Shakespeare and the Bible

Anthony Burgess and W. Somerset Maugham, the two novelists who meant a lot to me as a boy, lived for a time in Malaya and they wrote extensively about life in Malaya then.  Their novels evoke all the romanticism of the Far East so that as you read them, you can almost hear the crickets after a torrential thunderstorm and smell the fresh wild frangipani, the aroma of which the tropical breeze wafts pleasantly into your bedroom through the verandah of your attap-roofed house on stilts.  On my 16th birthday, my Mum got me his latest book which I devoured like I did all his other novels.  I won't reveal the title of the book because that would give away my age and I want this blog to remain totally anonymous so that even my age and gender remain a mystery but I will say this of the book my Mum bought for me - if she had known that the novel contained a re-writing of the creation story in Genesis so that the Adam and Eve union became a gay union, she would never have bought it.  The book also led a lot of people to assume that Burgess was gay but he denied that in his 2-volume autobiography.  But W. Somerset Maugham was subsequently found to be gay and I remember being rather disappointed when I read that he was a closet homosexual and when I read in one of his novels a long description of a naked young man on an Indonesian island, I could not help wondering if he might not have been motivated in his vivid description by homosexual lasciviousness which was of course unjust of me since it bothered me not one bit if descriptions of naked females by heterosexual male writers were motivated by heterosexual lasciviousness.  Those were the days when I, together with most of the world, was ignorant of what sexuality really meant and I mistook a different sexual orientation for immorality, a judgment that I am today ashamed of and I would only go so far as to raise for myself the defence of youth and ignorance if anyone should lay at my door the charge of homophobia.

But let's get back to Anthony Burgess who died in the early 1990s and whom I caught a glimpse of just before his death, signing books for fans at Waterstones.  He was dying of lung cancer and would cough ever so often but still he soldiered on stoically, signing books.

In one of his studies on Shakespeare, Burgess gives his opinion that Shakespeare was in all probability one of those in the august panel of translators of the greatest version of the Bible that the world has ever known, the King James Version, also called the AV or Authorised Version.  This version of the BIble soon became the definitive Bible in the English-speaking world as it pushed Roman Catholic versions into obscurity and ensured the supremacy of Protestantism as the dominant religion of English-speaking countries and it relegated Roman Catholicism to being at best a "foreign" (ie. Italian or French speaking) religion or at least it seemed to most of us in the former colonies.  Quotations from any other versions of the Bible would raise eyebrows in literary circles and were generally regarded with suspicion because of their inelegance when compared with the King James Version which became the indisputable authority on the English language, alongside Shakespeare and Milton.  The Roman Catholics started a poor imitation of this Bible which they called the Douay-Rheims Bible but it is nothing more than a poor imitation which nobody has really heard of.  The King James Version is so elegant in its simplicity and vivid in its imagery that when it's read in a cavernous cathedral, the echo of its beautiful lines resonates as if God himself is giving utterance.  It defies belief that a work of such immense beauty could have been composed without the aid of the Bard himself.  Burgess gives some rather fanciful evidence for Shakespeare's authorship of the King James Version but I won't repeat it here.

What motivated me to write this post is a book I recently started to read again after having chanced upon it on one of my shelves.  I had been looking for this book for a while but because my books have outgrown my house and they lie strewn all over my bedroom and the sitting room, looking for a book can be quite a daunting task.  Here's the book:

 

The extensive pencil markings on almost every page of the book bear testimony to the fact that I used to read it in my student days.  But for all the time spent poring over this book something in it completely escaped my attention then.  What totally missed my attention but which I've only discovered recently is that in one of Shakespeare's plays, a reference is made to something quite profound about the Bible.

Before you get the wrong impression, let me explain a little more about the book.  Frank Kermode was a renowned Shakespearean scholar.  He was born around this time about 9 decades ago and he died two years ago.  His book, as the title states clearly, is about Shakespeare's language.  It takes no interest in biblical contradictions.  That is the reason why the small little point about biblical contradictions escaped my attention when I first read it as a part of my undergraduate course on Shakespeare.  Today, with no more examinations to sit, I couldn't care less what a stichomythia and all its variants are.  Tracing Shakespeare's increasing sophistication in his use of imagery from his early plays to his more mature later plays is something that I can read today and forget tomorrow without any serious consequences.  So I have more time to look out for things that don't interest the Shakespearean scholar but are fascinating to me and if you have read my blog, matters concerning my religion have a way of gripping my interest that no other subject can.

