indianasmith

There is nothing quite like holding a copy in your hands and realizing . . . hey, I WROTE THIS!!!!

Coming to this one kind of late, but last year's NOAH was, well, horrible on all levels. It bore little resemblance to the Bible story it was based on. It added elements which made no sense whatsoever. Noah, supposedly the most righteous man on earth, was an absolute jerk. And no one put in a good performance - every actor in the movie was WAY below their normal level of effort. It was as if the SYFY Channel tried to make a Bible movie!

All the tactical essays aside, I think the world would be a much better place if every member of ISIS were to suffer spontaneous cranial detonation.

Even Colleen McCullough didn't start telling his story till he was in his 40's! I think you may have a largely blank slate to draw on, like I did with Pontius Pilate.

My Beta reader gave me my first Amazon review for PILATE last night - she read it as it was written, and then re-read it last month in preparation for its released. I'm a bit overwhelmed by her kind words, and as you can see by her Amazon track record, this ain't her first rodeo!

My novel, THE REDEMPTION OF PONTIUS PILATE, was released today on all major online sellers. You can get it in paperback or EBook format at: www.amazon.com www.barnesandnoble.com and directly from my publisher at: www.electiopublishing.com Just a side note - if you buy directly from my publisher, I get more money because we pay no vendor's fees. As soon as I get my copies in, the book will be sent to this site's book reviewers for their comments and perspective. I'll also be willing to answer any questions here in the author's lounge. You guys are the most knowledgeable critics out there for this time period. Lew me know what you think! Your opinions carry a lot of weight with me. Here's a direct link: http://www.amazon.com/Redemption-Pontius-Pilate-Lewis-Smith/dp/1632131404/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1431964802&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Redemption+of+Pontius+Pilate

That is TOTALLY cool!

I was really proud of my final cover art. It was much closer to my original vision - in fact, if anything, it's better.

Only 7 days left!!!!

Nothing can ever take the place of seeing an artifact in person. Except getting to hold it!

That has "Monty Python sketch" written all over it!!!

I love the way it turned out!!

It is true that some scholars, most notably the Jesus Seminar, have tried to place Thomas back into the First Century. However, there are far more compelling arguments for dating it around 160-170 AD - specifically, that it mirrors the language of the Diatesseron in so many places that the author probably had a copy of that work on hand - and the Diatesseron was composed around 150 at the earliest. On the other hand, the Rylands Papyrus fragment - about 6 verses from John 18 - was found in Egypt and firmly dated to the first quarter of the Second Century (110-125 AD). Since John was composed at Ephesus, according to every early source, it would have taken a couple of decades for the Gospel to have been copied and circulated as far as the Egyptian hinterland where the Rylands fragment was found. That would place John's date of composition right where the early church had it - around 90 AD. Dating the Biblical Gospels is tricky work, but overall, the arguments for the earlier dates make more historical and archeological sense than the arguments for the later ones. You are right, to a certain extent, about the Christian tendency to divide. It was true in the Apostolic age and it was true today. However, even in the Second Century, there was a core of church leadership that tried to hold to the teachings of the Apostles and reject the trends of Gnosticism that were so prevalent in the Second and Third Century. As for the competing Catholic and Protestant Canon, it is worth noting that many Catholic scholars questioned the canonicity of the Old Testament Apocrypha, since they were written later than all the other books of the New Testament and were all composed in Greek rather than Hebrew, the language of the OT.

Viggen, do you list historical fiction or just non-fiction works. BTW, I think the one on Claudius would be my pick. I've always been interested in him.

