primary sources

if anyone's reading this, pardon me that i'm brief. it's very late and i know soon i'll be too tired to be coherent.

a few days ago i finished Programming The Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On The Cosmos and as soon as i finished it, i wanted to read it again.

but i have another book waiting to be read, one which promises a lot about revealing truths about jesus: The Pagan Christ: Recovering The Lost Light by Tom Harpur. i read the first chapter or so with some incredulity but nonetheless with great excitement. 20 years or so ago i read harpur's columns in the toronto star, and at least one of his books, For Christ's Sake; he comes with impressive credentials, and like me, an Anglican background. i trusted him, and was willing to suspend disbelief while i read his new (published in 2004) book (note: parts of the book were originally published as newspaper columns in the preceding year or two). i felt i had begun a great intellectual journey that night, a journey onto new spiritual truths, even that i had discovered my purpose: to explore this idea of jesus as the pagan christ.

the next day (thursday), i googled the book. it's been over a year since its publication. what has been the critical reaction to it? the first search result is a dissenting article. this article at times is vitrolic, which puts me off, but it claims two merits: it researches each of harpur's points, and at the end it engages harpur himself via email.

personally, before i can make a final decision, there is much left to be studied: i have to read harpur's book, confirm his sources, and read the book's supporters and dissenters. but the dissenting article has thrown cold water into my face. it accuses harpur, with evidence, of sloppy research, of lacking primary sources. i won't say any more until i'm done, but i'll be reading more critically. and i'll post my further thoughts.

today another document, perhaps as incredulous, came my way, "The Gospel of Judas," which purports that jesus asked judas to betray him. the difference here from harpur's book, is that there is primary source, the copy of which is 1700 years old (and the original text is known to have existed since at least 180 a.d.). at this time i'm not interested in the truth of it; i know too little to be a good judge. i'm interested to see how this is received and evaluated over time. the other difference from the harpur book is that this primary source is published, not by the daily/weekly popular press, but by an academic organization: national geographic.

as for primary sources, (a) may god give me guidance, and (b) i'm reading the new testament, again. maybe one day i'll dust off my koine greek and read it in the original. if any one in midland wants to join me, drop me an email.