First a little book review.  Frank Kermode's book is excellent in its comprehensive coverage of not just all of Shakespeare's plays but his poems too.  I highly recommend it to anyone who truly loves Shakespeare and who has read most of his plays and poems.  I think it would be awfully boring if all the Shakespeare you have read are the texts you did at O levels and A levels.  The book is easy reading for the general reader but the writer does not waste his time explaining the background to the plays and poems he writes about.  He quite rightly expects the reader of such a book to be at least familiar with most of Shakespeare's works.

We must remember that there was heavy censorship in the days of Shakespeare and any open statement about contradictions in the Holy Bible would mean immediate arrest and imprisonment.  All stage plays had to go through the scrutiny of the Master of the Revels whose job it was to look out for unholy profanities and ungodly lines.  Shakespeare could not do a Richard Dawkins in his plays but then again, he did not show much interest or knowledge in religion in the first place and there were no atheists in those days.  But that one remark is enough to suggest to me that perhaps Shakespeare wasn't that ignorant about the Bible which he might very well have helped in the translation process.  He was not unaware of the many problems in the Bible and the numerous contradictions.

The remark I'm talking about appears in one of the soliloquies where a direct reference is made to contradictions in the Holy Gospels or, as Shakespeare puts it, "the word is set against the word" and for an example, he gives the free and welcoming invitation Jesus gives to all children to go to him on the one hand and his harsh insistence that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  This isn't the sort of contradiction that any atheist would pick on today.  This isn't even a real contradiction and if an atheist wants to attack the Holy Bible, there are far more damning contradictions to pick.

But let's look at these two examples that the Bard cites.  Christ's welcome to children to go to him does in some way contradict his blanket rejection of rich people from the kingdom of heaven.  Presumably, some of these children may very well grow to be wealthy men and women and it does appear petty to be so effusive in welcoming them as kids but to reject them when they become adults.  But in the time of Christ, the children were probably poor and would grow up to be poor men and women.  Society was very much stratified and historians tell us that one of the criticisms of Christianity in the first century was it was the religion of the poor and uneducated.  Given that setting, the children Christ welcomed must have been children from poor families and they would most certainly grow up to be as poor as their parents.  When Christ gave his condemning remarks about the rich, he was addressing the rich young ruler, one of the few occasions he actually addressed anyone who wasn't poor.

But of course the church had to quickly reinterpret Christ's aversion to the wealthy.  Christianity soon grew from its humble roots and became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire, particularly when the Emperor himself espoused the religion.  Negative remarks against wealth had to be given a fresh interpretation so that Christ's sharp and unequivocal condemnation of the rich is somewhat blunted.  The usual "although Christ said this, he didn't mean it this way" is how the church today interprets any verse that does not seem to square with our understanding of what is right and wrong.  That is how we ignore biblical support for slavery and reinterpret verses which clearly show slavery to be a holy institution of God which received the full support and active encouragement of St Paul.  Morality is fluid and it changes with time, place and culture and every religion needs to be able to reinterpret its holy books.  Failure to give a fresh interpretation to verses in a holy book can lead to very serious trouble especially when fanatics insist on their literal meaning.  In some instances and for some verses, this can mean discrimination and even cruelty to women, violence against non-believers and even the terrorism we see in recent years.  It's the duty of the church and every religious organisation to review its holy book regularly and to prune the parts that need pruning and to give a whole new meaning to verses which may be outdated or just downright evil.

Say NO to business and marketing books!

There used to be a time when Singaporeans were crazy about self-help books and books with embarrassing titles such as How I Made My First Million followed by How I Made My Next Million jostled with one another for the limelight in the National Best Seller List.  When Borders first opened its business in Singapore, many book lovers were thrilled.  The "literature and poetry" section was huge and it occupied more than half the entire floor space of that large book shop.  One of the first books I bought from Borders was the Riverside Chaucer which remains my pride and joy to this day.  I'm a firm believer in reading Middle English poetry in Middle English and a modern English translation of a Middle English poem just won't do unless you are introducing the poem to a child.  At that time, all book shops in Singapore sold only Middle English poems in modern English.    It was also from Borders that I bought Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse when other book shops only carried the more modern editions.

