City of God

I just finished reading a trilogy by Randall Ingermanson called the City of God Series. The names of the books are Transgression, Premonition, and Retribution. These books have pretty much everything I look for in novels. They’re about Biblical characters. Well, sort of. Biblical times, at least. The characters are true to their times. And the author presents multifaceted, character driven reading. That is to say, each short section is told from the viewpoint of a particular character, so in time we get full development of each character. Not like so many novels, where all the characters think alike.

The books are about modern people who go back in time through a wormhole, which later closes, trapping them in the 1st century. Ari and Rivka Kazan are their names. The people in the first century call them Ari the Kazan, and Rivka the Kazan. Rivka is an archeologist who is also well versed in the works of Josephus, and thus knows a lot about what is going to happen in the next few years, including the Jewish rebellion against Rome and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. As she and Ari try to fit into the culture, she says some things which come to pass, albeit imperfectly. So some of the people think she is a seer woman and others think she’s a false prophet.

The first book is primarily about the whole experiment gone awry, their assimilation into the culture, and oh yes, Rivka saves the apostle Paul from being killed by a man who went through the wormhole with them for that purpose.

One of the things I especially liked was the argument about whether or not history could be changed. One of them thinks it can, but would have devastating consequences, while the other thinks it cannot be done. The conclusion seems to be that it cannot be changed, and that, in fact, both of them do things which actually cause the historical things to happen, thus showing that although they do indeed meddle, they only succeed in changing what would have been had they not been there to what actually was. In one example, Paul stands before the people on the Temple steps giving a defense of his ministry after the Roman commander pulls him away from the mob. It is at this moment that Paul’s would-be killer is pointing a gun at him from the crowd, having calculated that this was his best chance. Rivka realizes it, but since she’s a little too far away and the crowd is too thick, she desperately yells out, “Stone him. Away with such a man.” This gets the crowd into a frenzy, they swarm after Paul, and the assassin is swallowed up in the mass. Plot foiled.

This inability to change history comes up again in the second book in which Rivka wants to save Jesus’ brother James from being martyred, but is unable to. The last book is the most gripping of the three, I think. Which is unusual, because usually in a series like this, by the time the third book rolls around, the author runs out of ideas. But in this one, Rivka knows that the Jewish revolt is near and that, according to history, a prophet warns the Christian community about it so they can leave the city beforehand. Rivka figures it might as well be her.

History says that when the Jews revolted against Rome, they were able to inflict a good deal of damage before finally being overcome. Apparently, this baffles historians. Ingermanson deals with it by having Ari, a brilliant physicist, help them to develop a fine tempered steel, which they use to make knives to fight with.

There is a very touching scene near the end of the third book on a day when the Roman governor crucifies hundreds of Jews right in the city. Ari, who is a non-believer and believes that all Jewish persecution can be traced back to the Christian world, is slated to be one of those crucified, when his friend Baruch offers to take his place. Through this, he begins to see what Christ’s sacrifice really meant.

Unstimulating Stimulus

The more I read, the more confused I get. The Washington Post says Mr. Obama can claim a victory because the final stimulus package is $14 billion more than he originally asked for. The New York Times says he made great sacrifices in the package in a “futile pursuit of bipartisanship”, and that he’ll almost certainly need to come back to Congress asking for more.

So which is it? Did he win or did he lose? It doesn’t really matter, of course, because we all lose. An 1100 page bill, which no one single person ever read before it was passed, can not possibly make any coherent sense in anybody’s universe. It can only be a hodge podge of unrelated things in which every congressman and his uncle tries to get some piece of the pie. It doesn’t matter how many trillions of dollars the government spends, it won’t do one bit of good if it doesn’t provide any incentive for people to invest in anything. In other words, a stimulus package that doesn’t stimulate cannot succeed.

Biblical Novels

My favorite books are novels with Biblical characters, and I’ve probably read several hundred over the years. There are many different types of Biblical character novels. Some try to take a very literal approach, trying to add as few outside details as possible. There are really only a few characters who can be treated this way, such as Joseph, David, and Paul, but for most Biblical characters there is just not enough information in the Bible to fill a novel. Other novelists try to stick to the Bible account as closely as possible, but freely add fully developed supporting characters to make a story out of it. The better ones try to make those characters conform, as closely as they know how, to what a person of that day would really be like. There is a third group, which is similar to the second group, except that the characters just don’t come across as real. The characters in these novels tend to have 20th century mindsets, and it really detracts from my enjoyment of those books. Then there is a fourth group, which could almost be called fantasy novels, except that when you read them, you can’t really say that the things in the book couldn’t have happened. This latter group can sometimes be the most fun.

