Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
The Battle of New Orleans
Andrew Jackson lead to victory one of the most diverse and motley assortments of American troops ever put together.
Spirit of New Orleans
Road to New Orleans
Afro-Creoles in the Battle of New Orleans
- The regular army's 7th and 44th infantry regiments
- Militia units from Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana
- Two Battalions drawn from the free black population of New Orleans
- Chocotaw Indians
- Pirates under the command of Jean Lafitte
Spirit of New Orleans
Road to New Orleans
Afro-Creoles in the Battle of New Orleans
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Book Review ~ Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene by Bart D. Ehrman
Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene The Followers of Jesus In History and Legend
Ehrman explains how the stories made up about Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene give us insight into what the people of that period were thinking.
Ehrman explains how anything supposedly written by Peter is highly suspect as Peter was an illiterate fisherman. Explores the stories concerning Simon Peter's "contest" with Simon Magus. Tells how Peter supposedly refused to heal his own daughter who was paralyzed to keep her a virgin. And explores the myth of Peter's martyrdom, he was supposedly crucified upside down because he preached sexual abstinence even for married people.
Paul was well educated and spoke Greek. Doubtful he spoke Hebrew/Aramaic. The letters Paul wrote are at odds with what was written about him in Acts. The views in Acts that women were to stay home and have babies are not Paul's. Supposedly beheaded by Nero, and his blood was replaced with "milk". Paul was a figure of controversy even in his own time.
Mary Magdalene the most interesting from my point of view. Little is know about her and she is only mentioned in the four Gospels of the New Testament 13 times, although she is often confused with other Mary's (Mary of Bethany for example) and unnamed women in the Bible. In The Golden Legend she is a reformed sex offender who can work miracles. In The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown she is Jesus' secret wife and the mother of his child. In Jesus Christ Superstar she was sexually attracted to Jesus and possibly intimate with him. The Last Temptation of Christ had Jesus imagining an alternate life with Mary Magdalene as his wife while he was being crucified. While in the Bible she is only on the fringes of the group of Jesus and his disciples along with other women. In fact all we know about her from the Bible is that demons were cast out of her and that she was the first to see the empty tomb, and that she was the one who proclaimed that "Jesus Was Risen", making her the first apostle. More then likely she was illiterate. There are no surviving text written by Mary or claiming to be written by Mary. The Gospel of Mary is a book about her written years after her death.
Ehrman explains things in an easy to understand way and has written an interesting book about Peter, Paul & Mary Magdalene.
Ehrman explains how the stories made up about Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene give us insight into what the people of that period were thinking.
Ehrman explains how anything supposedly written by Peter is highly suspect as Peter was an illiterate fisherman. Explores the stories concerning Simon Peter's "contest" with Simon Magus. Tells how Peter supposedly refused to heal his own daughter who was paralyzed to keep her a virgin. And explores the myth of Peter's martyrdom, he was supposedly crucified upside down because he preached sexual abstinence even for married people.
Paul was well educated and spoke Greek. Doubtful he spoke Hebrew/Aramaic. The letters Paul wrote are at odds with what was written about him in Acts. The views in Acts that women were to stay home and have babies are not Paul's. Supposedly beheaded by Nero, and his blood was replaced with "milk". Paul was a figure of controversy even in his own time.
Mary Magdalene the most interesting from my point of view. Little is know about her and she is only mentioned in the four Gospels of the New Testament 13 times, although she is often confused with other Mary's (Mary of Bethany for example) and unnamed women in the Bible. In The Golden Legend she is a reformed sex offender who can work miracles. In The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown she is Jesus' secret wife and the mother of his child. In Jesus Christ Superstar she was sexually attracted to Jesus and possibly intimate with him. The Last Temptation of Christ had Jesus imagining an alternate life with Mary Magdalene as his wife while he was being crucified. While in the Bible she is only on the fringes of the group of Jesus and his disciples along with other women. In fact all we know about her from the Bible is that demons were cast out of her and that she was the first to see the empty tomb, and that she was the one who proclaimed that "Jesus Was Risen", making her the first apostle. More then likely she was illiterate. There are no surviving text written by Mary or claiming to be written by Mary. The Gospel of Mary is a book about her written years after her death.
Ehrman explains things in an easy to understand way and has written an interesting book about Peter, Paul & Mary Magdalene.
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Dave Out Loud ~CoH
The Carnival of Homeschooling is being hosted at Dave Out Loud this week. Be sure to drop by and check out my submission.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Did you know?
Francis Scott Key author of The Star Spangled Banner owned slaves.