Just as I thought Borders was a real treasure trove for book lovers, something happened that changed my mind totally.  The "literature" section in Borders became smaller and smaller and many of the shelves that used to stock the greatest books on the planet were emptied and in their place stood pathetic volumes of marketing books on how to get rich or some such vile titles.  That was the time when I stopped buying books in Singapore and I got all the great works of literature from England or from the internet.  When Borders was wound up and its branch in Singapore closed down, I felt it got its just deserts.  A book shop that panders to the base and vulgar tastes of its lesser breed of customers does not deserve to thrive.

I take pride in the fact that I have never read a single business or marketing book in my entire life.  The library in my house is well-stocked and you can find the most obscure titles but I'm pleased to declare that it is unsullied by the undesirable taint of marketing books.  I can't think of anything more disgraceful than reading a book on how to get rich which is essentially what business and marketing books are all about.  However much they try to cloak their true intent in a respectable book jacket and whatever words they use to give the appearance of decency, the fact remains that a business book talks about nothing else but filthy money and how to amass it.  Impecunious though I may be, I look upon such books as an abomination and I have absolutely nothing to do with them.

We now live in a world where information flows freely and unchecked.  The most puritanical Amish cannot help but have pornography fed into his email completely unsolicited.  That's precisely how I got to read this morning a marketing article in a journal called the Singapore Business Review but I'm glad I read it.  At least I know for a fact now that I haven't missed anything by staying away from business and marketing books.

It is never my policy to criticise what others write.  The rules of grammar and proper writing style are to me mere rules that I care not a jot for.  Many of my best friends can't identify a pluperfect tense in a sentence to save their lives.  They don't mean a thing to me.  But if one must write an article in the Singapore Business Review, I would have expected slightly more care in how one phrases one's sentences.  Slipshod writing does betray to some degree what really goes on in a person's mind and how much he cares for his readers and the subject matter he's writing on.

I don't wish to identify the writer whose work I'm ciriticising and so I will merely pick a sentence or two to illustrate what I'm saying.  The errors are so glaring I need not say a word more.  Here they are:

I'll begin with the first line in the article.  It's presumably a quotation but the source is not given.  I honestly doubt if it is a quotation in the first place.  The sentence is as ungrammatical as the rest of the article so if it is a quotation, I suspect the writer is quoting his own previous articles.

 Here's another:

I was about to let it go as a minor oversight but when I saw that the error was repeated shamelessly, I felt secure in posting it here.

Now, the following is an egregious blunder that may very well have been an oversight but the writer of an article in such a serious journal really has no excuse for making it and besides, this flouting of a basic grammatical rule is quite consistent with the many other errors in the article:

Here's another:

Next comes the most garbled piece of writing in the post.  Articles are dropped, prepositions run riot and the general meaning is obscured:

I want to be fair.  I have no doubt the writer is a wonderful marketing guru but he badly needs an English lesson.  This is what you get when you trade Shakespeare, Milton and Tennyson for How to Get Rich.  Parents who hope to get their kids into business, marketing and investments must bear in mind that there is a price to pay when you turn your back on Arnold and Blake and Coleridge and all the other letters of the alphabet all the way to Yeats.  Sorry to the Francophiles but Zola really doesn't count.

I will continue to stay away from marketing books and it matters not if I miss out on a good stock exchange deal (or whatever the correct business term is) and remain as penniless as I have always been.  My bank books may be in the red but there will be in the epitaph on my tombstone a brilliant quotation of immense literary worth.

 Poor but happy in front of my single-bedroom ramshackle hut

Book Review: Shakespeare and Co.

I've just read a most remarkable book by Prof Stanley Wells, a renowned Shakespeare expert and the book was so absorbing I read every word of the Appendices as well.  It is a comprehensive examination of the Bard working in a literary environment where he influenced and was influenced by other writers of his time.

