Moving~

Current System Configuration: Bewildered
Earworms:
-Bring It On by Steven Curtis Chapman [CCM]
I fell in love with this song when I first heard it back in college, but I never found an mp3--until yesterday. -ZEST SEVEN by Salamander Factory (From Super Robot Wars Alpha 3: To the End of the Galaxy; Shivah Gozzo's boss theme)
It's hard not to love this epic, tragic piece. Part battlehymn, part march. All awesome.
-Graceland by Freedom Call [Power Metal]
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Merced Raisin Bread and oatmeal
[Lunch]
[Dinner]
[Coffee] Homebrew coffee
Current Read:
None

Just an announcement: I am moving to Wordpress. I'll be leaving this blog operational so that I don't lose all my valuable posts from the past. I'll be linking both blogs so that nothing is lost. That's about it. I'll be posting something on my new blog soon.

Inhumanities Week

Current System Configuration: Fighting neuralgia
Earworms:
Iisang Bangka by The Dawn
Hemisphere by Maaya Sakamoto (from the anime RahXephon)
The Gate of the Hell by JAM Project (from Mazinkaiser vs. Ankoku Daishogun). Yes, it really is "The Gate of THE Hell."
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] French toast and blueberry jam
[Lunch] Spaghetti with meat sauce
[Dinner] Ziti with meat sauce D:
[Coffee] None
Current Read:
None, finished the following recently:
-The Giver by Lois Lowry
-Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

InHumanities week is finally over. Overall it was a good mix of doing absolutely nothing and being absolutely stressed. For most of the time I did nothing but listen to talks, but yesterday was completely busy. English day does that to you. I coached one of the debate teams, and in the afternoon I emceed for the speech choir competition.

The result of the debate was very favorable. My team did win, although both the Best Speaker and Best Debater awards went to Max Gana on the opposing team. He did excellently, and deserved it. I was pleased with the good fight both teams put up. In fact, one of the judges commended the students on how impressive their manner was, considering that they were only in high school. He said that they were quite promising and could look forward to outstanding performances in debate circuits if they continued honing their skills.

The speech choir was generally impressive. Most of the presentations were quite entertaining, although some of the sections failed to grasp the concept of the speech choir---that is, unison. Some put on impressive shows, although only a few people were talking at a time. One class relied too much on monologues, which hurt their score a lot.

The most memorable of the presentations was that of Rosal. They dressed up as zombies and portrayed a shambling undead horde quite well--the result was slightly comical at first, but it eventually escalated into a haunting portrayal of our country's fight for freedom. They only won second place, but it's the only presentation that really stood out in my mind.

The rest events of the week are chronicled in my photobucket account.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v312/AslanCross/Pisay/InhumanitiesWeek0607/
The password is vaevictis

Again, the week was generally successful. The only total failure was on the part of our government, which did not pay us when they should have.

Anyway, I'm quite pleased with the two books I finished this week. Let's start with Inkheart.

Inkheart is a must read for anyone who likes reading. The story revolves around Meggie, a 12-year-old girl whose father Mortimer (Mo) is a book restoration specialist. The book starts with a visit from a mysterious old acquaintance, Dustfinger. Eventually, it's revealed that Meggie's father has the ability to read fictional entities and objects into physical existence in this world whenever he reads out loud.

The plot itself is quite long and winding, so first time fantasy readers might find the text ponderous. In the words of one of my students, it was quite tiring to read towards the end. However, it was very entertaining, with the ending leaving many possibilities open. I look forward to getting my hands on the sequel, Inkspell.

If Inkheart was a bit of a struggle, The Giver was not. Lois Lowry narrated it so clearly and concisely that I finished the book at 10 pm, having only begun at 4:30pm that day.

The Giver is set in what seems to be a utopian society in which everything is controlled and taken care of. Jonas, the protagonist, is an eleven-year-old boy waiting for his assignment to his adult role in the community. Eventually, he discovers that his community is not as peaceful as it seems.

The novel was quite chilling and inspiring at the same time. It asks very poignant questions about human freedom. Of course, I can't discuss it in detail as I will be giving my students a long test on it. <_<>

Oh yeah, for all my current students:
If you didn't know yet, I'm making sigs for use on the Rex2010 Forums for those who get a 1.00 in my class. So far, four people got them, with one declining my offer. Here are the ones I've made so far:

Andie's sig:








Joe's sig:







Isa's sig:









So if you guys want to have a custom sig done by me, do better this quarter.

Be Just or Be Dead

Current System Configuration: Painfully just
Earworms:
Salva Nos by Yuki Kajiura (from the anime Noir)
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] French toast and blueberry jam
[Lunch] Shawarma without the onions
[Dinner] 3x Julie's cheesedesal with cheddar cheese inside.
[Coffee] Homebrew coffee and a venti mocha frappuccino with valencia syrup. Double blended, as usual.
Current Read:
-Still not reading

Remember that little quote I used to add at the end of every entry? "Be Just or Be Dead"? I took it from Ky Kiske's theme in Guilty Gear, entitled "Holy Orders ~Be Just or Be Dead~." I thought it was so easy to do, but now I'm sure it's not.

I had to dispense painful justice on someone who I did not want to dispense it on. This person may deserve it, but when you genuinely care for a person and wish that person to continue to grow and be encouraged by your tutelage, it is very, very, very painful to give that person deserved justice.

I guess this is a taste of how God feels when He disciplines us for our foolishness. Nevertheless, I can never imagine the pain the Father felt when He sent Jesus to die on the cross. Punishing a person who deserves it is painful enough---how much more punishing someone who is completely innocent?

It's been said that mercy is not getting what one deserves, grace is getting what one does not deserve, and justice is getting what one exactly deserves. It's difficult to show mercy, but do people ever think about how hard it is to dispense justice on someone who is not at all hateful or depraved, yet completely deserves it? It rips my heart like a scourge. I wish I could take the blame upon myself, but alas, I cannot.

Tasting the bitterness of being just,

Your Black Lion

Dominus Deus,
exaudi nos et miserere
exaudi, Dominus

Dona nobis pacem
et salva nos a hostibulus
Salva nos, Deus

Dominus exaudi nos
Dominus miserere
Dona nobis pacem

dona nobis pacem
e dona eis requiem
inter ovas locum
voca me cum benedictis
pie Jesu domine, dona eis requiem
dominus deus, Sanctus, Gloria
Sanctus, Gloria

-Salva Nos, Yuki Kajiura

Anachronism

Current System Configuration: In, but not of this world
Earworms:
Canta per Me by Yuki Kajiura (from the anime Noir)
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Chicken nuggets, kesong puti and garlic rice
[Lunch] Footlong hotdog with coleslaw
[Dinner] Tokyo Tokyo's Beef Misono Big Plate. Veggies + yakisoba + potato balls. Also some California Maki on the side.
[Coffee] Homebrew coffee and a grande mocha frappuccino with valencia syrup. Double blended, as usual.
Current Read:
-None right now. Halfway through Inkheart, but had to stop due to grades being due