Lyrics
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us as a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Lyrics
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us as a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
"Remember the Raisin"
One of the nice things about homeschooling is you can thoroughly cover history, not just those parts of history that are currently in vogue
Out of the Battle of
the River Raisin, came one of the great American rallying cries of the War of
1812, “Remember the Raisin!”
The Informed Parent ~CoH
Check out this weeks Carnival of Homeschooling hosted by The Informed Parent.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Friday, April 06, 2012
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot by Bart D. Ehrman
Ehrman sets out to show how stories were changed by the storytellers that told them, by their own views and that during the oral culture this was a common practice. He illustrates by giving various examples of stories about Judas (some in the Bible some not). One of the most interesting ones was the Golden Legend. Judas is born to a Jewish couple Cyborea and Ruben. Before his birth Cyborea had a bad dream the Judas would "bring ruin on our whole people" so they decided to leave him to die by casting him adrift in a basket at sea. The basket washes up on the island of Scariot and the queen of the land finds the child and raises him as her own. After adopting Judas she becomes pregnant with her own child and the boys grow up together. Jealous of his younger brother Judas eventually kills him and fleas to Jerusalem. There he becomes the head steward of Pontius Pilate. In Pilate's service he kills Ruben and is given all Ruben's possessions including his wife as a reward. Cyborea overcome with guilt about leaving her son to die reveals what she and Ruben did to Judas. Realizing he has killed his father and married his Mother he turns to Christ for forgiveness and becomes one of the disciples. But his "evil" nature leads him to steal from the communal purse and when money is wasted on oil to anoint Jesus out of anger he betrays Jesus for thirty pence. He then feels remorse and goes forth to hang himself and burst forth from the middle.
Ehrman tells how Irenaeus wrote about the Gospel of Judas Iscariot and that the text discovered seems to be the same one Irenaeus wrote about. Ehrman also theorizes that Gnosticism developed from failed Jewish Apocalypse beliefs.
Who is Jesus? According to Paul all that matters is that he died for our sins and was resurrected. But to others Judas among them the important thing was what Jesus TAUGHT. In The Lost Gospel of Judas the author who is telling about Judas maintains that Judas was the only one of the disciples to understand Jesus' teachings.
Who is Judas Iscariot, we know very little about him even his last name Iscariot doesn't provide any clues. All we know for sure was that he was one of Jesus' 12 disciples and he was an Apocalypse Jew who believed the world as he knew it would end shortly. Ehrman surmises that the disciples expected to be in charge after the apocalypse with Jesus as their leader.
Why did Judas betray Jesus? was it to keep him "safe" until after the passover? or was it because he realized that Jesus' Apocalypse teachings were false and he was feed up with waiting for the end to come? or was it because he understood Jesus' true mission and as the only one who "really understood" was doing Jesus' will when he betrayed him?
In conclusion Ehrman reminds us that the Gospel of Judas was not written by Judas or anyone who knew him, it is merely a gnostic gospel about Judas presenting the authors beliefs.
Ehrman tells how Irenaeus wrote about the Gospel of Judas Iscariot and that the text discovered seems to be the same one Irenaeus wrote about. Ehrman also theorizes that Gnosticism developed from failed Jewish Apocalypse beliefs.
Who is Jesus? According to Paul all that matters is that he died for our sins and was resurrected. But to others Judas among them the important thing was what Jesus TAUGHT. In The Lost Gospel of Judas the author who is telling about Judas maintains that Judas was the only one of the disciples to understand Jesus' teachings.
Who is Judas Iscariot, we know very little about him even his last name Iscariot doesn't provide any clues. All we know for sure was that he was one of Jesus' 12 disciples and he was an Apocalypse Jew who believed the world as he knew it would end shortly. Ehrman surmises that the disciples expected to be in charge after the apocalypse with Jesus as their leader.
Why did Judas betray Jesus? was it to keep him "safe" until after the passover? or was it because he realized that Jesus' Apocalypse teachings were false and he was feed up with waiting for the end to come? or was it because he understood Jesus' true mission and as the only one who "really understood" was doing Jesus' will when he betrayed him?
In conclusion Ehrman reminds us that the Gospel of Judas was not written by Judas or anyone who knew him, it is merely a gnostic gospel about Judas presenting the authors beliefs.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Book Recommendation
Hellhole by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson - you can read my book review here.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Readers debate whether Michigan's homeschool law is too lax (with poll)
Click here to participate in the poll.
As of now
No. The few cases where the law is abused don't justify putting restrictions on homeschooling 45.24% (38 votes)
As of now
No. The few cases where the law is abused don't justify putting restrictions on homeschooling 45.24% (38 votes)
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