Having read and studied every poem that Shakespeare wrote and almost every play of his including his apocryphal works, I am naturally very partial to books about Shakespeare and his writings.   Since I have also read every surviving play written by Marlowe and Jonson and a couple of plays by Middleton including a play he wrote with Shakespeare but which I have always regarded and still regard as Shakespeare's, it's not surprising that I found Well's book immensely delightful as it examines the lives and works of Shakespeare's contemporaries, notably Marlowe, Dekker, Jonson, Middleton and Fletcher.

Although I'm aware that this book can't possibly command a wide appeal among general readers today, I believe there is a sizeable number of readers who love and have read most of the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.  It is to this group of readers that I highly recommend Well's scholastic examination of the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries and how they influence one another.

Lovers of Shakespeare can set their minds at ease if I say at the outset that this study of how Shakespeare influenced the Elizabethan and Jacobean literati and was influenced by them does not in any way detract from the Bard's unparallelled importance and the considerable value of his works.  As Wells concludes in his book, Shakespeare "was deeply immersed in the world around him, and to see him as one among a great company is only to enhance our sense of what made him unique."

Singapore Needs the Bard

You wouldn't normally associate the Japanese with a taste for the plays of William Shakespeare but they have their own Shakespeare Company that performs Shakespearean plays in Japanese all over the country.  From New Zealand to Alaska, everyone without exception has been, in some measure, influenced by the Bard.  Even the French who are notoriously averse to anything English acknowledge Shakespeare as the greatest literary giant who towers way above their beloved Molière.  In Singapore, there is not a single holder of the pink IC who has not quoted Shakespeare in the course of his daily conversation, even though he may not be aware of it.

If you say you laughed yourself into stitches or that you have had too much of a good thing or that a technical report is all Greek to you or you have not slept one wink, you are quoting Shakespeare.  If you say you refuse to budge an inch or you are tongue-tied or something has vanished into thin air, again you are quoting Shakespeare.  I can go on forever but you get the drift - you can't speak two sentences in English without quoting Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's influence is ubiquitous and it's not confined to his homeland alone.  If we would just take the trouble to look at some of our common household items, we are sure to find Shakespeare's mark imprinted on a few of them.  Just look at this simple bag.

It's sure to bring a smile to anyone who happens to read what's on the bag.  If my memory doesn't fail me, in this scene from King Henry IV Part 1, we see Falstaff boasting in the tavern about his fight with a dozen men when Prince Hal exposes his cowardice and dishonesty.  Falstaff is here giving Prince Hal an earful.  It's particularly funny for us today because Falstaff who is fat is insulting Prince Hal for being thin.  If you want to look for what to say to that slim guy who's always making witty remarks about your generous hips, look no further than what's on my bag.

Next, I have this old wallet but I'm not sure if you can read the words on it.

It says, "There is money; spend it; spend more; spend all".   Isn't this just what any woman would love to hear from the lips of her husband?  I can't make out the source at the bottom of the wallet which has been erased from years of use but I recall this play, Merry Wives of Windsor, quite vividly.  Falstaff (yes, it's him again) being short on cash, wants to seduce two wealthy married women.  The husbands are warned by Falstaff's servants.  Ford, the husband of one of them, is jealous and wants to sound him out.  He pretends to be someone else who is interested in Mrs Ford and he wants Falstaff to act as a go-between.  It's in this context that Ford gives his wallet to Falstaff and those are the words he utters.  The play ends with Falstaff utterly humiliated.

Shakespeare has that capacity to unite the human race regardless of our ethnic differences.  His plays are to adults what Hansel and Gretel is to children.  Just as Hansel and Gretel is read to children from Argentina to China and Russia and you don't have to be a German child to be familiar with the story, Shakespeare's plays and poems are universally watched and read by practically everyone on the globe, and quite aptly, the Globe is also the name of the theatre in which his plays used to be performed but it caught fire and was totally destroyed in 1613, possibly when Henry VIII was performed.  The Globe was rebuilt in 1997 and donations for its reconstruction came from all over the world.  You can walk on the tiles and read the names of the donors.