I agree with most of what you said. Christianity had been officially illegal since 65 AD, with persecutions proceeding off and on throughout that time. Unable to publicly meet and settle disputes, factions and splinter cults had arisen from the end of the First Century onward. The glue that held the Church together were the Apostolic writings that would become the New Testament - which is why the splinter sects (mostly Gnostics) produced a host of works in the Second, Third, and Fourth centuries that they tried to pass of as apostolic. The mainstream church, such as it was, rejected most of these outright. When the Council of HIppo met to finalize the canon in 400 AD, they imposed a threefold test before any book could be considered canonical: 1. Was it authored by or associated with one of the Apostles of Jesus (which included the Twelve, and Paul, and the "Lord's Brothers" James and Jude. 2. Was it recognized by the earliest church leaders as being an Apostolic work? 3. Did it line up, doctrinally and factually, with the well-established works of the Apostles? The books that could pass that test were included, the ones that didn't were either labeled as "spurious" - forgeries by various splinter sects; or "profitable" - works that were doctrinally solid and good for devotional reading but not directly associated with the Apostles. I do think that the Nicene Creed codified the claims about Christ made by the Apostles quite well. The Apostle's Creed, which it enlarged and elaborated on, was over 200 years earlier in origin, although most likely not, as the early church claimed, composed by the Apostles themselves.

I would have included the Battle of Philippi on that list.

I should have the final version of my cover art later this week. My publisher sent me some concepts last week, but I didn't really like the direction they had taken it and sent them back to the drawing board. I guess that makes me an author prima donna!

The Council of Nicaea did come up with a common creed for Christianity, but it did not finalize the New Testament canon. That's a common myth. Of the 27 books that make up the New Testament, 23 were already widely accepted and recognized as Scriptural by the early church in the two centuries before the Council. Four very short books (II and III John, Jude, and II Peter) were not as widely circulated but were still recognized as authoritative by many. A few other books (The Shepherd of Hermas, I and II Clement, and the Didache) were considered Scriptural by some Christians but not by others. The Council of Hippo, in 400 AD, issued a final ruling that divided early Christian writings into three categories: Scripture (the 27 NT Books), Not Inspired but Profitable Reading (Hermas, Clement, and many other Second Century works were included in this category), and Spurious (this included all the Gnostic Gospels and Epistles - all of which postdate the life of Jesus and his Apostles by a century or more). Manuscripts of all these works have survived in great abundance, especially the works of the New Testament itself - there are over 5000 Greek manuscripts composed before 400 AD that our current translations are based on. That has made it very easy for scholars to get past copyists' errors and reconstruct the original wording. No other work of antiquity is as well documented as the New Testament.

This topic has wandered considerably from its original focus. I would make a counter-argument, however, that Christianity, whatever its relation to science, is absolutely grounded in history. If Jesus of Nazareth did not live, die, and rise again as the New Testament describes, then the faith as a whole is utterly meaningless, as Paul pointed out most effectively in I Corinthians 15. Also the original text of the New Testament has been passed down with a remarkable degree of purity - in excess of 98%, according to most textual scholars. The few passages where the original wording is in question do not affect a single cardinal doctrine.

Working on the sequel right now. It is set during the time of Claudius and Nero, and is tentatively titled LOVER OF GOD.

Until my first purely historical novel, THE REDEMPTION OF PONTIUS PILATE, is released! I tried very hard to create an authentically Roman setting for this work, which follows Pilate from his time as a Legate under Tiberius in Germania until his death in 38 AD. Since little is known of his life outside the 10 years he was governor of Judea, I obviously had to fabricate a biography for him, but I wove him into the events that were happening in Rome and its provinces from the late reign of Augustus until early in Caligula's brief rule. I sincerely hope some of you good folks will read it and give me some good, honest feedback. Release date is May 19, from Electio Publishing. It will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, as well as directly from my publisher, www.electiopublishing.com

One wonders whether it will be more like ROME or SPARTACUS!

I've been debating whether to rent that one or not. Sounds like maybe not, from your description.

Making medical diagnoses some 2000 years after the fact, from chronicles written a century after the fact, is a very risky business. He may have just had low blood sugar!

I remember the scene in ROME when Servilia wrote Caesar's name on a curse tablet. The commentary said her incantation was based on a real curse tablet uncovered in Italy.