I am not of this time.
The people sitting in the coffee shop around me do not realize that my forebears had never even tasted the rich, dark, nerve-boosting drink that they sip in such a carefree manner. They titter endlessly, unmindful of the carnage that other men like me once had to wade through. I wield my pen as a sword, furiously slashing grades into the papers stacked before me.
†††
canta per me ne addio
quel dolce suono
de' passati giorni
mi sempre rammenta
†††
A young woman, dressed in pristine white, reaches around her lover. Like her, he is immaculately-clad. They embrace and whisper intimate things. Something pierces my chest, a burning arrow. There is no lady who prays for my safe return. There is no delicate glove in my helmet. The white of my cloak has been caked in the mire of the battlefield, in the black blood of eviscerated lusts.
†††
la vita dell'amore
dilette del cor mio
o felice, tu anima mia
canta addagio...
†††
The Master takes the arrow in His hand and breaks it. The splinters pierce His palm, and His blood flows as he pulls the barb out. His blood mingles with mine as He bandages my wound with a scrap from His own robe. He straps my breastplate back on and presses into my hand the Sword of His Spirit.
†††
tempra la cetra e canta
il inno di morte
a noi si schiude il ciel
volano al raggio
†††
I clench my teeth as the lady's legs shift. Turning my eyes away, I tighten my grip on the weapon. The Sword of the Spirit--Light and balanced, keen and adamantine. It calls out to me. I heed. I lower my visor once more and charge back into the fray, a battlehymn rising in my heart. Another lust falls, its vile entrails splattering at my feet. The heel of my boot comes down, crushing its skull.
†††
la vita dell'amore
dilette del cor mio
o felice, tu anima mia
canta addio...
†††
I fight on, for I am not of this world. This age may claim my body, but my soul sings for the Ages of Power--Ages long past, Ages that shall return.

#0818AD20062026

Your Black Lion
(Italian lyrics from Canta Per Me by Yuki Kajiura)

Murphy

Current System Configuration: Vexed but fulfilled anyway
Earworms:
NONE, Busted speakers.
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Raisin bread
[Lunch] Fusilli pasta with my brother's as-yet-unnamed sauce.
[Dinner] Fruit Magic's pesto verdi spaghetti
[Coffee] Homebrew coffee.
Current Read:
-None right now; TIRED.

Had a run-in with Murphy today. I prepared a listening activity for my students, and in light of the near-failure of a CD player I used earlier this week, I decided to bring my PC speakers and plug them into my MP3 player. I tried it at home, and the rig worked. I was happy that my PC speakers were of good quality and could play the song I was using loudly enough for the class. However.

In my second class, the adaptor popped. I was at a loss as to what I had to do. I spent the rest of the period fretting. Nevertheless, it's amazing how everything turned out well in the end.

I was able to borrow speakers from a student, and although they weren't as powerful, they did the job well enough. All three classes were able to do the listening exercise albeit some discomfort. Not only that---they actually liked the song. o_o I'm glad the youth of today are able to appreciate the beauty of symphonic power metal in the age of emo and punk. Remember, dear students: Don't let anyone take away the power of your imagination. Creativity is useful in any field---not only in art. We were created in the image of God, and imagination is part of that.

We are the power inside, we bring you fantasy!
We are the kingdom of light and dreams!
Gnosis and life: AVANTASIA!

In the end, though, I really think that this was all by the grace of God. Perhaps I was too confident in my preparation. Perhaps I was depending entirely on my hardware, so much so that I forgot to think about who enables me to do all things: The Lord.

Now, a little rhyme I wrote for my students. They have a little poetry round robin going on our forum, but I didn't really see it as poetry as much as I thought it was rhyming narration. So I reacted with this:

And thus the Master did speak:
Thy effort is commendable---
But still your poems look bleak
For rhyming is deplorable.

All poetry needs meter--
To this I will concede.
But rhyme forces the matter
'Tis not found in the poet's creed.

For rhyme makes one pretentious
And one's readers slightly queasy
When forced, words are atrocious
And forced writing, very cheesy.

Bound with rhyme's leaden shackles
Words lose their arcane enchantment
Saying less than loopy cackles
Rhyme's burden's not an enhancement.

Of course rhyme has its uses
Light-headed it's entertaining
Ensnared, its soul it loses
Night-blackened rhyme is enslaving.

Let words be free to take flight
To soar to the heavens on blazing wings
When chained, words are without might
They fall to the nethers, decaying things.

When one writes a senseless rhyme
The proper word is "limerick"
Otherwise, one wastes his time
Say "poetry"--false rhetoric!

People often think poetry is "rhyming text." Of course not. Poetry---good poetry---always has a central image around which the text revolves. It doesn't necessarily have to rhyme. Most outstanding modern poetry doesn't rhyme. Just some food for thought.

Exhausted but fulfilled,

Your Black Lion

Litany of Castigation

Current System Configuration: Indignant
Earworms:
-Avantasia from Tobias Sammet's Avantasia: The Metal Opera [Power Metal]
-Kyrie by Yoko Shimomura [BGM: Parasite Eve]
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Cheese toast
[Lunch] Cabbage rolls and wheat bread
[Dinner] Burger steak in mushroom gravy with rice
[Coffee] Venti Mocha Frappuccino with Valencia syrup. Double blended.
Current Read:
-None right now; finished Wormwood and The Secret Garden

Classes have been suspended since Monday, and the monsoon rains have not stopped. It has been raining all day. This kind of rain, of course, made students want classes to be suspended again tomorrow.

I was annoyed to receive a Y!M forward message that was basically a prayer for more rain so that classes would be suspended again. They did not consider, however, that there are four cities and municipalities that are already underwater. They did not consider that many families in Marikina are being displaced by the raging waters of the Marikina River. They did not consider that many small businesses are suffering because the floods are keeping customers from coming. They did not consider that the La Mesa and Wawa dams are bursting at the seams. They did not consider that most of this disease-ridden water is saturated with trash, rat piss, dead animals, and many other unsavory substances. Of course they did not consider these things. They're busy sitting in front of the computer, surfing the net, playing their games and chatting idly with each other. They're not worried about the floodwater entering their houses. The only effect the rain would have on them is that they won't have class.

I was so enraged by the forward message that I wrote this reply.

Lord, please have mercy on the thousands of people being displaced by the floods. Have mercy on the tens of thousands of people living in depressed areas who have no way of escaping the floods that may result from our rivers and reservoirs overflowing. Grant thy grace to the teachers whose lesson plans are being disrupted by the dreadful weather, and pierce the hearts of the selfish and lazy students who wish that this weather may continue lashing the city at the expense of so many others who are less fortunate.

Shame on you. May God turn a deaf ear to your selfish prayers.

Castigating you with righteous indignation,
Your Black Lion

Dreaming of the Dragon

Current System Configuration: Disturbed
Earworms:
-Reach Out for the Light from Tobias Sammet's Avantasia: The Metal Opera [Power Metal]
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Longganisa, cheese omelet and fried rice
[Lunch] Tuna on whole wheat pandesal and salad
[Dinner] Not eating dinner tonight
[Coffee] Homemade mocha
Current Read:
-none right now

I had a nightmare last night. I haven't had nightmares in a very, very long time, so I was rather disturbed by this one especially since it involved school.

It started out innocently--we were on a field trip that involved boating in a river. That part was fine. The order in which the following events happened is fuzzy. When we got back to the campus, there was a certain substance being passed around (it looked like shabu/meth). Whatever it was, it caused a lot of students to go on a psychotic rampage, mobbing people and beating them up. I myself was mobbed, but I was able to fight the crazed students off. And beneath the campus, there was an imprisoned dragon---a n enormous red one with seven heads---roaring and breaking free of its bonds.

