Blessed, blessed are you....
The authors of a new novel, The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot, came to the seminary to basically hawk their book.The real authors are Lord Jeffrey Archer and Prof. Moloney, a Roman Catholic priest. They explain that their intent is to"rehabilitate" Judas and their book is based on "possibilites" in the story of Judas and his relationship with Jesus. When they finished speaking I felt that the best possibility might be for them to not plan on record sales. This is a slim volume, nicely packaged with a string page marker. Wow! It looks impressive. I did not purchase a copy (I have other things to do with my $16) despite that nice cover, etc. And here is a time that the old adage "you can't tell a book by its cover" can be applied literally. I found their premise weakly defended and their "possibilites" not entirely founded upon solid scholarship, even though Fr. Moloney is a well-credentialed scholar. We are exposed to enough fiction attempting to be passed off as factual from the secular world, we certainly do not need more from the "inside" as it were. This all goes to prove that it is Lent. It seems that we are overrun with such "discoveries" and "insights" during Lent. The line of a hymn runs through my mind, I think it something from the St. Louis Jesuit's music: If wicked men insult and hate you all because of me, blessed are you. Well, my intelligence and my belief have been insulted this Lent, once again.