Amazon.com
This book has always been popular with the techy-geeky crowd, but, since it was first published in the '70s, it missed out on the cyberpunk revolution of the '80s. It's too bad, because this is a compelling story of a future world tied together by a universal data network, a world that could be our tomorrow. It's a tense place filled with information overload and corporate domination, and nearly everything is known about everybody. Except Nickie Haflinger, a prodigy whose talents allow him to switch identities with a phone call. Nickie plans to change the world, if only he can keep from getting caught.
Book Description
A Science Fiction Book Club Selection
"When John Brunner first told me of his intention to write this book, I was fascinated -- but I wondered whether he, or anyone, could bring it off. Bring it off he has -- with cool brilliance. A hero with transient personalities, animals with souls, think tanks and survival communities fuse to form a future so plausibly alive it has twitched at me ever since."
-- Alvin Toffler
Author of Future Shock
He Was The Most Dangerous Fugitive Alive, But He Didn't Exist!
Nickie Haflinger had lived a score of lifetimes...but technically he didn't exist. He was a fugitive from Tarnover, the high-powered government think tank that had educated him. First he had broken his identity code -- then he escaped.
Now he had to find a way to restore sanity and personal freedom to the computerized masses and to save a world tottering on the brink of disaster.
He didn't care how he did it...but the government did. That's when his Tarnover teachers got him back in their labs...and Nickie Haflinger was set up for a whole new education!
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
Shockwaver Rider is a cyberpunk precursor style of book, written before there were even personal computers, Brunner comes up with a very extensive multi-user system that everyone is connected to.
That is obviously open to abuse, and a talented rebel sets out to do something about what is happening.
Excellent, but it could have been more.......2006-08-23
First cyberpunk! Got the internet's effect on people right in 1975! Got the "wisdom of crowds" right in '75! And, of course, future shock and Brunner's style of short "chapters" tangental to the plot to flesh out the world. There is a lot of good stuff to think about here.
But, its all exposition. Characters talking about how they think the world should be run. Events happen, many integral to the plot, but they are all basically resolved in a section break then characters talk about the results. Don't get me wrong, I really like the book and think it is worth a read for almost everyone. I just don't think its a 5.
The message I take away is "give people information and let them make their own decisions". But, at the same time, the story tells us that it takes very exceptional people -- one virtually unique -- to make that happen. Which leaves me with the worry that if people were to start making the wrong choices -- as the bulk of society has in the story -- would the "enlightened elite" let them keep doing it? No easy answers.
Grand-daddy of all cyberpunk.......2005-11-17
I remember buying all Brunner novels I could find as he wrote them back in the 20th C. His were among the few science fiction novels that were in the book racks at the grocery, back in the late 70's and early 80's. I guess I was about 14 or so when I got my little paws on this one. I was enticed and excited, much as I was by other sci-fi novels back then, but it was only when I began reading Gibson and Walter John many years later that I began to recall ... dated, of course, and Brunner's characters are all very much 1950-70's type characters, very neurotic and uptight. (People are not so much like that any more, of course ;-). They are now just whacked, or stupid.)
And it is amusing to see Brunner's future world where everybody logs into a massive mainframe for the entire continent. It's amusing to think maybe we could have gone that route technologically; a central monolithic network instead of a zillion anarchistic distributed networks. Then perhaps Windows would be the "good guys" and Nix would be the "Evil Empire!"
In this techno-dystopian novel, it seems the wrong people have been given root privileges. And although the word "hacker" had not been invented yet, our protagonist is indeed an anti-social computer whiz/underachiever, who devises a virus that ... well, enough spoiling for today. Read teh book!
And if you enjoyed this, consider looking at the "Future Shock" trilogy by Alvin Toffler, a major inspiration to Brunner, both intellectually and stylistically, and Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up," his other greatest novel -- one of very many, as Brunner was very prolific.
Prescient but dated.......2002-03-31
Although I can certainly understand the appeal of this groudbreaking precambrian cyberpunk novel, the story and language are hopelessly dated to a modern reader. In a way the book reminded me of an Ayn Rand novel; good ideas stuck between pages upon pages of confusing and ridiculous dialog spewed by one-dimensional characters.
I demand a reprint.......2001-11-28
Little is to be added to the other reviews. This 28-year old book not only decribed the internet as it will become very soon long before its inception, but computer viruses (called "worms" by Brunner) before the first PC too, plus a few other things and issues not even mentioned yet.