I'm no prophet. Some of my students mistake me for a psychic due to my intuition. I'm not. If anything I lack foresight and often find myself having to make things up as I go. However, the mere occurence of a nightmare after not having had one in such a long time disturbs me. I don't believe anything is an accident, and so I think this dream really means something.

Now, being mobbed by drug-crazed students is bad enough (don't worry, I didn't see any faces of students I knew when everyone was going berserk), but what really disturbs me is the dragon. When I told my mom about this, she told me I just played too much Warcraft. Okay, but there are no seven-headed dragons there.

Another sign was seen in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns.

His tail drew one third of the stars of the sky, and threw them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. --Revelation 12:3-4

The Great Red Dragon here is Satan himself. Seven heads for perfect earthly knowledge, seven crowns for perfect earthly authority, and ten horns for tremendous power. Now why is it appearing underneath the campus, breaking free of its prison?

The implications of this terrify me. I still don't know what to make of it.

Confused and perturbed,

Your Black Lion

The New Temple

Current System Configuration: Insomnia
Earworms:
-Palace of Fantasy by Freedom Call [Power/Epic Metal]
-Heart of the Brave by Freedom Call [Power/Epic Metal]
-From the Inside Out by Hillsong United [CCM]
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Grilled cheese sandwich
[Lunch] Beefsteak and salad
[Dinner] Grilled cheese sandwich
[Coffee] Gourmet mocha, forgot the brand
Current Read:
-Wormwood by G.P. Taylor (Not really in the mood for reading)

Can't sleep. Apart from sleeping too long this afternoon, something has been weighing heavily on my heart, something that I knew I gave up already. Someone. I'll spare you the mushy details. You get enough of that from other blogs. In any case, this isn't really something bad. But it isn't for me. Not yet, if ever.

I thought I'd gotten rid of certain things in my life already, but they persist like irritating fungal infections. These are the bad things that should be axed. I guess I've been trying to live the Life from the outside-in, doing things in the hope that they will change me. It shouldn't be that way. The change should come from within. As the song goes,

Everlasting, Your light will shine
When all else fails
Neverending, Your glory goes
Beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart
Is to bring You praise
From the inside out
Lord my soul cries out

I'm ready to face another long day tomorrow. I know there is a God who loves me. There is nothing to fear.

Goodnight,
Your Black Lion.

Plastered, hammered and gone

Current System Configuration: Totally exhausted
Earworms:
-The Seven Angels from Tobias Sammet's Avantasia: The Metal Opera [Power/Epic Metal]. Can't get enough of this song. 14 minutes of sheer epic quality.
-Rise Up by Freedom Call [Power Metal] Something to help spur my tired spirit on.
-Worth It All by Disciple [Christian Rock] Excellent Christian rock song. Disciple is a must for any believer who sings a new song
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Chocolate oatmeal
[Lunch] Homemade burger steak in mushroom gravy with buttered rice.
[Dinner] Grilled cheese sandwich
[Coffee] Homemade mocha
Current Read:
-Wormwood by G.P. Taylor (Too wasted to read it right now)

To my dismay, I've missed almost an entire week's worth of working out. I've been squeezing my brain working on the lesson module for our next series of grammar lessons, and doing so has not been kind to my sleep schedule. More than once this week I had only been kept awake by caffeine and the grace of God. Today was the worst by far.

I usually enjoy having three classes in succession---I don't forget to say anything in the later classes and I don't do anything for the rest of the day. However, today's lecture was particularly heavy and two of the classes were interrupted by the quake drill we had. As such, I had to cram all my points into the truncated periods. It took quite an effort especially since this lecture required a lot of energy.

The quake drills were not very successful. It took longer than expected to take everyone out of the building, and had it collapsed, certain sections would have perished. <_< style="font-style: italic;">The Seven Angels, some weird lyrics came to mind.

Chorus
We are the Seven
Judgment of Heaven
Why don't we know? We are the angels!
It's revelation, soul castigation!
Fire will burn us away!

My version:
We are the Crammers!
Struggling learners!
Why can't you tell? We're Pisay students!
It's vegetation, procrastination!
Midnight oil burning away!

Ending Coda
You've been fighting for your soul
And sometimes it takes a toll
Hope one day you'll understand
What it means to hold in hand
What they call a fantasy
It is nothing but a key
To the world that now you're in
That they call a wicked dream!

When you're walking on your own
And you think you're all alone
You may feel us from inside
From the other side of LIFE!

My Version:
You've been struggling for your grade
And sometimes your nerves get frayed
Hope one day you'll understand
What it means to hold in hand
What they call Acuity,
It is more than just a key
To the future of your soul
To your glorious destiny!

When your strength is all but gone
And you just can't get that "One"
Call Him and He'll hear your cry,
Rise on eagle's wings and FLY!

Fatigued and drowsy,
Your Black Lion.

The Return

Current System Configuration: Physical Fitness Mode
Earworms:
-Jin/Shin/Ki -MAN-GOD-MACHINE- by Yuichi Ikusawa [JRock, Kishin Houkou Demonbane OP]
-Ages of Power by Freedom Call [Power Metal]
-Subarashiki Shin Sekai by Flair [JPop/Trance, Namco vs Capcom insert song]
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Grilled ham and cheese sandwich
[Lunch] Fruit magic's pesto spaghetti and choco-banana shake.
[Dinner] None yet. Antonio's despedida tonight.
[Coffee] Homemade mocha (just ordinary coffee+Swiss Miss mix. I don't have espresso, sadly.)
Current Read:
-Wormwood by G.P. Taylor

My brother's finally coming home tomorrow night. I really miss the guy even if I visited him last summer. It'll be great to have him here again. I guess I always take his presence for granted. Most of us are like that, anyway.

