austraLasia #1732
Pride and prejudice, Gospel and Culture - story-telling the Word
LONDON: 10th January 2007 -- Given that The Times, the New York Times, The Herald Tribune, the Sydney Morning Herald and several other notable world dailies have run their pre-publicity blurb on Jeffrey Archer's The Gospel of Judas, it seems at least an appropriate moment for austraLasia to mention it, not least because the 'gospel' (Archer insists it is not a novel) has been co-written by Fr Frank Moloney, currently provincial of the Australian Province. Frank, incidentally, is recovering at the moment from a rather nasty but urgent surgical intervention to remove a gall-bladder.
Pre-publicity serves up only what it has been fed with, and it has been in the interest of author(s) and publisher alike to feed just the tasty morsels - Judas in need of some rehabilitation; he didn't race off and hang himself for a few pieces of silver; he was in fact a much-trusted disciple of Jesus, a tad disillusioned, and so forth - but I thought it better to avoid the fairly scurrilous tone of most of the big dailies, who 'have it in' for Archer, and who simply toss off the line that Frank is an eminent Scripture scholar or, as one writer thought, a 'religious historian'.
No, better by far to go to the publisher and track down someone responsible to see what they have to say. Richard Charkin of Macmillan, who is kind enough to blog about his books, says 'I'm pretty certain that a significant number of people will demonstrate their unshakable prejudices about Lord Archer but I am proud to be publishing this book (on March 20th worldwide) and I know it is ruthlessly scholarly, entertaining and important'. He is also, as far as I know, the only person so far who has correctly identified Frank - not only as a Scripture scholar, but as an author of no mean ability and output himself.
Which brings to mind his A Hard Saying, The Gospel and Culture, a collection of essays on topics which relate the Word of God written 'then' to 'now' and deal with difficult areas like Jesus' relationship with women, celibacy and discipleship, the Eucharist as Jesus' presence to the broken. It should be no surprise to anyone who knows and has read Frank that he would relish another difficult challenge, to apply some scholarship to a re-reading of Judas, but in a way which addresses today's culture as well, especially when it comes to belief and commitment. Story-telling the Word has something to do with the last word in the Bible - Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus. It will be nice if this item of fiction is another step to that end.
We know that Archbishop Desmond Tutu willingly accepted the task of providing an audio version of the book, now completed. He also wanted to make sure it didn't contain any 'oops', as he called them! His view, ultimately? In terms of biblical scholarship 'it passes muster'. He also thinks it has a ring of authenticity - in that a son would want to defend his father from calumny.
A few facts: the book is written as a gospel, verses and all, and its narrator is Benjamin Iscariot, our fictional Judas's fictional son. 'Others do not begin to understand, or fairly record, Judas's passionate belief and commitment to Jesus of Nazareth', the authors write. There are just 22,000 words in the work.
Interestingly enough, even though a number of commentators describe Lord Archer as a self-publiciser of note, neither his name nor Frank's appear on the front cover.
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AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world. To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.
Pride and prejudice, Gospel and Culture - story-telling the Word
LONDON: 10th January 2007 -- Given that The Times, the New York Times, The Herald Tribune, the Sydney Morning Herald and several other notable world dailies have run their pre-publicity blurb on Jeffrey Archer's The Gospel of Judas, it seems at least an appropriate moment for austraLasia to mention it, not least because the 'gospel' (Archer insists it is not a novel) has been co-written by Fr Frank Moloney, currently provincial of the Australian Province. Frank, incidentally, is recovering at the moment from a rather nasty but urgent surgical intervention to remove a gall-bladder.
Pre-publicity serves up only what it has been fed with, and it has been in the interest of author(s) and publisher alike to feed just the tasty morsels - Judas in need of some rehabilitation; he didn't race off and hang himself for a few pieces of silver; he was in fact a much-trusted disciple of Jesus, a tad disillusioned, and so forth - but I thought it better to avoid the fairly scurrilous tone of most of the big dailies, who 'have it in' for Archer, and who simply toss off the line that Frank is an eminent Scripture scholar or, as one writer thought, a 'religious historian'.
No, better by far to go to the publisher and track down someone responsible to see what they have to say. Richard Charkin of Macmillan, who is kind enough to blog about his books, says 'I'm pretty certain that a significant number of people will demonstrate their unshakable prejudices about Lord Archer but I am proud to be publishing this book (on March 20th worldwide) and I know it is ruthlessly scholarly, entertaining and important'. He is also, as far as I know, the only person so far who has correctly identified Frank - not only as a Scripture scholar, but as an author of no mean ability and output himself.
Which brings to mind his A Hard Saying, The Gospel and Culture, a collection of essays on topics which relate the Word of God written 'then' to 'now' and deal with difficult areas like Jesus' relationship with women, celibacy and discipleship, the Eucharist as Jesus' presence to the broken. It should be no surprise to anyone who knows and has read Frank that he would relish another difficult challenge, to apply some scholarship to a re-reading of Judas, but in a way which addresses today's culture as well, especially when it comes to belief and commitment. Story-telling the Word has something to do with the last word in the Bible - Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus. It will be nice if this item of fiction is another step to that end.
We know that Archbishop Desmond Tutu willingly accepted the task of providing an audio version of the book, now completed. He also wanted to make sure it didn't contain any 'oops', as he called them! His view, ultimately? In terms of biblical scholarship 'it passes muster'. He also thinks it has a ring of authenticity - in that a son would want to defend his father from calumny.
A few facts: the book is written as a gospel, verses and all, and its narrator is Benjamin Iscariot, our fictional Judas's fictional son. 'Others do not begin to understand, or fairly record, Judas's passionate belief and commitment to Jesus of Nazareth', the authors write. There are just 22,000 words in the work.
Interestingly enough, even though a number of commentators describe Lord Archer as a self-publiciser of note, neither his name nor Frank's appear on the front cover.
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world. To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.