Since a friend gave it to me to read many years ago, I've bought every copy of it I could find. I have kept one German and one English version and as I will not let them out of my bookshelf under no circumstances I gave all others away as gifts, still looking for more copies to give away.
It has been sold out so often and for such a long time, each time and in each of those two languages available to me, that if one were to be a follower of conspiracy theories, well, the fact that this book is not reprinted as often as some other books of Brunner are would be reason for suspicion.
Download Description
"
At 31,000 feet above Japan, Tom Ferebee sits hunched over his bombsight. Below him lies the primary target of an operation called ""Special Mission Number 13"" by the few military personnel aware of its existence -- Hiroshima, a city of over 300,000. He waits until the aiming point is directly below the crosshairs and releases his cargo -- a five-ton bomb known as Little Boy by the scientists who built it. If all goes as theorized, the resulting destruction will lead to Japan's surrender and the end of World War II. But right now, a very real question occupies the minds of everyone involved:
Will it work?
The historical record is clear: It did work. On a quiet Monday morning in August 1945, the bomb detonated as expected, resulting in the deaths of nearly 100,000 people.The Japanese Supreme Council surrendered nine days later, after a second bomb, to similarly devastating effect, had leveled Nagasaki. But if, in retrospect, the bombing of Hiroshima represents the climax of one of the signal events of the twentieth century -- indeed, in the history of mankind -- at the time it was but another episode in an unprecedented drama whose final act had begun three weeks earlier, at Los Alamos, a secret laboratory in the high plains of New Mexico.
Shockwave is the story of those terrible three weeks, as seen through the eyes of the pilots, victims, scientists, and world leaders at the center of the drama. Extraordinary interviews with American and Japanese witnesses tell the story of the bombing of Hiroshima with unparalleled immediacy and veracity -- including the story of the copilot, who writes a minute-by-minute diary on board the Enola Gay; the atomic scientist who arms the bomb in midair, equipped with a screwdriver; and the Japanese student desperately searching for his lover in the ruins of the city.
Combining a brilliant gift for storytelling and a keen eye for detail,
Walker constructs a shocking and unforgettably moving portrait of an event that changed the world forever.
"
Customer Reviews:
Human aspects of inhuman actions.......2007-02-01
The story of the use of the atomic bomb is fairly well-known. A group of scientists and military personnel spent years of time and billions of dollars to develop, test and use two nuclear weapons. After their use, the Japanese government accepted the terms of unconditional surrender. Since then - insofar as is known publicly and it must be true as even the omnipresent conspiracy community is more-or-less mute on the topic - there has not been another use of nuclear weapons by one country or group against another.
The names of the most notable participants in this effort is also relatively common knowledge: high-profile scientists (Oppenheimer and Teller); the military leader of the project Groves and the pilot who dropped the first bomb (Groves and Tibbets); and the political leaders (Truman and Hirohito). But, we tend to view these personages and their associates as actors on a stage viewed from high in the notional second balcony of the theater of life. We see their actions and hear their words, but what do we really know about their thoughts, feelings and emotions?
Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima by Stephen Walker is an attempt to bring out that aspect of the story. Spawned from a BBC television documentary, Walker relates the story of the three week period from the test of the weapon on July 16 through its use on August 8, 1945. We are sequentially transported across thousands of miles from Japan to Germany and back again, meeting and - in a manner of speaking - getting to know many of the cast of characters involved.
We meet Leslie Groves, the General leading the Manhattan project. A tough, ambitious, no-nonsense soldier, it is his determination to complete the mission that marks him as the true "father of the atomic bomb." Without his managing the diverse, esoteric and conflicted personalities of the scientific staff, the project likely would have never reached fruition.
The scientists - a true polyglot community of dreamers and schemers collected from across Europe and America needed desperately a man like Groves. Oppenheimer, the insecure egotist, was one part genius and one part Hamlet; a man driven by the need for recognition who more-than-likely really wanted to be an aesthete. Szilard, the moralist, fought to the bitter end to stop the use of the weapon. Others fell into the morally conflicted role of "it's a job and I did what I was told;" an excuse that for the losers of the war resulted in execution or imprisonment. And, passing through the story like a ghost is Karl Fuchs, the traitor, who was regularly reporting on the progress of the project to the Soviets.