He just graduated from High School in the US. He did pretty well there; he was exempted from practically all his final exams because of his performance. He'll be staying here for about 8 months, as he will leave for Singapore next April. He's most likely going to take up Management and Culinary Studies at Temasek Polytechnic. At least he'll be much easier to visit in Singapore, and as I have plans of eventually working there, it won't be such a big problem.

~~~~

Wormwood has been an interesting read so far. It's not particularly excellent; I find it too dark, the imagery too squalid. Nevertheless, I'm sure it's an accurate portrayal of 18th-century London. My main issue with G.P. Taylor's work is that I find his world view confusing and inconsistent with the Christian ideas that he is trying to present. Of course, his main target audience is the goth demographic, trying to draw them to faith in Jesus Christ through his horror novels. That was certainly clear and present in his previous novel, Shadowmancer, but in Wormwood I'm having trouble seeing who the good guy really is.

There is no clear protagonist, though I see two who are experiencing the story in a similar way: Dr. Sabian Blake, an astronomer and master of the Kabbalah, and his servant girl, Agetta Lamian, a flea-bitten teenage girl with a knack for thievery. Both are caught up in things they do not understand, a web of deception. They both encounter angels who tell them more about the greater scheme of things, although Agetta's angel is a remorseful and disempowered being who had been doomed because he had fallen in love with a demonic sorceress.

The plot seems smooth---the action rises, slowly but surely, through each cryptically-entitled chapter (most of them have Latin or Hebrew titles). As I see it, Wormwood is much more allegorical than Shadowmancer, which was very literal in its treatment of the use of magic and salvation. More to come when I finish the novel.

Books and related things

Current System Configuration: First Quarter Storm
Earworms:
-Through the Fire and Flames by Dragon Force [Power Metal]
-Warriors by Freedom Call [Power Metal]
-XTC by Psychic Lover [JRock, Witchblade Anime OP]
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Oatmeal
[Lunch] Kielbasa, buttered veggies, whole wheat toast with olive oil
[Dinner] Sbarro's Spinach and Mushroom pizza.
[Coffee] Tall Mocha frappuccino with Valencia. Twice Blended.

I'm really happy with the new reading list we're using for my English 1 class. The previous year's list of books was at best hard to relate to, and at worst horribly boring. Compare these two lists:

Last Year
1st Quarter: Silas Marner by George Elliot
2nd Quarter: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
3rd Quarter: The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
4th Quarter: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

This Year
1st Quarter: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
2nd Quarter: The Giver by Lois Lowry
3rd Quarter: The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
4th Quarter: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Silas Marner wasn't really bad, albeit mildly boring. It was just rather hard to relate to and the way the local manner of speech was rendered made it exceedingly hard to take in at times. Oliver Twist, on the other hand, was downright horrible. Dickens's prose is long-winded, wordy, and preachy. The plot felt like one of the telenovelas on ABS-CBN. Among these four, I liked the Red Badge the most. It was really short and was a rather vivid tale of war, though there were times when the narration confused me. Heart of Darkness was difficult to wrestle with, but it was still nowhere as awful as Oliver Twist.

Among this year's readings, the only one I haven't read yet is The Giver. I've already gone through Lord of the Flies and The Alchemist before, and both were quite engaging to read. I'm almost done with The Secret Garden, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. I thought it would be another dreary and confusing story, but I have to say that it is definitely one of the better classics I've read. I can't say too much about it now as most of the readers of this blog are my students who should be reading the novel on their own.

I took a trip to the bookstore a while ago to hunt for the Bartimaeus trilogy. I only found the second book (The Golem's Eye). Perhaps tomorrow I'll have better luck at Powerbooks. I intend to do a fair amount of book hunting soon. I have yet to finish That Hideous Strength, though--I had to put it down for a while. It really is a challenging read.

The only other book I'm hunting for right now (probably going to ask my brother to get it for me in Barnes and Noble before he comes home from the US) is Dissension, the third book in Magic: The Gathering's Ravnica trilogy. Ravnica: City of Guilds was good but rather convoluted, while Guildpact was complex in an amusing way. I never thought Teysa Karlov would make such a good protagonist, but she just shines in it. I expect Dissension to be full of action. After all, Rakdos the Defiler has come to party, and Razia's legion of angels isn't too happy about that.

~~~

On a rather sad note, I heard from one of my students that her mother was not letting her read Lord of the Rings and other fantasy books. According to the mother, fantasy was "useless" and Tolkien was crazy to have spent so much time creating his own universe.

I beg to differ. All literature is rooted in human experience, and Tolkien's "own world" is in fact supposed to be OUR world. Arda IS Earth. On top of that, Tolkien's work is ultimately uplifting.

C.S. Lewis created his own world too (Narnia), and it too is an echo of ours. Wild and beautiful and tragically marred by a single act of human foolishness, ending only to be transformed into a truer, wilder, and more wonderful version of itself.

Now, if you want to read work by a crackpot, you might want to check out H.P. Lovecraft's stuff. I haven't read them personally, but in general it seems his work makes people want to believe that a giant alien octopus man is sleeping under the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Lovecraft has a depressing, nihilistic point of view that makes you feel insignificant and weak. His mighty gods are not beings of glory, but twisted, vile creatures, mockeries of creation. Slugs, octopi, tentacle monsters, worms, giant demonic amoebas, giants with tentacles in place of faces--it goes on, and it sickens me. His obsession with tentacles is disturbing enough. Calling this guy a crackpot would not do him justice.

I really think it's unfair to fantasy stories to call them useless. Is "real-world" fiction any more genuine? Are their values even more applicable to human life? I'd definitely consider the values of honor, faith, hope and brotherhood (which appear in Lord of the Rings) much more applicable to life than the shallow materialism and consumerism promoted in the bilgewater known as Chick Lit.

I don't advocate rebellion against one's parents, dear student, but you'll always have your chance to read. Be thankful that you can read at all, and that you have good taste in books. Ultimately, your mind and your dreams are your own.

Work, work. D:

Current System Configuration: Warcraft Orc Peon Voice: Ready to work~
Earworms:
-Agnus Dei by Michael W. Smith. Agnus Dei means "Lamb of God" in Latin. A stirring ballad of worship.(This is different from the Latin Agnus Dei hymn)
-Shine On by Freedom Call. I really, really love orchestral power metal. It's fast and powerful, and the vocals are done by people who can actually sing. This song's lyrics are a prayer to the Savior.

Shine on, starlight!
Savior comes from somewhere
Ride on, guardian!
Take us back where eagles dare!

Breakfast: Samosa
Lunch: Chicken al Pesto @ Chef D'Angelo
Dinner: Homemade Amazing Aloha D:

Okay, I don't really have much to say this time. Work's starting again tomorrow, and my students from batch 09 already know their respective sections. I've been trying to finish my readings for the Creative Writing class, but I couldn't find one of my key source books. Good thing I was able to borrow it from a college classmate. (Thanks Carla! :D)

I've also been going through my dusty archives of ancient scrolls (i.e., essays, stories and plays I wrote for classes in college), and I discovered a nonfic piece that I really enjoyed writing (and surprisingly, enjoyed editing as well). It was about what happened to me one night when I was on my way home from watching a ballet at CCP. I got lost in Quiapo, which scared me half to death. It's a really creepy place at night.

....urgh, I feel so stupid. My thoughts are incoherent due to mechanical work (retyping stories WITHOUT editing, as to preserve the mistakes that could've been taken out by edition), so I can barely say something here for more than one paragraph. Maybe next week, I'll be more coherent.

Before I go, check this out:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/34027219/
It's a new and improved Aslan x Rynn pic. I actually had to reupload it a bunch of times to add the personal seal thing and edit Rynn's left eye (right in the pic) because she looked cross-eyed. If you're also a Deviant, please full view and comment! Thanks.

Reverse Creation

In light of the loooooooooong entries preceding this one, I decided to share a poem this time. The author is unfortunately unknown, but I find this one of the best pieces of poetry I've ever read. Too bad we didn't use this for our English class last year.

REVERSE CREATION

by Bernard Backman

In the end, we destroyed the heaven that was called Earth. The Earth had been beautiful until our spirit moved over it and destroyed all things.

And we said...

Let there be darkness... and there was darkness. And we liked the darkness; so we called the darkness, Security. And we divided ourselves into races and religions and classes of society. And there was no morning and no evening on the seventh day before the end.

And we said...

Let there be a strong government to control us in our darkness. Let there be armies to control our bodies so that we may learn to kill one another neatly and efficiently in our darkness. And there was no evening and no morning on the sixth day before the end.

And we said...

Let there be rockets and bombs to kill faster and easier; let there be gas chambers and furnaces to be more thorough. And there was no evening and no morning on the fifth day before the end.

