Roman Catholic tradition teaches that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome.
Cool archaeological tidbit--they have found bones of a man in Peter's traditional burial spot, and the bones have been dated to the mid-1st century AD, so it's in the correct timeframe.
The infighting in the church over doctrinal issues can be rather interesting--the Marcian heresy is particularly fascinating to me (Marcian argued against the duality of Jesus, saying he couldn't be both God and Man), because it ties into the issues that official Rome had with the barbarians, most of whom were Marcian followers. A lot of the gnostic writings that have been uncovered in the past 60 years or so have been of similar "heretical" origin.
Okay, and in looking up the Council of Nicaea on Wikipedia (and with a detour through that other greatest hit of barbarian theology, the Arian heresy), I discovered that the #1 canon that came out of Nicaea was a rule against self-castration.
1. They needed the rule because some dude in Alexandria (named Orygen) was promoting such a practice.
2. I cannot discern from Wikipedia whether classical Christians were all rugby players, or what.
3. Teh Craxxy has been in evidence in organized religion for a long, loooong time. Let's just be grateful that all the other bishops at Nicaea did some math and figured out that Christians with no balls do not lead to more generations of Christians.
Arian! Thank you, Nutty! I couldn't remember the other (even bigger) barbarian heresy--I knew it began with an A, but couldn't come up with it.
Anyway, even though I'm a verging-on-lapsed-Catholic, I find all the early Christian history stuff fascinating, especially finding out where certain imagery comes from (the Virgin Mother with Baby Jesus pose--complete ripoff of Isis).
And to bring this all back to books--anyone interested in how it was decided which scriptures were going to be Holy Scriptures should read Bert Ehrman's books--"Lost Christianities", "Misquoting Jesus", and lots of others. He's a good writer, drops in quips, and chairs the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Gar, did you mean to put that question in Great Write Way?
So, somebody looked down and said "Boy, that David character sure has been having a pretty bad time of it the last two weeks. We should make it better!"
I opened my New York Times today, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but an advertisement stating that
Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood
(long awaited sequel to
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
et al) is on sale TODAY wherever books are sold! Yay!
I left work as fast as I could, headed straight for the Barnes and Noble, bought some soup and ice cream, got in a tub, and binge-read.
It is an excellent read, if you go in for that sort of thing. Ann Brashares' wordcraft has improved immensely since the first book, and, though the storyline is still less compelling than the original, it was undoubtedly better than the third book and better in most respects than the second. It is pretty definitely the last book in the series - four were always intended, and the ending makes it pretty clear that it will stay that way - and it's a good end to the series, with a strong callback to the original themes while allowing that the characters have changed immensely, have truly grown up, in the four years the series covers. My only quibble is that, well, the characters
act
like nineteen-year-olds in this one, but they often still seem to
think,
internal-dialogue-wise, like the fifteen-year-olds they were at the beginning. Consistency of character is all well and good, but I think she under-shot the growing up thing a bit.
Still. I love the characters, and it's nice to have the series concluded so well. It will definitely live as one of my favorite teen angst series, especially as I can feel myself, slowly, outgrowing the genre once again.
1. How is a novel that came out in March 05 still eligible?? I know the Nebulas are annual awards.
2. As usual, I have read exactly 0 of the novels. (I do have one in my house, because I got it for free, and I've heard of exactly 2 others.)
3. How hilarious is it that the 3 Norton shortlisters are by two authors, who are husband and wife?? I'm not sure I would want to compete with my spouse.