The members of the 509th Composite Group were the crème de la crème in their profession of breaking things and hurting people. Selected by a man with years of war-making experience who believed not in the righteousness of what he was doing but in its necessity, this team did what it was supposed to do. Not a group of heroes and villains, but a cross-section of America, the 509th Composite Group - in military jargon composite means a collection of units with disparate though synergistic missions; as such the 509th was one of the first US military units that was entirely self-sufficient - executed its mission. In that matter, it was little different from any other unit.
We also meet a similarly sweeping array of enemy personalities, ranging from political leaders struggling to end the war without being killed by fanatics to those whose sole involvement was to do what they were supposed to do.
All of the events and characterizations are presented with a bare minimum of personal agenda by author Walker. We do not get the soft platitudes of John Hersey, nor the Jesuitical "the ends justify the means" of Thomas and Witts. Instead, we are simply told a story in a series of related vignettes that read very much like a screenplay; this is not surprising when one considers the genus of the book.
Overall, Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima is a solid piece of historical narrative that - while not bringing to light any revalational material - provides the reader with a keen understanding of mankind.
The Days That Changed Humanity.......2006-09-02
SHOCKWAVE: COUNTDOWN TO HIROSHIMA is a gripping narrative of one of the most unforgettable event in world history. Stephen Walker includes the key players, Gen. Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer, who were involved with the creation and launch of two infamous atomic bombs, "Fat Man" and "Little Boy", to cause catastrophic devastation to two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, during World War II. This is the story of the event that led to the end of World War II.
Through previous related scholarship about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Walker writes a historical narrative that is comparable to that of John Hersey's HIROSHIMA. For those familiar with Hersey's account of the bombing of Hiroshima, Hersey concentrates on the aftermath and the victims. Walker elaborates on the weeks prior to the bombing, such as the preparations and decisions made in the making of the bomb and its final launch from the Enola Gay as well as the aftermath. He provides a somewhat neutral assessment of the bombings by representing and telling both sides of the story without technical jargon and scholarly analysis. There is no new material and insights, or debunked myths. However, Walker intertwines stories of those who were accountable for the bomb, recent interviews from the surviving pilots, Paul Tibbets, and those who were literally effected on the ground, surviving Japanese civilians, hibakusha, whose lives changed for the rest of their life.
The unique aspect about Walker's narrative is how he intimately and intricately tells the story. The format of the book is done chronologically and in a journal type of format, which provides readers a timetable of the events, and an eerie anticipation of the final countdown with each turn of the page; Walker builds and builds his narrative, which may entice the reader's attention.
SHOCKWAVE provides a better perspective of the events leading to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Readers may ask more questions of the how and why of history and the events that occurred in the past, but it will not change what happened on August 6 and August 9, 1945. Most importantly, the book will allow readers to better understand how significant history is to understanding society and humanity in general.
Shockwave: There are better books available.......2006-07-05
Compared to Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," Walker's book adds little to the story. The author focuses almost entirely on the training, flight crew and opertional aspects of the Hiroshima bombing, sensationalized with vignettes of the few remaining Japanese survivors he was able to interview. In my opinion, he adds little new information and useful perspectives to the literature about this historic world-changing event. MGEN Leslie Groves comes across as the major personality with little focus on the fascinating interplay between Groves, Oppenheimer and other key players, both scientific and political. Rhodes account of the "Target Committee" and the political decision-making process leading to use of the bombs is barely mentioned. I consider this a very poor first book for someone who wants to learn the history and backround to the development of the atomic bomb and the agonizing political and moral decisions that led to its use against the Japanese.
Fascinating Reading.......2006-03-21
This book contains the moment by moment of events that led to one of the most chilling and terrifying events in history. Stephen Walker puts you in the front seat to experience what it was like to participate as well as be a victim of the bombing of Hiroshima. The power and destruction of this bomb is beyond belief. Very well done.
Engrossing.......2006-03-01
This is a well written & researched book and puts "faces" to those involved on both sides. From the moment Enola takes off, the book is very hard to put down. The book doesn't portray the bomb in a bad light, or a good light for that matter, it just presents the facts for the reader to gain some insight to this amazing part of history. More details on Nagasaki at the end of the book would of been great.
Average customer rating:
- Great Resource for Beginning Lingo Programmer
- Great Start
- Excellent Instructor's Text
- An Excellent Teacher's Resource
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Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio: A Beginner's Guide
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill/OsborneMedia
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Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Macromedia Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio for 3D: Training from the Source
-
Special Edition Using Macromedia Director 8.5 (With CD-ROM)
ASIN: 0072195622 |
Book Description
Essential skills for first-time developers! Start at the beginning and build your knowledge of this sophisticated multimedia development tool using this easy-to-follow guide. Learn to create 3D gaming, e-commerce and customer service applications, and even online learning environments.