And we said...

Let there be drugs and other forms of escape, for there is this constant annoyance - Reality - which is disturbing our comfort. And there was no evening and no morning on the fourth day before the end.

And we said...

Let there be divisions among the nations, so that we may know who is our common enemy. And there was no evening and no morning on the third day before the end.

And finally we said...

Let us create God in our image. Let some other God compete with us. Let us say that God thinks as we think, hates as we hate, and kills as we kill. And there was no morning and no evening on the second day before the end.

On the last day, there was a great noise on the face of the Earth. Fire consumed the beautiful globe, and there was silence. The blackened Earth now rested to worship the one true God; and God saw all that we had done, and in the silence over the smoldering ruins... God wept.

Author unknown

This is in essence, the reverse of what happens in the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1 (the creation of the Universe). It uses the same formula in its sentences, but speaks of the process of destruction instead. I'll let it speak for itself. I think it's pretty straightforward.

Code of Errors

Current System Configuration: Still sick >_< BGM: Brother in the Faith by JAM Project, SRW Alpha 3's ending theme. A mournful rock ballad that speaks of courage going on forever. A fitting end to the last game in SRW's Alpha saga.
Breakfast: Breadtalk's Cheese Floss bun.
Lunch: Breadtalk's HotChic spicy floss bun.
Dinner: Breadtalk's Earthquake Toast. Man, Breadtalk stuff is GOOD.

I'm sure most of my readers have read The Da Vinci Code. I have read it myself and enjoyed reading it. In fact, I couldn't put it down until I finished it at 2 AM. I plan on watching the movie when it comes out on Thursday, partly just so that I can say I watched it and partly because I want to see Audrey Tautou.

However, there are a few things I have to make clear, and in this I align myself with most Christian authorities that are speaking out against the book. However, the burden of proof rests upon us because Dan Brown and his predecessors seem to have compiled quite a lot of important historical facts that are used to support the arguments presented in the book. Thus, it's not enough to just pull rank and say that because the Church is the authority, it should be believed. Since the guns of history were pulled out and pointed at us, it is best to present true historical facts that will show everyone that Dan Brown's guns are not even loaded.

But wait, isn't The Da Vinci Code only a work of fiction? We shouldn't believe it in the first place! At first I was convinced of that. But after seeing two Dan Brown interviews, he says that he was at first skeptical of the whole conspiracy theory and sought to disprove it with his book, but after three trips to Paris, he "became a believer." The mere fact that he said the exact same thing in both interviews means this guy is serious. The intent of the book is not to just be a bestseller. He intends to make us all believe.

Now, I'm not saying he's an evil evil man and that his work sucks. I enjoyed reading his novels (I've read Da Vinci, and I've also read Angels and Demons, my favorite; Digital Fortress and Deception Point). Neither am I saying that the movie should be boycotted. That's just immature. If someone pulls logical-looking arguments against you, it's best if you counter them with your own.

Dan Brown raised quite a few points that Christians see as attacks:
-That Jesus was completely human, and not God at all, as portrayed in the Gnostic Gospels, so-called secret Gospels that were either excluded from Church canon or destroyed altogether.
-He was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a bloodline that is still alive to this day, also in the Gnostic Gospels.
-The original teachings of Christ supported the "Sacred Feminine" and exalted women, as seen in the Gnostic Gospels.
-That Christianity as we know it is a cleverly engineered cover-up that was sanctioned by the Roman Emperor Constantine: important secret Gospels were destroyed and the four canonical Gospels were embellished by him.
-The Church continues to cover up these "facts" and lives in a lie in order to retain power.

Before I begin I do have to admit that some of these arguments will not stand in a formal debate with solid rules of logic. The logic I am appealing to is not the logic of debate, but the logic of common sense. This is about history and about recorded writings, not concepts that are obscure and must be defined by parties concerned. You can feel free to debate with me if you wish, but I think it's best that you take that up with the actual historians whose work this article is based on.

Jesus Was Not Believed to be God, and Christianity as we know it was made up by Constantine at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

“My dear,” Teabing declared, “until [the Council of Nicaea],
Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet ...
a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.
A mortal.”

Upon this premise alone, the Da Vinci Code falls flat. Jesus Himself said that He was God, and this is precisely the claim that got Him executed.

""Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?"

"I am," said Jesus.
"And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

The high priest tore his clothes. "Why do we need any more witnesses?" he asked.
"You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?"

They all condemned him as worthy of death."
---Mark 14: 61-64

Biblical scholars may disagree on many different things, but they will all agree that the Gospel of Mark dates back to 80 AD at latest, and that it is the earliest of the Gospels. This far predated the reign of Constantine (who Dan Brown says made up the four Gospels and threw his influence around at the Council of Nicea to further his own agendas). And to a Jew, Jesus's statement, "I am," is chillingly similar to God's forbidden name, YHWH. (YHWH is also referenced in DVC, this is discussed in detail later.) This is outright blasphemy to them, and was the basis for Jesus's execution. Disclaimer: Do NOT accuse me of anti-Semitism, because I have a deep respect for the Jews. I do not blame them for the death of Christ, because it was necessary in the first place, for the forgiveness of our sins. I pray for the Jews, respect them as God's chosen people and I wish to visit the Holy Land someday.)

Several extra-Biblical, non-Christian authors also wrote about Christ, Christians and their practices:

Tacitus (A.D. c.55-A.D. c.117, Roman historian) has a rather nasty but accurate view of Christianity:

"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."

This means Jesus was executed and His followers did claim that He was God. It's consistent with the view that most authorities during that time had toward Christianity: It was a nuisance based on superstition.

Pliny the Younger paints a better picture, though he is still a non-Biblical, non-Christian source of proof that Jesus had been worshipped as God ever since:

"They (the Christians) were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food—but food of an ordinary and innocent kind."


In 180 AD, Irenaeus of Lyons declared in his text, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies), that there are only four canonical Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, each bearing the name of the man who wrote them.

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.
--Adversus Haereses III, 1:1

Matthew and John were both eyewitness accounts, while Mark's account was taken from Peter's experiences, Luke's was based on Paul's. If you watched National Geographic's Gospel of Judas documentary, you'll hear that Irenaeus's reasons for choosing only four gospels was quite arbitrary and illogical: There were four winds, four compass points, etc. The documentary, however, fails to mention that Irenaeus was no person far-removed from the eyewitness accounts of the Gospel. He was the disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John himself. He was around early enough to know whether the gospels were true or not. Upon seeing the Gnostic gospels, he dismissed them with good reason: They did not agree with the things he knew to be true about Jesus.

Both Tacitus and Pliny predated Constantine by approximately two centuries. Christianity's belief system---as far as the divinity of Christ is concerned---was solid.

...Teabing said. “Jesus’s establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.”
“Hold on. You’re saying Jesus’s divinity was the result of a vote?”
“A relatively close vote at that,” Teabing added.

The Council of Nicaea was indeed convened by Constantine to clarify the stand of Christianity with regard to the equality of Jesus to the Father, but not the Divinity of the Son per se. It was a move to unify the Church, (and thus, Constantine's Empire) which was being fragmented by the Arian heresy. All of them already agreed that Jesus was the Son of God, they just had to agree on whether He was of the same essence as the Father or not. Eventually the Council produced the Nicene Creed, from which the Apostles' Creed, recited in Masses and worship services in all Christendom, was derived. The Creed was the object of the vote, and not merely Christ's nature.