The Singapore Air Force once had an advertisement in its recruitment drive that was aired on television.  It showed a pilot flying a fighter plane and at the same time, you can hear the line "To be or not to be" chanted repeatedly throughout.  Of course the SAF intended to quote Shakespeare but I thought it was most inappropriate to use a line from the lips of Hamlet who was considering whether to kill himself or to live on.  That's not a good idea for a recruitment exercise for the Armed Forces.  I'm sure the Air Force had no intention of attracting suicidal pilots.  But it's nice to know that even the SAF quotes Shakespeare. They may not know the context of the quotation but quote it they must.  That's how compelling Shakespeare is.

It used to be that every Singaporean student had to read a minimum of 2 Shakespearean plays for the O-levels and if they did Lit in A-levels, Paper 2 which was compulsory in those days was the Shakespeare paper and candidates had to do another 2 plays for this paper.  It is likely that a student, after having tasted such a delightful fruit would crave for more, so perhaps in his university days, he would read another two or three of the Bard's plays.  The average Singaporean in those days would have read by the time he was in his early 20s anything from a minimum of 2 plays to 6 or 7 and these aren't even literature undergrads.  Today, the education syllabus has changed drastically.  A-level literature students can get by without having to study any Shakespeare.  Consistent with the modern concept of freedom of choice, the syllabus is now tailored to allow students to choose the texts they wish to do and there is no compulsory Shakespeare paper.

There are no statistical data on this but I would wager a large fortune that in today's Singapore, we probably can find quite a substantial number of people who have not read a single play or poem by the Bard.  Is this necessarily a bad thing? 

It is universally acknowledged that the standard of English in Singapore has declined at an alarming rate.  People don't speak or write as well as they used to.  The government, ever quick to address any educational problem, launched many years ago a campaign which it simply called the Speak-Good-English campaign.  This campaign has gone on for as long as I can remember but the results are disheartening. I once stood in a crowded subway train and was surrounded by a group of secondary school students who were chattering away and since I had nothing to do, I listened to the conversation that was going on quite loudly in front of me.  For a good five minutes, I thought they were speaking in Mandarin.  I managed to decipher a few words and to my horror, I realised they were speaking in English.  I listened further but I could not make out a word of what they were saying.  That's how bad it is.  If I can't even understand the spoken English of my own people, how can we expect people of other nationalities to understand them?

It's not only in Singapore but in other countries too that we see a decline in English proficiency.  Just last night, I was at a concert and next to me sat a father and his young daughter.  From the accent of the father, I could tell that he was English.  He was a devoted father and before the concert started, he read the programme sheet and explained everything to his daughter.  He told her what a sextet was, what synergy meant.  Then he came to the word "contentment".  Now, this father was thorough and conscientious in educating his daughter.  He first told her it was a noun.  So far, so good.  He then reduced the word to "content" and gave his daughter a sentence with the word in it by way of illustration: "I am content", he said.  He asked his daughter what part of speech "content" in such a context was.  When his daughter was silent, he proceeded to explain to her that an adverb was a word to describe how something was.  Since "content" described how he felt, it was an adverb!

I really had to restrain myself from correcting him.  In the first place, I shouldn't be eavesdropping but I love eavesdropping and besides, they were seated just next to me and I could hardly ignore their conversation.  But how could anyone make such a shocking blunder?  When I told my kids about it, they were all in stitches (yes, that's a Shakespearean quotation).  This is rudimentary English grammar, something a kid of 7 should know.

It's not just Singapore that has this language problem.  It's a global disease and it's perhaps much worse in Britain.  Some years ago, there were suggestions to remove Shakespeare from the school syllabus in Britain and to introduce something as silly as finance in its place.  I can't recall what happened to that awful suggestion but I'm sure the poor standard of English we see all over the world has a lot to do with how we treat Shakespeare in our education.

I once saw that hilarious play, "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" in London.  This is a 2-act parody that "goes through" ALL the Bard's plays in the first act and they do that by mentioning a few things that stand out in each play and then move on to the next without naming the play.  At the intermission, a young English woman seated next to me asked me what I thought of the play so far.  I told her I didn't see "The Winter's Tale" fitted into the parody.  She was silent for a moment.  Then I remembered one of the actors mentioning a bear and I told her laughingly that yes, they did cover "Winter's Tale" with just a line about the bear.  It was then that she decided to come clean.  She confessed that education in Britain was not what it used to be and she was quite unfamiliar with Shakespeare.  She was with two other young women who were laughing sheepishly.  They said none of them read Shakespeare and neither did their friends.  Of course I was too polite to ask why then they were at the play.  If you don't know most of Shakespeare's plays, you can't possibly understand the jokes in the parody.  You won't know what it is they are parodying.  Obviously, Singapore isn't the only country that has consigned Shakespeare to the bin.