I read a trilogy by Douglas Hirt called the Cradleland Chronicles, which is a story about civilization before the Flood. The first book, called Flight to Eden, covers the time before Noah’s birth and shows how civilization could have been as advanced as ours, although in different ways. The author describes in detail things that the Bible alludes to, such as some of the types of animals which were becoming more and more hostile to man, man becoming more and more depraved in a place called Nod City, and the dangers that Lamech faces for taking a stand for God. The book is essentially the story of mankind’s beginnings, and how the forces of darkness attempt to stop the birth of Noah, who they figure out is the one through whom the promised Messiah would come. There are many things in the book which seem too farfetched to be believable, but in truth there is nothing which actually contradicts any of the few statements which the Bible makes about that period. This is what makes it so much fun. The second book, Quest for Atlan, continues in the same vein. The third book, The Fall of the Nephilim, is when the ark is built and eventually the flood does happen (in case you weren’t sure.)

conservative

I see where researchers have determined that people are born either conservative or liberal. While this does not explain how staunch liberals can sometimes become conservative, or how good conservatives can sometimes go bad, I have to at least hold out the possibility that it may be true. When I was just 10 years old, I got up one morning and raced downstairs to get the morning paper only to read this headline: “Kennedy Wins On Flood Of Votes From Big Cities.” I was greatly disappointed. Both of my parents, as well as my grandparents, were all happy. Most people I knew seemed thrilled about the whole thing. But I was not happy. I could not even say why.

Through the years after that, things would happen from time to time which would bolster my growing conservative convictions. I remember seeing an ad on TV in 1964 of a growing mushroom cloud, and something about a little girl with a flower (the details are fuzzy). Because I could not believe that a guy running for president planned to blow up the world, this ad actually turned me against President Johnson, whose campaign ran the ad trying to scare everyone against Goldwater. I also knew that this president was responsible for something called the Great Society, which, although I didn’t fully understand the implications of it all, I knew it didn’t feel right. Maybe because, at the time, I was also learning in high school about things such as democracy, socialism, communism, and fascism, and that this Great Society thing was about the government spending lots and lots of our money. Since it was also around this time that prices, which had been pretty stable for as long as I could remember, started to rise, (nickel candy bars were suddenly a dime; ten cent comic books were selling for twelve or even fifteen cents), I put the two together and concluded that government spending was what was causing prices to get so high.

But I think that what really did it for me the most was after Nixon became president and the news media starting attacking him over Vietnam. This made absolutely no sense to me because I knew that Johnson had started and escalated the war and I didn’t remember the press attacking him so mercilessly. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that it seemed like the press criticized Johnson about the war, but seemed to spew vitriol over the president who inherited it.

There is a lot more to the story, of course, but this is probably enough to show how my thought processes worked, and how my apparently natural inclination towards conservatism blossomed.

My Grandfather

If my grandfather were alive, he would turn 100 today. I guess that's enough to make me start to feel old. He was a simple man. Helped his wife to raise 7 kids, and worked at Harshaw Chemical down in Cleveland until he retired. He died of cancer, and although I never really knew just what he did at his job, I always wondered if something there killed him, or if it was just the two packs a day he smoked since he was a teenager.

So I guess his only claim to fame was to have been born on Abraham Lincoln's 100th birthday.

I do have fond memories of some parts of my childhood. Spending the night at my grandparents house in the summer, waiting up for gramps to come home from work. He got off at midnight, and his arrival time was 12:10, never varying. We had the coffee timed to be ready when he arrived, and if luck was with me, we would play some cards for a while. This was a special treat since I wasn't allowed to play cards at home, so I always felt like we were co-conspirators in an evil plot.

He tried to take me fishing once or twice, but I could never get into that. I think that was more to my brothers' liking. I was mostly content to visit, eat my grandmother's fantastic cooking, and play cards.

More than anything, though, I looked forward to the picnics. At least once or twice a year, we would get together for family picnics, usually at Washington Park. I lived to play croquet at these picnics, and with such a large family, there were plenty of players.

I thought life was good.