And the "relatively close vote" part is completely bogus. Only two out of the 370 bishops present voted against the Nicene Creed---and only because there were other parts of the creed that they did not agree with.

It's settled: Jesus claimed to be God and was believed to be so by His followers as early as the Gospel times. The four canonical Gospels predated the Council of Nicaea by nearly two centuries, as opposed to the Da Vinci Code's claim of the canon being decided upon four centuries after Christ.

Christianity: 2, Dan Brown: 0.

More on Scripture:
“Fortunately for historians,” Teabing said, “some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert. And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Nag Hammadi. In addition to telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ’s ministry in very human terms. Of course, the Vatican, in keeping with their tradition of misinformation, tried very hard to suppress the release of these scrolls. And why wouldn’t they? The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications,
clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda — to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base.”

Bra-vo. The Dead Sea Scrolls were not Christian writings. They were Jewish writings attributed to the apocalyptic Essene sect, dated to at least 200 years before Constantine, were found in 1947, and had nothing to do with Jesus other than that they contained Old Testament prophecies regarding Him, in the form of the Book of Isaiah. In fact, the Book of Isaiah found in the Dead Sea Scrolls is almost exactly (around 95%) the same as the current Book of Isaiah found in the Old Testament today. If anything, it confirmed the accuracy of our modern translations. It did not throw any doubt on Jesus's divine nature at all.

The Nag Hammadi Codices contain the Gnostic Gospels, which are discussed in more detail later. Simply put, they were not even clear narratives of Jesus's ministry. The Gospel of Thomas was a set of "secret sayings" of Jesus, while neither of the other two Gospels truly portrays Jesus in a specifically human way. Furthermore, the Gnostics believed that the flesh was inherently evil. Why would they write about a Messiah who was merely human? In the separate but related (Gnostic) Gospel of Judas, Jesus tells Judas that he will be the greatest among the Apostles because he will be the one who "sacrifices the man that clothes [Jesus]." Yeah, that's pretty pro-human. It portrays Jesus as itching to get out of the sack of flesh and blood. In general, the Nag Hammadi Codices paint a Jesus who spouts obscure and uninterpretable pronouncements. For example:

Jesus said, "Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And foul is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion still will become human." --The Gospel of Thomas, Saying #7

Really, this sounds like what you'd hear on Bubble Gang's Ang Dating Doon. And people say the canonical Bible is hard to understand. Closing remarks on Jesus's divinity, care of one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis:

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us." --C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Jesus Was Married to Mary Magdalene
Dan Brown states that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, a prominent female figure in the canonical Gospel stories. He claims that the Church invented the lie that she was a prostitute in order to slander her and take away her credibility. Dan Brown also states that a bloodline was born of this union and persists today, hidden in some secret location in France.

Proof:
-Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper shows a very feminine person seated beside Christ, who according to popular belief is not John but Mary Magdalene. Their clothing is similarly colored, with Jesus in a red robe with a blue cloak, and "Mary" in a blue robe and red cloak.

At first glance, the person seated beside Jesus does look like a woman. The figure is the only beardless figure in the entire room (This is not actually true, as Philip is also depicted as beardless---he's the one standing two people away from Jesus on the right half of the painting with his hands to his chest), and the face is decidedly feminine. In fact, she's quite a hottie.

But what Dan Brown doesn't tell you is that the painting has been restored several times. The original paint has badly decayed and what Robert Langdon sees in the novel is the restored image. So what did "Mary" look like back then?

The figure in question has such a badly-smudged face that there is no way of telling it is indeed bearded or not. However, we don't even need to question the beardedness of the painting. It was (and still is) common to portray John as bare-faced as he is traditionally believed to be the youngest of the 12.
Last Supper by Jacopo Bassano
Last Supper by Valentin de Boulonge
Last Supper by Duccio di Bouninsegna
Last Supper by Andrea del Castagno

No prizes as to who John is in each painting. John and Judas are, apart from Jesus, the most easily recognizable figures in almost all Last Supper paintings. John is almost always beside Jesus, is beardless, and sleeping either on the table or leaning against Jesus. Judas, on the other hand, is either dark-featured, seated separately (as in del Castagno's--note also the eerie vision of wolves in the panel above his head) or holding a purse (as in Da Vinci's and Bassano's).

Now, let's look at another of Da Vinci's paintings---this time, of John the Baptist.
See, it is his style to draw young men with features that we would find feminine today. Ready for the deathblow? 覚悟！

Da Vinci's study of the Last Supper labels the person as John. No doubt about that, art critics universally agree that the person seated to Jesus's right is John. In the study, John is on Jesus's left and is alseep, as he is commonly depicted in Last Supper paintings. Da Vinci decided to go with a less traditional pose and instead portrayed him as sleepy. There is no one labeled Mary Magdalene in Da Vinci's study.

On a related note, regarding the "disembodied hand with the dagger":
The novel says that there is an extraneous arm with a dagger in its hand.

Sophie squinted and saw a hand emerging from the crowd of disciples. “Is that hand wielding a dagger?”
“Yes. Stranger still, if you count the arms, you’ll see that this hand belongs to ... no one at all. It’s disembodied. Anonymous.”

If you look closely at the painting, you'll see that while there is a hand that emerges at an odd angle from behind Judas, and cannot possibly belong to Peter, Judas or anyone in that immediate area. But if you continue looking at the painting, you'll see that it isn't even pointing at "Mary Magdalene", and that you can't really count the arms because not all of them are even shown. Now, why is it at an odd angle, emerging out of Judas's back?

Okay, while I'm a Fine Arts graduate, we didn't really take up symbolism in class. But anybody familiar with the Apostles and their epithets will tell you that Judas was known as "Iscariot"--"Man of Daggers." (Take note that this is only one reading of Judas's street name, it isn't the only way) One explanation for the dagger may be his betrayal, and that can be supported by John 13:27: After the piece of bread, then Satan entered into him. Then Jesus said to him, "What you do, do quickly." The dagger and the extra hand can be symbolic of Satan's entering into Judas, the presence of another malevolent will in the room.

A simpler (and more likely) explanation can be that the hand belongs to Peter in the first place, and that Da Vinci messed it up, as seen in this article. It goes on to say that Da Vinci did write in his notes that this implement was a knife (tableware) as opposed to a dagger (a murder weapon). Furthermore, Peter is sometimes shown holding a knife, symbolic of his attack of the high priest's servant Malchus. (John 18:10). See the above Last Supper by Jacopo Bassano to see what I mean: Peter is clearly threatening the sleeping John with a sharp knife. :P I kid, of course. Among the Apostles, Peter is depicted as a hothead who acts on impulse, which eventually culminated at his denial of Christ. In his anger he lashed out and cut off the high priest's servant's ear in Gethsemane, an attempt to defend Christ during His arrest.

Simply enough, this "disembodied hand" is not symbolic of any attempt to attack "Mary Magdalene," who is actually John anyway.