Customer Reviews:
Great Resource for Beginning Lingo Programmer.......2003-02-22
The real power of Director is in Lingo, Director's programming language. I have more than 10 books covering Macromedia Director; most are designed for the beginner and intermediate level user. Warren's book is by far the best introduction to programming in Director.
Great Start.......2002-06-27
I'm just getting into the world of Director, and this book has been my guide. It is written in an entertaining manner, (thankfully not overly cute,) and is making my learning experience an enjoyable one so far. Each lesson is laid out in an easy to read manner and features quick quizzes through out the text, designed to make sure that the important concepts are driven home. I recommend it for other readers looking to begin their Director education!
Excellent Instructor's Text.......2002-05-09
I am an instructor at a small college in Colorado and find Mr. Ockrassa's text a pleasant resource for my students and myself. I have been working with Director for 5 years and have learned a great deal from his book. He has great examples of how to write effective and efficient code. This is the best example of a technical text I have ever worked with. We can only hope that he writes an intermediate and advanced text as well.
An Excellent Teacher's Resource.......2002-05-07
I am an instructor at a small college in Colorado and find Mr. Ockrassa's text a pleasant resource for my students and myself. I have been working with Director for 5 years and have learned a great deal from this book. This is the only text I have come across as a student or as an instructor that really teaches the fundamentals of programming in a way that can be easily followed and understood. Mr. Ockrassa did an excellent job with his examples and his explanations. I recommend this book to anybody that is new to Director and anybody who has been at it for a while. We can only hope he does an intermediate and advanced text as well.
Book Description
Untitled
Macromedia Director is the best-selling multimedia authoring program and the leading tool for creating interactive media for the Web, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, corporate presentations, and more. Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio, the latest upgrade, now includes Intel Internet 3D Graphics Software, which means that for the first time, developers have an easy way to deliver interactive 3D content over the Web. Macromedia Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio includes Director 8.5, Fireworks 4, Shockwave 8.5 Player, Shockwave MultiUser 3 Server, and more.
Macromedia Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio for 3D covers the new 3D capabilities added to Director with the release of Version 8.5. This book uses the same step-by-step instructional method that has made the Director 8 Authorized book so popular and which gets the tasks done with the least amount of frustration for the reader. Whether you're a seasoned Director user looking to extend your Director movies into the third dimension or a 3D graphic artist using Director to propel your models into Shockwave and onto the Web, this book gives you practical, hands-on training from the source. The included CD-ROM holds all the files and models you'll need to work through the lessons, plus sample files you can compare with your own results.
The book consists of two tracks for the two types of people who will be using Director 3D. One track is for current Director users and Lingo programmers and covers in detail the elements of 3D programming, from vector math and creating 3D primitives through lights, shaders and textures, animation (including bones) and the creation of 3D objects using meshes. The other track is for 3D people who are not Director users, such as 3ds max (formerly known as 3D Studio Max) designers. That track gets 3D graphic artists up to speed with Director, allowing them to import a 3D file and output an interactive Shockwave movie that can be dropped onto a Web page. No Lingo programming is required for this track as it is done entirely through use of the Library Palette behaviors, all you need for many e-commerce applications.
Amazon.com
Honest to Jesus is far and away the best book about the goals and work of the contemporary Historical Jesus movement. Robert W. Funk is director of the Westar Institute, which sponsors an annual Jesus seminar in which scholars attempt to establish which events recorded in the gospels actually happened and which did not. In Honest to Jesus, Funk describes these scholars' professional methodologies and personal goals, and summarizes their surprising findings. His prose is clear, his passion is bracing, and his conclusions are challenging. Funk's Jesus, in the end, emerges as a revolutionary figure for a new age, without being the least bit New Age-y.
Book Description
Robert Funk, eminent biblical scholar and founder of the Jesus Seminar, documents his brilliant and provocative search for the original voice and vision of Jesus.This bold investigation takes the reader through the ancient gospels and history to find Jesus the subversive, the social critic, the dissident, the sage. Funk envisions and proposes a revitalized Christianity--shaped by history, not orthodoxy, and based on the unparalleled power of the authentic teachings of Jesus.
Customer Reviews:
Honest to me too.......2006-08-02
We need not only honesty for those memorable persons gone into the realm of history, but also honesty for ourselves.
