Sorry, but I’ll be a little late…
Recently I signed on to be part of a “blog tour” — in which different bloggers would read and reflect on Tony Jones’ new book, The Teaching of the Twelve: Believing & Practicing the Primitive Christianity of the Ancient Didache Community. I was supposed to write about this book on December 7. Alas, the gremlins of miscommunication did their work, and I did not receive my copy of the book until Tuesday — the day after I was scheduled to offer my .02 to the trans-blogged conversation. My apologies to Tony Jones, to Paraclete Press and to anyone following the blog tour who came to this blog looking for my own unique perspective: obviously, my own sense of ethics mandates that I not write about the book until I have a chance to read it, and given that my life right now is pretty largely devoted to Christmas retail, it may be a couple of days (or so) before I get the book read. But under the rubric of “better late than never,” I will read the book, and comment on it as soon as I can, even though the blog tour itself will have officially ended.
In the meantime, if you want to see what other folks have said about this book, visit Paraclete Press’s Didache page — and scroll down to see links to all the blogs that have written about this book.
Steve
Wow, I love the Didache. Inspiring and incredible. Can’t wait to read it!
Gent Steward
Not sure what place this has in our current religious climate if any. Understanding the bible and its meaning is one thing. Currently my research is leading backwards historically. I am finding information about religion prior to Christianity of great interest (much inspired by the recent film epic “Agora”).
Surely replacing old gods with new ones is becoming old hat? I don’t have anything against people that have found faith in the ethereal. On the contrary I have plenty of respect.
However, I think that we should be looking for new ways to develop society and different principles should form the basis of this. For example, instead of believing in something that could just as easily be myth, why not believe in facts.
Crazy as it seems, science has been shedding light on reality for hundreds of years. But, it differs massively from religion, which begs that we blindly follow and obey rituals that perpetuate differences, rather than creating inclusion; science rather asks that we challenge everything and further our knowledge accordingly.
Why? To make the world a better place. To alleviate hunger and famine. To make every one equal. So the facts that science questions and the ideology of religion both could aim for the same direction.
Love and peace are all very well, but they don’t seem to be getting us anywhere.