Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

Monologue Of The Messiah

I’m very much looking forward to Anne Rice’s new novel.

Instead of being an interview with a vampire, though, this novel will be a monologue by the Messiah.

In other words: It’s a story told in first-person narration by Jesus Christ.

In the hands of many authors, that kind of story could be an anti-Christian disaster, but Rice is–or has become–a believer. She’s reverted to the Catholic Church, ended her vampire chronicles, and dedicated her future writing to serving God.

Currently she has planned a trilogy of books on the life of Christ, told from his point of view.

That’s a prospect that–as an author–gives me the willies.

It’s the literary equivalent of climing Mount Everest. How on earth do you pull that off? The potential pitfalls associated with such a project are mind boggling! Even if you get the theology right, striking the right tone and style for first person narration by Jesus is nearly unimaginable–especially for something as long as a novel (and certianly for a trilogy!).

That’s one reason I’m interested in reading the first volume, which is about to be released: I want to see how she tackles so daunting a task.

The book is titled Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and will be released November 1.

In the meantime . . .

READ AN INTERESTING ARTICLE ABOUT RICE AND THE BOOK.

PRE-ORDER THE BOOK VIA AMAZON.

or wait for it to be released on AUDIBLE.COM on November 1.

Incidentally, Rice has moved from her native New Orleans to La Jolla (lah HOY-yah), California, which is here in the greater San Diego area. I wonder if I’ll ever bump into her as a result of interaction with the local Catholic community. That’d be cool.

How Battlestar Galactica Killed Broadcast TV

HERE’S A REALLY INTERESTING ARTICLE ON THE FUTURE OF TELEVISION.

The author argues that broadcast TV is in for a major shakeup in the wake of broadband technology.

It’s certain that the Internet is going to change the way television operates–that’s been obvious for some time–but what isn’t clear is what the resulting TV landscape will look like.

At some point we’re going to be downloading TV programs. There are already experiments inthat direction: There’s suppose to be a scaled-down tie-in for the program 24 that you’ll be able to download onto your cellphone. Apple is talking about a video iPod. But these are just experiments.

What has to happen is for someone to come up with an economically viable model–or set of models–for how to pay for TV content to be produced in the age of downloads.

That’s where the above-linked articles comes in. The author speculates on how the economics of TV will work in the future.

Among his predictions:

Broadcast TV will go back to being a live medium covering things like news and sports as non-live television programs (e.g., sitcoms and dramas) shift to downloadable distribution.
Downloaded TV shows will not have the equivalent of commercials. There will be no interruptions in the show for commercial breaks.
Instead, the advertising will be embedded in the show itself–like the station-identification "bugs" that currently appear in the corner of your TV screen (or, though he doesn’t mention this, through product placement).
(If I read him correctly) Shows will move back toward having a single sponsor instead of a host of different advertisers.
The audience will continue to not pay directly for TV content.

These are interesting ideas, as is the way he fleshes out how it all might work, though I’m dubious about his last prediction. I think that audiences WILL be willing to pay for content. We’re already paying for cable service and for DVDs we buy and for TiVo boxes that cut out the commercials for us.

I suspect that, as the download TV market develops, there will be people who will be willing to pay the producers of the shows in order to get advertising-free versions of the broadcasts, just as is now happening via DVDs. A model may emerge where you can either download the free version of the show, which has embedded advertising, or pay a fee to access an advertising-free version of the show.

I suspect that the latter will at least be experimented with as the market matures.

Now, what role does Battlestar Galactica play in this series of developments? For that you’ll have to

GET THE STORY.

I’m Baaaaaaaaack. . . .

In case you didn’t notice over the weekend, I’m now back from my trip through Arizona and part of New Mexico, and I have the pictures to prove it. More info on all that in coming days.

Before getting back to regular blogging, though, I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to my co-bloggers, and particularly to Tim J, who did an outstanding job filling in!

Kudos, guys! Y’all don’t know how much I appreciate it! Your posts are welcome here, any time!

Happy Universe Day!

Today–October 23rd–back in 4004 B.C., the universe was created.

At least according to the chronology created by Anglican Archbishop James Ussher.

You’ll find it printed in the center margin of many editions of the King James Bible.

Funny that it’s not found in Catholic Bibles.

In any event,

GET THE STORY.

Zuni, new mexico This message

Zuni, new mexico

This message was sent using PIX-FLIX Messaging service from Verizon Wireless! To learn how you can snap pictures with your wireless phone visit
www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getpix..

To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime 6.5 or higher is required. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download to download the free player or upgrade your existing QuickTime Player. Note: During the download
process when asked to choose an installation type (Minimum, Recommended or Custom), select Minimum for faster download.