No book on the English language is complete without some discussion of Shakespeare and his language.  Just for illustration, let's take a look at the Oxford Companion to the English Language.

It has a large section that covers in detail the language of Shakespeare and its impact on the English language.  Now that I have made reference to Oxford, let's turn to its rival institution.

In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, David Crystal acknowledges quite categorically Shakespeare's pivotal role in the development of the English language.  He actually gives due recognition to both Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible but I'm not suggesting the introduction of the Bible into the school curriculum.  I'm aware of the implication of such a move in multi-religious Singapore.  In any event, we really don't need the Bible.  Shakespeare is a thousand times better than any version of the Bible.  I mean it linguistically, not theologically.

I once stumbled upon this same David Crystal in the musty basement of an old book shop in Wales.  I told him what a fan I was of his and that I had read his books since I was in school and we chatted for a good hour.  His son, he told me, had taken after him and they were writing books on English together.  I then asked him what he would rate as the best book ever written.  He replied that his answer would have to be plays, not books.  Shakespeare's plays were to him the very best.  He said he was unable to specify which play in particular because they were all good and he would read them over and over again.  Even Troilus and Cressida?  I asked.  Yes, even Troilus and Cressida was his reply.  Frankly, I don't particularly like Troilus and I think the Bard just ended the play abruptly and went on to write some other better plays but that's just a personal opinion of mine.  All I want to show you is how important Shakespeare is not just to the rest of us but also to linguists and grammarians whose job it is to study the English language.

So what's the solution to the language problems that Singapore and many other countries in the world face?  It's as easy as pie.  Simply introduce Shakespeare in the school syllabus and all will be well.  We can start with something simple and fun in Sec 1.  Perhaps A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Students can even be encouraged to stage a play at the end of the school year.  Schools can be flexible in their choice of plays.  Coed schools may want to try something that can spark a debate among the students on gender issues.  The Taming of the Shrew is sure to keep students thinking about the play.  A boys' school can opt for the history plays with battles galore and a girls' school may prefer light comedies.  Much Ado About Nothing will appeal to any girl, particularly the witty exchanges between Beatrice and Benedick.  When it comes to Shakespeare, there is always something for everyone.

Yes, with Shakespeare, there's always something for everyone.  Even those who insist that language isn't really important may quote Shakespeare's famous lines from Romeo and Juliet:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."

That may be true for a rose but if you call a rose by any other word, nobody will understand you.  And that's what language is for - communication and in order to have communication, we must be intelligible.  Bring back the Bard!  Singapore needs him badly.

Me reading a RELIGIOUS BOOK!!!

This is a remarkable book. After having read about half of it, I put it aside, thinking I couldn't learn anything new from it. But boy, was I wrong! There is so much information packed in this book that it should be required reading for all Christians and not just theological students (which is what the recommendation at the back of the book suggests). Anyone who wants to know more about the New Testament and more about Jesus should read this delightful book. It's not heavy-going at all.

Yoopsies doodles! Look at what I'm reading

My statistics counter shows that my readership is usually at its lowest ebbs when I'm talking about the books I'm reading.  Most people I know just aren't interested in books. I've blogged about books that ruined my faith in God, etc but my counter clocks a low readership. It's not earth-shattering enough. But this book is surely different? I suppose some will sit up now and listen?  It took me two days to get this book. I'll tell my story in detail soon and it will appear in this entry. But here's a pic of the book I'm reading now.  I hear it's the coolest book in town. If you don't agree, well, let's see if you are able to get a copy!  So there!

Here's the story I promised:
It's really quite simple. I have no interest in executions and how the State punishes criminals.  In normal circumstances, I would not touch this book even if it were served to me on a silver platter.  But the Singaporean police has sprung into action and with surprising speed, they arrested the author and warned the book shops to withdraw the book from their shelves.  It was reported in all the newspapers that the government had not banned the book but the book shops had been "advised" not to sell it.