-The passages in Gnostic Gospels about Jesus kissing Mary Magdalene.
What Dan Brown has you believe is that according to viciously suppressed writings, Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. The cited work in the novel is The Gospel of Philip, which is a part of the Nag Hammadi Library, a set of writings that was found in Egypt. These writings are attributed to the Gnostics, a sect of Christians who were deemed heretical as they believed the flesh was evil and that everyone had the ability to become a god or like God through special knowledge (Gnosis). More on them here.

The Nag Hammadi codices are damaged, highly fragmented writings that are dated to 150-250 AD, a long time after the four canonical Gospels were written (60-100 AD) let alone the earliest New Testament writings: Paul's epistles, written circa 50 AD.

The Gospel of Philip is translated from a badly damaged manuscript and contains two passages that hint at Jesus's supposed marriage:

"There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary."

Dan Brown says, through Leigh Teabing:

"As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse."

What Teabing doesn't tell you is that the Gnostic Gospels were written in Coptic, a variant of Greek, rather than Aramaic, a variant of Hebrew. The word used is koinonos, which just means companion. The Greek word for wife is gyne. Off the bat, it seems Dan Brown didn't really do his research very well.

Let's look at another passage from the Gospel of Philip.

And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] more than [...] the disciples, [...] kiss her [...] on her [...]. The rest of the disciples [...]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness.

Each of the brackets with ellipses indicates a hole in the original text, or a part that's so damaged it's illegible. The missing words can be guessed through context, but a common translation of "kiss her [...] on her [...]." has the first hole as "often" and the latter hole as "mouth." Wow, that's something to put into your gossip column. If a pastor or priest kissed a woman now, it would definitely be seen as a scandal. In OUR cultural context. In Jesus's time, even men kissed each other and it was not seen as taboo. In using this passage to prove Jesus's marriage, we are applying our cultural norms to an event that happened 2000 years ago, in a completely different culture and environment. Furthermore, the Greek word for mouth (stouma) can also be interchangeably used to refer to the word "face."

From these few passages, we cannot conclude that Jesus was married. Teabing claims that there are "countless references to Jesus and Mary Magdalene's union." This is an outright exaggeration: There were only two references in all the Gnostic gospels, and they were not even conclusive.

I have more arguments against this conspiracy theory, but I'll leave them out for now as I still have a lot of ground to cover. To close this section: Why is Jesus being married so bad?

The simple answer? There is absolutely nothing wrong about Jesus being married or performing the sexual act in marriage. Marriage and proper use of sexuality are both creations of God, and as such, had Jesus been married, he would have shown us the perfect example of marriage. The problem arises in Jesus actually having children. Since Jesus is fully man and fully God, while his supposed wife is fully human, what would the nature of the children be? This would result in a cataclysmic and endless debate about the nature of these people. (Maier,88)

Another claim of Dan Brown is that Christianity was engineered and edited into a patriarchal, anti-female army that demonized the ancient, matriarchal pagan religion.

He claims that Christ was "...the original feminist. He intended for the future of His church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene..."

I have no doubt that Jesus was the original feminist. He associated with women a lot during a time that they were deemed untrustworthy.
-He defended the woman caught in adultery (who the Scriptures never, ever name as Mary Magdalene)
-He talked with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well, who was not only a despicable outsider to the Jews, she was also an adulteress
-The person Jesus cited for great charity in tithing was a poor widow. If women had bad social standing in ancient Palestine, widows had it even worse. Jesus broke this trend.
-It was the women who stuck close to Him while He was on the way to Golgotha. Only John appeared later on at the crucifixion site.
-He first appeared to Mary Magdalene after His resurrection
-It was the women He first asked to tell the men of His resurrection.

In fact, the New Testament portrays a significant number of women in a positive light, and holding a very important position in the group that followed Jesus: (Taken from Wikipedia)

• Tabitha/Dorcas - Acts 9:36
• Priscilla - Romans 16:3
• sisters Mary and Martha - Luke 10:38
• Jesus' mother Mary
• Mary Magdalene - Mark 16:1
• Salome - Mark 16:1
• A woman with an issue of blood - Matthew 10:20
• Mary, the mother of James and Joses - Matthew 27:55-56
• The mother of Zebedee's sons - Matthew 27:55-56

This also does not include Eunice and Lois, the mother and grandmother of Timothy (Paul's young disciple), respectively, who were noted for being righteous. (2 Timothy 1:5)

Contrast this with the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, which is more of a set of "Secret Sayings of Jesus" than a narrative of Christ's life.

(114) Simon Peter said to them, "Mary should leave us, for females are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "See, I am going to attract her to make her male so that she too might become a living spirit that resembles you males. For every female (element) that makes itself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

Even though this does not refer to an actual sex change, the author of this gospel uses the word "male" to refer to higher, spiritual things and "female" to refer to lower, earthly things. I don't think it takes much to decide which text is more favorable toward women.

The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH--the sacred name of God--is in fact derived from the "Jehovah," an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic word for Eve, Havvah. (The Da Vinci Code, page 390)

Bzzzzt. Wrong. YHWH is based on the Hebrew word for "To be", and is best described as meaning "I AM WHO I AM," God's resounding declaration in the Old Testament to Moses. (It stands for God's total self-sufficiency, existing in and of Himself without being created. It also refers to His eternal nature.) Jews were forbidden to say this name, so the word "Adonai" (Lord) was often used in its place. Eventually, rabbis pronounced this sacred name with the vowel sounds from "Adonai," resulting in "Jehovah." This only happened in the 16th century and did not predate YHWH. (Maier, 88)

I'm running out of space, and I've been tapping and clicking at my computer for almost eight hours writing this. I've gone through one and a half pots of tea, consumed a rather large amount of bread, and have been juggling resource websites, a PDF of the Da Vinci Code, a critique, pages of notes, the Bible, and Yahoo Messenger windows all afternoon. But given the glaring amount of discrepancies the DVC has with historical fact, I think I can rest my case. It sure is an entertaining read (I don't even think it's well-written, as Sophie is more of a bobbing-head damsel in distress than the sacred feminine that the book claims to support), but I can definitely, conclusively say that the conspiracy theories therein are complete, utter nonsense. I am not saying that Christianity has not had its own share of grievous errors. The Crusades; the Inquisition; several, very wicked popes; false televangelists who extort followers for profit; sex and molestation scandals; oh, the list goes on. There is no excuse for those atrocities. However, the much-regretted and apologized-for actions of a few men should not supercede the loving, righteous actions of many, many more men and women.

The catholic Church (I'm using catholic here in what it means: Universal, meaning all true believers in Christ, not just Roman Catholics, not just Orthodox, not just Protestant---EVERYONE) has been under attack ever since it began. She was oppressed by a world power, the Roman Empire, but she only grew and spread, outliving the most brutal empire of that time. She was deemed to be obsolete by Voltaire, but she persisted. The Church, the Bride of Christ, will live to the end of the age. Her life is not based on this world, the bastion of the Enemy. Her life is in Christ, who lives forever and ever.

