Category: Culture

CNS is reporting:

Curiosity about the New Testament figure of Judas and a feeling that his reputation as the worst sinner in history "isn’t fair, isn’t right" led British novelist Jeffrey Archer to attempt a new version of the story.

Archer, presenting "The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot" at a March 20 press conference in Rome, said he is a practicing Anglican who wanted his new book to be backed up by solid biblical scholarship.

So he convinced Father Francis J. Moloney, provincial of the Salesians in Australia and a former president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America, to collaborate.

Now, I don’t have a problem with someone writing a book called "The Gospel According to Judas" or writing novels about Judas or about Judas’s perceptions of Christ. I don’t even have a problem with someone who wants to present Judas as something other than the worst sinner in history–something that the Church doesn’t teach that he was. One could hold that Judas had diminished culpability for his sins and that someone else in history had a higher degree of culpability.

But I do have a problem with this:

Archer’s main thesis is that Judas tried to prevent Jesus’ arrest and execution by enlisting the help of a scribe to get Jesus out of Jerusalem and back to Galilee where the Romans supposedly would ignore him.

In the end, the scribe betrays Judas, which means Judas unwittingly betrays Jesus.

Both Archer and Father Moloney doubt that Judas committed suicide, a story recounted only in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

The Benjamin Iscariot in Archer’s title is Judas’ fictitious son, who — years after the death of Jesus — finds his father living in an ascetic community near the Dead Sea. His father reluctantly gives his version of what happened to Jesus and the son writes it down.

I’m sorry, but this is unacceptable on two grounds. First, it flatly contradicts the biblical accounts of Judas’ death. It would be one thing if the author made it clear that he was not writing about our universe and that he was dealing with a parallel Judas and what happened to him, but that’s not the case. The author and Fr. Moloney both cast doubt on the inspired text as it applies to our universe. This is an unacceptable misrepresentation of the facts of history. It’s not a case of them proposing a novel or unexpected way to harmonize the accounts of Judas’s death; it’s them flatly rejecting the biblical accounts.

Second, the author has fallen into the perennial trap of trying to exonerate Judas. That’s not the same thing as portraying him in a way that nuances his character and motives. It’s not the same thing as just saying "He may not have been the worst sinner in history." It’s flatly rejecting the betrayal that Judas performed. On this account, Judas didn’t betray Jesus; he was himself betrayed.

Sorry, but that’s not going to cut it. Not if we’re being asked to entertain what might have been the case with the Judas in our universe.

I don’t know what it is with authors (and filmmakers) who want to rehabilitate Judas in this fashion.

But I suspect it’s this: They themselves have an uneasy conscience.

They themselves feel that they have betrayed Christ (as have we all by our sins), but rather than throw themselves on Christ’s mercy and accepting his grace, they want to rationalize or excuse their sins and so–using the character of Judas as a psychological surrogate for themselves–they rationalize and excuse his in fictional form.

The underlying psychological message they’re trying to give themselves is: Hey, if Judas didn’t really betray Christ–if he was a tragic victim of circumstance–then that’s what I am, too. I haven’t really betrayed him. I’m just a victim of fate, too, and I’m not really responsible for what I’ve done.

By their lives of Judas you shall know them.

GET THE STORY.

A reader writes:

Hey Jimmy, any thoughts on "Atlas Shrugged"? I’ve yet to read it, but I’m wondering if it makes any good points, and was also curious what the bad ones might be. A friend has forced me to read it, so I thought it’d be best to get your thoughts first. Thanks!

Well, I can’t generally offer thoughts on works of fiction like Atlas Shrugged, and most have both good and bad points, but in this case I do happen to know something about the work and its author, Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand was a 20th century immigrant to the US who advocated a particular philosophical system that she dubbed "Objectivism," because of its supposedly objective viewpoint.

This viewpoint has significant resonances with the Libertarian political movement, and advocates of Objectivism tend to be Libertarian politically (though not all Libertarians are Objectivists). This means that they tend to be economically liberal (in the historic sense–i.e., in favor of laissez-faire capitalism) while being socially liberal as well (e.g., not opposing abortion or homosexuality).

Objectivism tends to support a form of individualism that leaves open to the individual certain forms of freedom that Catholic theology would hold are immoral (e.g., it sometimes exalts selfishness as a virtue). It also tends to be strongly anti-religious.

While I have not read a great deal of Ayn Rand’s works (though I have read some), I can report that she uses her fiction–such as Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged–as vehicles for her philosophical thought.

I can also report that she is not taken seriously as a philosopher by real, academic philosophers.

I suggest looking into the following online articles from Wikipedia for more info:

* AYN RAND

* OBJECTIVISM

* OBJECTIVIST MOVEMENT

* ATLAS SHRUGGED

Back when JA.O published Three Days To Never: The Interview, one of the questions Tim Powers was asked was whether we’d have to wait another five years for his next novel.

He said, "I
hope not! No, no, definitely not."

And the man was as good as his word!

I just got his latest book, A Soul in a Bottle, and read it in one sitting!

Okay, if you want to be persnickety, it’s not a novel, it’s a novella, but that’s close enough for me, and it comes in a gorgeous hardbound edition with copious illustrations by well-known fantasy artist J. K. Potter (no relation to Harry Potter or J. K. Rowling–so far as I know!).

It’s a little hard to describe the book without giving away story elements that you’ll want to let unfold in front of you, but here’s how I described it in the entry for my aStore:

Powers’ latest. A mysterious woman. A secret sonnet. A dire warning. A
forbidden romance. A *big* decision.

Easy access to the Powersverse for
those who have never ventured into it.

It has all the elements you’d expect from Tim Powers’ work–a startling eye for realism and a real-world setting, mixed with elements of the fantastic. It has ghosts–or at least a ghost–a character whose death sets the plot in motion. And it has the usual thematic elements of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms (they have a whole government agency just to deal with Tim Powers novels!).

Despite what you might suspect, the title does not refer to a soul that is literally in a bottle. That’s a metaphor. What it refers to is something you’ll have to read the story to find out.

I don’t want to give too much away about the story–in fact, I’d advise you not to read the dust jacket or the publisher’s description–because the less you know going in, the more you’ll enjoy it as Powers starts weaving his spell.

I will say this, though: Like Powers’ works in general, it’s refreshingly free from the kind of crud that clutters up many novels. There’s no sex scenes or blood and gore in it, for example. Instead, he gives us a tale that does not preach but sets up and then pays off a profound moral issue, with a forceful (and interestingly theological) stinger at the end.

I suspect that if you sample Tim Powers’ Soul in a Bottle, you’ll want to taste his other works as well, so . . .

CHECK ‘EM OUT!