What's not banned is not illegal. A book shop may simply thank the police for their advice but refuse to heed it.  Why should it? After all, it's perfectly legal to sell the book. If the book is indeed all that harmful, surely it behoves the government to ban it?


I went to JB on 27 July but I was told at MPH that the book was sold out. I placed a reservation for the book and made my payment. The next day, I got a call from MPH informing me that the book was available. I rushed down immediately and got my book.


And I am not the least bit disappointed. The book is earth-shatteringly gripping. I would have gone to JB ten times if that was what was necessary for me to get hold of the book.

The Books that Changed My Outlook

I first believed the Bible to be the word of God in my early childhood.  Why?  That was what I was told, of course.  That was what I heard in church after the readings.  But as I grew older, I began to ask myself what my basis was for believing the Bible to be the word of God.  I believed in inerrancy only with respect to the doctrines of the Bible and its teachings.  Sure, there were scribal errors but those didn't affect the doctrines.  Sure, there were passages that shouldn't have been in the Bible because "earlier and more reliable manuscripts" did not have those passages (as the footnotes in my Bible tell me) but the passages were minor and few and they didn't touch on doctrine at all.

But what was my basis for believing the Bible to be the word of God?  How could I say that the Bible was "God-breathed" or "inspired by the Holy Spirit" if I had no basis for believing it?

I looked into books by apologists.  Josh McDowell is pretty confident in his defence of the Bible but all apologists tend to be confident.  His scholarship appeared shoddy to me.  To be fair to Josh, he has never pretended to be a scholar.  His job is to defend the faith and he does it admirably well.


I decided to look to the scholars.  And my suspicion was right - Josh McDowell got it all wrong and the truth is far more complex than what I've always been told in church about the Bible.


I've spoken to many Christians about the basis for their belief in the Bible and WITHOUT EXCEPTION, almost all Christians are blissfully ignorant of the Canon and the history of the Bible.  And the funniest thing is they ARE NOT INTERESTED to find out.  What?  A book that is supposed to govern their lives and they're not interested?

Anyway, these are the books I read and boy, did they turn my beliefs upside down! 

The first book I read is Bruce Metzger's book.  Now, Bruce Metzger was the chap who translated the RSV.  He's one of the world's most respected scholars.  The next book was by FF Bruce.  FF Bruce is the greatest name in the evangelical world when it comes to scholarship.  The third book is by Lee MacDonald.  It's a fascinating book and it gives a lot of references and details.


But basically, all the books give roughly the same view.  These books led me to read other books too and I must say I've become quite learned in this field.


So, what is my final answer?  What is my basis for accepting the Bible as the inerrant word of God?  Absolutely no basis.  There is in fact basis not to accept the Bible as the inerrant word of God and to say that the Holy Spirit did not inspire the writing of scriptures.  I have come to the conclusion that it would be an insult to God to attribute authorship or inspiration of the Bible to him.

DISCOUNTED BOOKS!!!

I just bought more than 10 books for slightly more than .......


.........$20.00.  Yes, that's in Singapore Dollars and I did write TWENTY, not two hundred. 5 of the books are hard cover.  They range from literary works and literary criticism to religion and mythology.  All these books for $20!!! 

When science meets fundamentalism

This afternoon, I bought from Borders this book and am really looking forward to reading it.

Early last year, as soon as I got word that Jerry Coyne's book had been published in celebration of Darwin's 200th or 150th anniversary (depending on whether you're celebrating his birth or the publication of his book), I placed an order with amazon.com for the book.  It's a truly remarkable book.  I'm quite pleased with myself because I recommended the book to someone who's a real dyed-in-the-wool creationist and who's also a deacon in one of the most ultra-fundamentalist churches that I know of and after reading the book, he accepted the truth of evolution and is now a closet evolutionist.  "Evolutionist" is such a needless word.  It's as needless as "gravitationalist" (a person who accepts the theory of gravity) or a "germist" (a person who accepts the germ theory).


Since my blog is intended to be largely pictorial, here's a pic of Coyne's book: