Laughter at the Graveside.

This will be a quick one. I'm hoping it'll bring you a laugh.

My grandma Nease died back in April and we all took a trip to Mt. Vernon, OH to bury her ashes with Grandpa and their son, David. (This is their first son David, who died in 1970. Their second son David is still alive and all too well. So don't worry if you thought I was talking about him.) The whole family had gathered around the gravestone and my family of 4 was just about the last to arrive. While we weren't all crying or anything, it was kind of a somber moment as you may imagine. Josh was walking a bit ahead of us and Joy and I were kind of watching to see how he reacted to everything. I was all ready to console him and explain carefully what was going to happen. I was concerned the he'd think it was weird.

Well Josh, ever the shy guy, walks right up to the 8-inch circular hole awaiting the ashes, peers down into the 3-foot chasm and exclaims, "That...hole...is...AWESOME!!!"

Somehow, I don't think grandma would have been all that upset.

Just had to post that story before I forgot it.

A Book Review: The Lost Letters of Pergamum

I am currently reading two books- Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, by Eugene Peterson and The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, by Timothy Keller, and have just finished two others- Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller and The Lost Letters of Pergamum, by Bruce W. Longenecker. My reading habits had waned in the past few months but are picking up steam again. The purpose of this post is to sing the praises for The Lost Letters of Pergamum. It is likely that you have never read a book exactly like Pergamum. It is historical fiction, but written as a series of ancient correspondences between the Biblical figure Antipas (Revelation 2:13) and Luke, the inspiration for- or as this book suggests, the author of- Luke and Acts. I was fascinated by the book and likely would have read it straight through if the details of life didn’t force me to take two breaks.

I’ve come to understand that as a white, relatively tall, extremely good-looking, blonde American living in the 21^st century, that I have very little in common with the Jesus of ancient Israel. This was a troublesome discovery. I grew up to believe that Jesus knows me better than I know myself, so it seemed only natural that I’d know Jesus pretty well too. The epiphanal notion that Jesus wasn’t from Massachusetts but Galilee, wasn’t middle-class but poorer than I’ll ever know, wasn’t college educated but an artisan, and most importantly wasn’t Christian but Jewish was somewhat unsettling for me. I didn’t lose faith, but began to realize that to really appreciate my faith, I needed to understand the cultures and belief systems from which my faith traditions were born. The more I thought about it, the more I began to understand that the ancient middle east is nothing like the modern US. As I set out to learn more about the foundation my faith, church, and traditions, I became deeply interested in learning about who Jesus was and how the world he lived in operated. But it wasn’t just Jesus’s culture that I was curious about. It was all of the cultures that influenced Jesus that began to interest me- Jewish or otherwise. And not just so I could understand a certain portion of scripture better. I want to know what my culture has in common with the ancient cultures. Or more adequately, ancient issues I've never experience in my culture. What was that culture like on a day to day basis? What were the things a Jew had to deal with in that day? Anybody who reads the Bible will see a clear culture war between the Jews and…well, everyone else. What exactly was going on? As I search for answers to questions such as these, I look for personal connections to an ancient world wherever I can find them. I look for ways to make a personal God more personal, if you will. Occasionally I find them in the most unexpected, even fabricated ways.

You will likely remember a few years back when The DaVinci Code caused all sorts of controversy for suggesting that Jesus might have been married. It’s likely that people were outraged by other things in the book too, but those issues are beside my point. I read the book, really enjoyed it, and didn’t understand why so many people were so upset by a fiction book. I was bothered by the fact that so many people cared whether Jesus was married or not, or simply that he may have been, GASP, attracted to women! When it came down to it, I didn’t care whether or not Jesus was married. I didn’t believe and still don’t believe that he was, but the simple idea that he may have had a desire inter-personal intimacy, perhaps to the level of a marriage relationship, made him more like me. You know how you can be having a conversation with someone in which they explain a challenging situation they’ve experienced and you exclaim, “ME TOO!!!!” You can really identify with their situation because you know what it feels like. The DaVinci Code didn’t accuse Jesus of sleeping around, it simply suggested that he had the same desires of any other human and got married like any other Jewish male would be expected to in ancient Israel. Listen, it’s hard enough for me to identify with a modern, American Jew living across the street from me, let alone one that lived in a 2000-year-old culture half-way around the globe. So, The DaVinci Code actually helped me to identify with Christ in a way that I hadn’t before- even if the book was fiction. It simply helped me think, in a different way, about the emotions Jesus might have had on a day to day basis. Don’t worry; I don’t pull out a copy of the book for my daily devotions. However, I might pull out a copy of The Lost Letters of Pergamum if my Bible reading will include anything from the New Testament.