We are worth it! Words such as sin, not Christian, anti-semite, islamophobe, anti-abortionist, creationist, trinity etc. has complicated the lives of many. Some people are empowered by these, others are disgusted.
Honesty means to look beyond the text, beyond the compilation of 60 or so books or suras, beyond the footnote leading to another footnote claiming the same thing or the author confirming another - beyond all this.
Of course, Robert W Funk has a difficult task. His foreword is a sort of Confessions of Augustinus. He wants to show that he understand why a traditional Chrisitan would react on the book, how s/he would do it and why they shouldn't. He is writing a book in an age where religion bigotry has become very strong, since 1997 the pro-Christian movement has grown strong and has an advocate being pres. Bush himself. This show that the bigotry of Middle ages is not gone. A person such as Robert or the retired bishop John Shelby Spong, can get killed or harassed. But just as Jesus could take the side of the outcasts, in the same way does Robert take the battle for honesty.
In every chapter of the book, Robert has shown what SOUND and TRANSPARENT scholarship has achieved about:
- the documents relating to Jesus (more than 20 or so "gospels"), their composition, putting together,
- the evolution of Christian thought
- the real words of Jesus, the understanding of his parables, aphorisms and his world view
- highly informative discussion about the passion and its non-historicity. Jesus was crucified but not in the way or in the circumstances told in the gospels
It is clear that the ordinary Christian has no or little idea about the historical Jesus, the subjective nature of the gospels or the strong mythological language of theirs.
Reading this book, will of course shock the ordinary Christian. At the same though, MARK MY WORDS, Robert is not telling you - the believer - to conform to the Jesus of scholarship, to the real Jesus, no.
Belief is inspiring when used for personal self-fulfilment. Robert is not interested to rob you of Christmas celebration, of crying during the Holy Week or rejoicing with the resurrected Christ - no. The Christ of religion, of the beliver, will always be a divine figure just as the gospels pictured him - superman, superdoctor, supershrink and so on.
No, Robert is interested in Jesus before he became your personal saviour, before Christianity started to become as much powerful as the Roman empire, promiting slavery, misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism, torture etc.
Robert has shown that Jesus lived for the day, his parables were social criticisms of the daily life, the boundaries enslaving humans in nations, slaves, poor, sinners etc. He believed in the presence of the divine every day, every moment - not in a far-fetched paradise of future beyond time.
Robert cannot be more explicit, more kind or understable towards those traditional Christians than he is. He is careful, just, not exagerate.
Read the book in the name of honesty that we need for ourselves, far from the pulpit of our churches, far from bigotry of our priests - open your heart for the scholarship that tries to present to us the real Jesus - as we understand him TOday. Be prepared for a new understanding toMORROW!
Stands Up with Time.......2006-01-11
A wonderful book which has held up with the test of time, specifically the most recent discoveries.
RIP to a great scholar and human being.
Honest to Jesus or Honest to Unitarianism?.......2005-07-31
Jesus Seminar founder Robert Funk wrote his personal views down in a book called "Honest to Jesus," in which he apparently was under the strange illusion that his book was an attempt to be just that --- "honest" to Jesus. But then again, the question becomes "Honest" to which Jesus? The Jesus of the Gospels or the one of his own invention? But while he probably meant the Jesus of the Gospels, in the process of his attempt at honesty he abandoned that Jesus for a mythical being that the original disciples would have laughed at more than worshipped.
Funk and most of his buddies claim to be "Christian scholars" who are only interested in bringing the "best in high scholarship" to bear on religious issues that matter (p. 6, prologue). But as you read Funk's book it becomes all too apparent that he started the Westar Institute (which formed the "Jesus" Seminar) as a reaction to the problems he perceived with the Church and its theology. He did not set out on an "honest" quest for the truth about Jesus, no matter where that truth might lead. He started out on his quest with an ax to grind, and naturally most of what he finds on his quest is pretty much what he started out with (p. 8, prologue). Can anyone say "circular reasoning"?
It is actually a matter of both concern and laughter when you read Funk's book and consider that this man somehow thought he was being "honest to Jesus" by writing it. Although claiming to be a Christian, he disbelieves the basic foundational and fundamental teachings of the Bible and the Church. But instead of being "honest to Jesus," the fact of the matter is that the evidence shows he was really "honest to Unitarianism." Why do I say this? Let's compare what Unitarians believe to what Funk has stated he believes.
