Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 12-06-2006, 02:18 PM

I was alerted to this by the LA Times Entertainment section:

Moving Forward After Left Behind

Quote:

"John's Story: The Last Eyewitness (Book One of the Jesus Chronicles)" follows the last living apostle as he records the miracles of Jesus and later, after months of hard labor in the marble mines, writes the psychedelic Book of Revelation. Here, John is 89, leading Christians in secret, spreading Jesus' teachings by word-of-mouth. Then Cerinthus, a new celebrity preacher, hits the Roman Empire, and his Gnostic sermons gather huge crowds. So along with two sidekicks, twentysomething acolyte Polycarp and aspiring martyr Ignatius, John sets out to write his Gospel.

The reviews on Amazon for John's Story (or via: amazon.co.uk) are remarkably unflattering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christian reviewer on amazon

It is a dishonest and distorted view of history. And frankly, the authors have no excuse -- because it is obvious to any trained historian that primary source material was used. Real names of real Early Church Fathers are mentioned, for example, Ignatius and Polycarp. Real Church traditions are recounted, for example, the attempted execution of John in a vat of boiling oil. The authors obviously know what the early Church documents say -- and they deliberately distort them.

. . .

Essentially, the authors used primary source material to provide character names -- and conveniently omitted anything in those very same primary sources which might have caused them theological angst.

The authors' vision of the Early Church is just not predicated in reality -- and the reader needs to know this going in. . . .

Ha - real names are used, but still the product is a lie!

Quote:

Originally Posted by another Christian

These men should be ashamed of using the Word for personal gain - they're supposed to FEED the sheep...not fleece us!

But, from the LA Times link, Jenkins defends his work:

Quote:

"Jesus himself taught in parables which are clearly fictitious stories," Jenkins said. "People have said they're earthly stories with heavenly meanings. He was clearly making up stories to make his point. And so that's what we're doing too."

Somehow, I think there is a message here. . .

Weltall · 12-06-2006, 04:58 PM

Off topic but someone please tell me that the Left Behind game panned. I haven't seen much about it but I was just in a game store yesterday and I saw it on the shelves.

lpetrich · 12-06-2006, 07:29 PM

Yes, Left Behind: The Game has come out, and has gotten some VERY bad reviews.

Checking on their product-release schedule reveals that Book 12, Glorious Appearing, is not the end of the series; after doing three prequels, the LB team has turned to

Left Behind Sequel: Kingdom Come—April 3, 2007

It will skip over Jesus Christ's thousand-year reign, which he started in Glorious Appearing, to

Quote:

When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (Revelation 20:7-10, NIV)

It will be interesting to see the LB team's take on this -- will they try to explain what nations the nations of Gog and Magog might be?

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12-06-2006, 04:58 PM	#2
Weltall Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: San Francisco Posts: 3,283	Off topic but someone please tell me that the Left Behind game panned. I haven't seen much about it but I was just in a game store yesterday and I saw it on the shelves.

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