The Lost Letters of Pergamum really has nothing in common with The DaVinci Code other than bringing additional realism to my faith. DaVinci is a fiction book based loosely on a couple pieces of historical information that might be true. It was written to make the author money. Pergamum is a fiction book based on several historical facts. It was written to take the reader back to the decades after Jesus’s life on earth in an effort to illustrate how Christianity began to take root in the Roman Empire. At no point did I exclaim “me too,” rather, the book helped me to understand just how different my world is from the world in which the writers of the New Testament were living. Instead of “me too,” there was an overall sense of “Ahhhh, now I get it!” In the Author’s Preface Longenecker states, “My hope is that readers of this narrative will not only enjoy the story line for its own sake…but will also profit from a better appreciation of the historical context of the early Christian writings and, thereby, develop sharper instincts for understanding the writings of the New Testament in the contexts.” The author hit his mark. I suppose he made a little money too. But not as much as Dan Brown.

Longenecker showed great skill and imagination by writing an entire work about a person that was only mentioned once in the Bible- and a passing reference at that. In Revelation 2:13, John mentions a man named Antipas who was martyred in the ancient city of Pergamum. The next couple of verses mention some of the circumstances that might have surrounded Antipas in Pergamum, but nothing more of Antipas. Longenecker creates a persona for Antipas- that of an ancient Roman nobleman- and creates a very compelling narrative about the life in ancient Rome and the stark contrast between the new atheist “Christians” and the Roman society of the day.

The lost letters, which are found by a fictional archeologist during a fictional excavation of the historical Pergamum, begin with a few letters between Antipas and Calpurnius, the son of Theophilus, for whom Luke wrote his monograph, which we know as the gospel according to Luke. Calpurnius introduces Antipas and Luke to each other and the letters discuss the subject of Luke’s writing, Jesus, and the empire of God. Through Antipas’s letters we begin to see, and feel like we are experiencing just what it meant to be a Christian living in the 1^st century Roman world. The following is an excerpt from a letter from Calpurnius to Antipas which I believe is a good representation of how the letters paint a picture of life in the Roman Empire during the 1^st century.

Since you [Antipas] are new to the area[Pergamum], you might be interested to know about a close associate of my household, an esteemed doctor and scholar named Luke. He is currently in Toras, where he has been instructing Eutychus, a friend. Since the shipping lanes have closed for the winter, he will return to Ephesus by land, passing through Pergamum on his return journey. He intends to stay as a guest in the house of Antonius, a city magistrate and man of great repute. Luke shares with you a keen interest in history. Before his death, my father, Theophilus, commissioned Luke to write a historical account of an intriguing man from Galilee and his followers. Luke finished this historical monograph about ten years ago. Despite its length (it extends to two sizable volumes), it remains in great demand. No doubt you and he would have much to discuss with regard to recent events in and around Galilee. Perhaps Antonius could let you now when Luke arrives in Pergamum, since you both would profit from each other’s interests.

There are historical references, and obviously many theological references throughout the book, some of which the reader may find challenge their understanding of the Bible or how they understood the Bible to have been composed. However, these new ideas do not get in the way of the flow of the book and are not faith shattering.

I highly recommend The Lost Letters of Pergamum, both for the confessed Christian and for the casual fan of historical fiction. I actually enjoyed the book so much I googled the author, emailed him, and told him how much I enjoyed it. He replied, stating that the book pretty much wrote itself. That was kinda cool. So, grab some coffee, a munchie, and let The Lost Letters of Pergamum take you back to an unfamiliar time. You won’t regret that you did.