticised by Catholic groups and was banned from Lebanese radio in April. … - “



BTW I have gone to the trouble to view the Lady Gaga Judas video three times. The lyrics are a bit ambiguous. On a visual level I get ambigous stuff too. But I see on one level, Gaga, if a Mary Magdalene figure, driving a wedge between bosom buddies Jesus and Judas and on another level I see Gaga speaking in a metaphoric feminine voice for the person of Jesus. Quite brilliant. She is not as talented at Madonna IMHO but give her time to evolve.

In any case, with 52 million hits on YouTube, anybody in Lebanon on the Internet can have the freedom of choice to view and hear this wonderful song.

Censorship in a free global world be damned!

If the video or the lyrics seems vulgar, well this is the age of vulgarity, a step toward evolution in society to another, hopefully higher, more mature level, in an evolved global society and or the near ending of a decaying dying civilization. I vote for the former.

I am reminded of the scandal and feigned alarm from the church fat cats about Madonna’s Like a Prayer in 1989. That is tame today and Judas by Lady Gaga will be considered tame too in time. If anything, these lazy dogmatic church types should be glad that Jesus, Judas or anything in the obsolete Christianity even gets a mention in the MSM even if by way of a back door. Etc.

I would show that Madonna video but it is blocked on You Tube. Instead a rendition of Like a Prayer from the mainstream TV show Glee – cannot get more tame, contemporary or gayer than that.



Have a cool day dudes and dudettes!
Warning: (Please do not take yourself and or somebody else’s lyrics too seriously.)




Congratulations - Good News of Miriam

The novel Good News of Miriam is being published on Kindle/Amazon.

Good News of Miriam

The novel, set in the Holy Land, is an alternative historical fiction of the life of Mary Magdalene.

Blasphemy and the Last Supper

I think the concept of blasphemy is archaic and obsolete in light of the free speech and expression as mandated by law in our Constitution.

Still the concept for Muslims, if enacted by U.N. international law, would put Danish Newspapers and Danish Cartoonists in the category of criminals. I cite the recent hubbub regarding the image of Mohammed as a terrorist depicted in a Danish cartoon.

Terrorism and blasphemy are in the eyes of the beholders. The Global Town Square should be neutral in the enforcement of blasphemy concepts across national borders which also usually reflect national local feelings or religious local beliefs.

I think it inappropriate that the local minority Muslims in Denmark made an international issue over the cartoon. A minority has no right to impose privileged or entitled status of private religious opinion on the majority.

Perhaps in a more civil world, the occasion to insult will be reduced in the interests of respect of the rights of others both locally and internationally.

Thomas Aquinas says that “it is clear that blasphemy, which is a sin committed directly against God, is more grave than murder, which is a sin against one's neighbor. … it is called the most grievous sin, for as much as it makes every sin more grievous.” Wikipedia

Of course, in the recent Texas School Book deal to replace Aquinas for Jefferson is a poor choice IMHO. Aquinas is really a very abstract medieval theologian and obsolete on many of his opinions. Banning Jefferson in Texas will only excite, entice the curious to find the father of modern revolution and enlightenment.

Regarding the above image of a censored in France and Italy clothing advertisement in 2005, I take exception to it being banned in the name of Blasphemy.

The Last Suppers

BBC News:

France's Catholic Church has won a court injunction to ban a clothing advertisement based on Leonardo da Vinci's Christ's Last Supper.

The display was ruled "a gratuitous and aggressive act of intrusion on people's innermost beliefs", by a judge ......

The authorities in the Italian city of Milan banned the poster last month ......

Italy's advertising watchdog said the ad's use of Christian symbols including a dove and a chalice recalled the foundations of the faith and would offend the sensitivity of part of the population.

The Catholic Church used a similar argument against the advert, which also shows two of the apostles embracing a bare-chested man in jeans.

"When you trivialise the founding acts of a religion, when you touch on sacred things, you create an unbearable moral violence which is a danger to our children," said lawyer Thierry Massis.

"Tomorrow, Christ on the cross will be selling socks."

I find that the DaVinci Code the book, while a pile of myth and speculation, opened a true door not to enlightenment but in opening the mind up to all the possibilities of ancient myth and how it all could have been rewritten differently especially in the New Testament that is.

With the current meltdown in the Vatican over cover-ups and conspiracy over sex abuse crimes worldwide, the concept of private “church” matters (the way these crimes were treated) comes into question with the “infallibility” invoked in this covering up of crimes against children.

Getting back to the DaVinci Code, what would the world look like if women had been the predominate sex throughout history?

Getting back to the Vatican scandal, I think this image above from 2005 is more appropriate now with the image of an aroused and or prostitute male figure in place of the John/Mary figure of the DaVinci Code’s interpretation of DaVinci’s Last Supper mural.

Even more appropriate in the symbolism of that john/mary/prostitute image is that modern image being embraced by the Peter figure of that famous original icon image and with Judas’ legs intertwined in the whole mess.

Any good Christians feeling betrayed these days, as if by Judas, but instead by the Chair of Peter?

Blasphemy is not always a crime especially if it tells or depicts the Truth.

That Celibacy Thing

There is this nagging question at the back of my brain every time I read the NT. This thing about celibacy is a stated or a verbal contract, a vow promising not to marry. If you are not married, you cannot have legitimate children. Your bastards will have no claim on your estate. Your estate as a priest will go to the church. Any property temporarily in your name as head of a parish will not get confused with your estate should you die in between the time the widow gives you a deed and you record it in the parish church’s name.

Legitimacy used to matter a lot especially with royalty and in the old days. These days with DNA testing, even if Pops is a priest, you go for the estate claim.

Celibacy is not chastity. Chastity is a promise or vow not to have sex. I know this might sound confusing to some. The whole celibacy issue on the public stage uses one word with two entirely different meanings. Rather than get too technical, and God forbid there be allowed any in depth questioning of the religious clerics on stage that might be there to answer questions, a muddled cross connotation of facts is represented by the upfront PR word "celibacy" to describe the whole idiotic RC church thing about religious sexual and taboo practices.

Celibacy is more a general rule thing for priests. It is more for the local diocese thing.

Chastity is more a religious group or religious order thing. If so many men are living together in a monastery, then the no sex rule would hopefully mean no practice of sodomy.

Part of the demise of great numbers of Catholics and Parishes since Vatican II has been first and foremost the dwindling number of men willing to give up a normal life and put on a cassock and play the celibate / no sex game.

They say that Jesus did not marry. They say Jesus was in fact married to Mary Magdalene. Peter the so called first pope was married and had many children. Even though there is this proselytizing thing in scripture from time to time to give up everything and go out on the road and drum up new business, this life time withdraw from life, living, sex and family is not properly presented in the cut and paste gospels that were assembled decades or even rewritten in some parts centuries after the life of Jesus.

Jesus was most likely an orthodox Jew. At an early age he probably was wed in a marriage arranged by his parents. Whether he stayed married was another issue. Divorce in his time was a frequent thing and not unlike the Islamic thing in a traditional sense.

In any case, while Jesus was on the road he did not want his mostly male followers to say that they could not go on the road because the kid was sick etc.

Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law. Marriage was not necessarily part of the law but the law encompassed every aspect of a daily Jewish life.

Celibacy is a later invention after Jesus. It probably comes from some Jewish or Hellenistic cult thing and definitely was not part of the law or traditions that Jesus came to fulfill.