"We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." ---Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:8

"In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." ---Jesus, John 16:33

Resources:
-The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
-The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction? by Hank Hanergraaff and Paul L. Maier
-The Bible, New International Version
-Unlocking the Da Vinci Code (Seminar) by Randy Gleason
-Adversus Haereses by Irenaeus
-The Gospel of Philip
-The Gospel of Thomas
-Wikipedia (links to specific articles above)
-What about the Disembodied Hand?
-Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Eye for an Eye

Current System Configuration: Sick again.
BGM: Holy Orders ~ Be Just or Be Dead~ by Saitama Saishuu Heiki. A remix of Ky Kiske's theme from Guilty Gear. S.S.H. is a very talented remix artist from Japan. Check out his website. (You can download stuff from his mp3 section) Take note: S.S.H. isn't his real name, it means "Saitama's Ultimate Weapon." Saitama is a place in Japan.
Breakfast: Ensaymada and yohgurt
Lunch: --
Dinner: --
Current Read/s:
+X_x

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
--Mohandas Gandhi, called Mahatma

Before anything else, let me make it clear that I am a pacifist. Although I'm not a perfect pacifist (I think some things are worth fighting for and should be fought for), in general I do not like getting into fights, even verbal ones, and I do not delight in the torment of young children and small, furry animals. But I feel that the Bible and its Old Testament in particular have received so much bashing on account of the "Eye for an Eye" clause in the book of Exodus, which has always been taken out of context. This statement has been erroneously used to point out the harshness and supposed obsolescence of the Old Testament and its opposition to the supposedly kinder and more forgiving New Testament.

Even among practicing Christians, the Old Testament is sometimes considered obsolete and superceded by the New. Admittedly, the harsh-sounding text in the Old Testament has been used---erroneously---to justify harsh (and often unjust) punishment, which I would like to refer to as castigation. Even in pop culture we see this. Here's an excerpt from Avantasia's Sign of the Cross, a song that satirizes the harshness of the Roman Catholic Church during the Renaissance.

[Bishop von Bicken]
In the heart of justice called Horeb long ago
Moses got carvings in stone.
Imposed to judge those who do not fear
the only, the holy, the lord.

[Gabriel]
The blood of anger and pain:
Ink of the Old Testament.

There's a lot of hate for the Old Testament. However, Jesus Himself says:

"I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." ---Matthew 5:18

Jesus plainly says that the Law will still be in place until the end of the world, and Paul elaborates on this later to say that the Law will be used to judge those who did not choose Christ's gift of grace. In this sense, Grace does override Law, but take note: its standard is higher. That's why it has "turning the other cheek" instead of "eye for an eye." This is more "You take his punishment instead" than "Be nice and soft toward him." But let's get back on topic: the much-maligned Eye for an Eye Clause.

Here's the original verse:

"But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."
--Exodus 21:23-25

The reason so many people find this verse so off-putting is that they see it as a license to vendetta---if one injures another, the other injures back, and the cycle goes on and on and on until everyone is dead or maimed. This is the common misinterpretation of this verse and is probably how Gandhi understood it. Not to say he's a fool, he contributed a lot to the world's pool of ideologies, but I seriously think that he did not have a real understanding of the oft-misquoted verse.

What people do not see is that this is a law. It is a decree that is to be pursued only by lawful authority and not personally. From what I've read in the Bible, although it is the citizens themselves who execute the punishment (stoning or killing), this is regulated by authority. Seriously, would the nation of Israel be able to rise up and establish itself as a nation if its laws promoted crimes of passion, let alone become a world power in its time? Sure, Israel didn't become a massive empire that spanned across continents, but it did rule over a sizable chunk of the Middle East.

The intent of this law was to promote order and a spirit of justice, not vengeance. A nation ruled by a license to vendetta is a nation of chaos, a nation that would tear itself apart very quickly. Now of course, people would complain that the brand of justice promoted in the Old Testament is overly harsh and oppressive. Nowadays we don't knock out someone's teeth because he knocked out some other guy's teeth. But we have to understand the context.

They didn't really have dentists and orthodontists back then, given that they were just fresh out of being slaves in a foreign country. Dentures did not exist. Knock a guy's teeth out, they stay out and can't be replaced. Without any food processors to mash food down to a shake, a guy could starve to death if he lost his teeth. Medical care was limited and usually performed by religious authorities. Burns and other injuries that are seen as minor now could potentially get dangerously infected and cause death or at the very least, long periods of recovery that reduced productivity. They cared about productivity in the Old Testament, as seen here:

"If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist and he does not die but is confined to bed, the one who struck the blow will not be held responsible if the other gets up...however, he must pay the injured man for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed." --Exodus 21:18-19.

This is just a few verses before the Eye for an Eye Clause, so it shares the same context. A few verses before that, there is a Murder/Homicide law:

"Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death. However, if he does not do it intentionally, but God lets it happen, he is to flee to a place I will designate. But if a man schemes and kills another man deliberately, take him away from My altar and put him to death." -- Exodus 21:12-14

After this verse we have more crimes that deserve capital punishment: Physically or verbally assaulting one's parents, kidnapping, neglect of dangerous animals under one's care, among others. There are other capital crimes in the Book of the Law that are not related to physical injury, but in this context these are the laws mentioned. It was strict, yes, but I believe that these laws, by God' s authority, are what allowed the nation to establish itself and flourish. Even then, mercy was upheld---there were six cities of sanctuary placed at strategic points throughout the nation, to which people who killed unintentionally could flee. Other laws that called for death had provisions for adequate compensation instead, such as the neglect of a dangerous animal one owns. The owner of a bull that is known to be violent, for example, could be executed if his bull kills someone (the bull is killed as well), or he can pay adequate compensation while the bull is killed. Furthermore, they don't just go out and kill someone who's accused of murder on the streets and leave him there.

"Anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses. But no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness."
--Numbers 35:30.

I'm no lawyer, but I think this is pretty fair. You can't just go and execute someone on a simple accusation. There should be at least two witnesses before someone is executed.

The Old Testament, contrary to popular belief, does not promote mindless revenge. These were laws that were put into place and enacted by the proper authorities. Crimes of passion were not encouraged or sanctioned by the Lord. The Eye for an Eye Clause was meant for people to elevate their grievances to the proper authorities. The Eye for an Eye Clause has been used countless times, out of context, to attack the integrity of the Bible. I hope this little essay has helped you understand the Old Testament a little more.

In closing:

"Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it. Do not defile the land where you live and I dwell, for I the Lord dwell among the Israelites." --Numbers 35:33-34.

" Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing so you will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good." --Romans 12:19-21

I think that the Old and New Testaments reconcile very well on this. The Old Testament demands justice dispensed by the proper authorities (which the New Testament promotes as well), but one should never take matters into his own hands and thus seek vengeance. Paul's "Vengeance is Mine" quote is taken from the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 32:35), meaning he STILL upholds it.

The Old Testament, especially in the Eye for an Eye Clause, is not a license to vendetta. It is a law that is put into the place for an orderly society. The New Testament clarifies this: Forgive your enemies and love them, let God and his authorities deal with them. The expression "heap burning coals upon his head" is not a hostile thing in their culture. It wasn't pouring burning coals onto a guy to incinerate him. It was generously heaping coals into a basket on his head. It was an act of donating coals to a man who has no fire to warm himself by in the cold desert night. It is an act of giving to a man who has less---a man who demonstrated this by harming you. In loving one's enemies, we become better people and demonstrate God's love in our lives.

The Old and New Testament are not polar opposites. The Old points to the New. The Old was the background, the explanation of our situation as fallen people, the New is the fulfillment of all of God's promises in the Old. The Old and New go hand in hand. The Bible is one.