...Wait, this guy claims the Centurion's servant was actually his lover?
That's...not one I've heard before. That's a really weird direction to take that passage.
Mikado....going off on a tanget here...but what exactly is your story? In another thread, it was stated you were once a member of Judaism - which explains your knowledge of the OT. But it also seems you have read the NT. Correct? If so, what is your impression of it?
(forgive me if I forgetting past conversations with you on this topic - my memory retention in regard to this forum is extremely poor)
I was a Jew, and a pretty firmly convinced one, until a point when I had a sudden realization that I was just going through the motions and didn't actually believe the words I was saying, which caused me to reevaluate my stance. I realized that I had actually held onto Judaism longer because the liturgy was in Hebrew, leading me to not have to seriously interface with the message because I was more focused on correct pronunciation and memorization than the meaning of the words I was saying.
I had always been interested in theology and had been assigned several of the Gospels in my 10th grade Literature class at my (secular) high school. I decided to read the NT (not straight through, but book by book over the course of years). I had already read most of the OT and have since read the rest (not straight through, again: Psalms is not meant to be read that way). I was legitimately interested to see if the Bible could convince me, in part because I've always had a fondness for (certain types of) Christianity. It would be far easier for me to become a Christian than to return to Judaism, with which I have a number of problems. In college, I had to read several major Christian texts, Augustine's
City of God Against the Pagans being the most prominent. I respect Augustine: don't share his faith, but he's a great example of how a hyper-intelligent man can come to terms with Christianity and accept it on its own terms.
In general, I'm very interested in seeing where other people are coming from and I also have a passion for reading the "classics," so I interface with a lot of religion. Just over a year ago, I undertook the project of reading the Koran, which was...mildly disappointing. The Koran simply is not nearly as good on a literary level as the Bible is.