Views on The Bible
Funk: "Declare the New Testament a highly uneven and biased record of the various early attempts to invent Christianity...Eliminate the less deserving parts...In any case, the authority of an iconic Bible is gone forever. It cannot be restored." (p. 314)
Unitarians: "...The doctrine of revelation of the absolute and indisputable authority of the Bible is alien to Unitarian faith and teaching" (Official Unitarian statement by spokesman Carl M. Chorowsky as quoted in Kingdom of the Cults by Dr. Walter Martin, p. 504, Bethany House,1985 edition)
Views of Jesus
Funk: "We must begin by giving Jesus a demotion...As divine son of God, coeternal with the Father, pending cosmic judge seated at God's right hand, he is insulated and isolated from his persona as the humble Galilean sage...A demoted Jesus then becomes available as the real founder of the Christian movement...he will no longer be merely its mythical icon, embedded in the myth of the descending/ascending, dying /rising lord of the pagan mystery cults, but of one substance with us all" (p. 306).
Unitarians: "Unitarians hold that the orthodox Christian world has forsaken the real, human Jesus of the Gospel, and has substituted a Christ of dogmatism, metaphysics, and pagan philosophy" (Kingdom, p. 503).
Views of the Virgin Birth of Jesus
Funk: "We can be certain that Mary did not conceive Jesus without the assistance of human male sperm...It is possible that Jesus was illegitimate...A bastard messiah is a more evocative redeemer figure than an unblemished lamb of God...The virgin birth, in the light of other miraculous birth stories in the ancient world, is a mythical way to account for an unusual life" (pp. 294, 313).
Unitarians: "Unitarians repudiate the doctrine and dogma of the Virgin Birth..." (Kingdom, p. 503).
Views of the Deity of Jesus and the Trinity
Funk: "...I prefer to think of Jesus as a poet rather than as the second person of the Trinity" (p. 2, prologue).
Unitarians: "They [Unitarians] do not believe He is 'God Incarnate,' or the Second Person of the Trinity" (Kingdom, p. 503).
Views of Salvation through Atonement
Funk: "The atonement in popular piety is based on a mythology that is no longer credible--that God is appeased by blood sacrifices. Jesus never expressed the view that God was holding humanity hostage until someone paid the bill. Nor did Amos, Hosea, or other prophets of Israel" (p. 312).
Unitarians: "Because of the total depravity of man, supposedly, God sent His only begotten Son to the world to die for sinful men. Such doctrine Unitarians find offensive, un-Biblical, even immoral..." ( Kingdom, p. 503).
In all of these fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith (and this is not a complete list), Funk consistently shows himself to be a Unitarian, not a Christian. As any reasonable person can see, Funk's views are almost identical to the views of a religious pseudo-Christian cult that has always sought to deify flawed human reasoning above the knowledge of God as revealed in the Bible and human experience. What we have in Funk's "theology," then, is the same old lie repackaged and reformulated to meet the needs of a "postmodern" and skeptical society that is filled with unbelief and likes to hide behind words like "science" and "rational inquiry."
Instead of dealing honestly with the truth of the Gospels which reveal the unified Jesus of history who is the same Christ of faith, Funk and his band of merry followers would rather believe their own elaborately concocted lie that really, under closer examination, isn't even a very good one. Just like the religious leaders who bribed the Roman soldiers to tell the silly lie that Jesus' body was stolen by the disciples while they slept, Funk and his "Jesus" Seminar want to bribe us, using the guise of "high" scholarship, into blindly believing their pseudo-scholarly "findings" about Jesus and His gospel. The lie may be more complex and elaborate, and it may seem more plausible to believe; but a lie is a lie no matter how well dressed and cloaked in scholarship it may be. I remember a few years back wondering why some humanists/atheists were looking forward with practical "glee" to the findings of Robert Funk's Seminar. Well, as you can imagine, I don't wonder anymore. In light of this, I've coined the statement: "Beware when atheists love your 'Christian' theology, for it is probably more atheistic than Christian." Those who can actually give this book 5 stars and applaud it obviously remain clueless.
Violins, please........2004-04-06
Robert Funk is a knowledgeable fellow, and some of his points about aphorisms, translation, early texts, and parables are pretty good. I wouldn't give Funk the lowest rating just because I disagree with him; I have reviewed Crossan and Borg more positively. But honestly, I couldn't appraise this book any higher.
For one thing, about half the book is an ill-tempered rant against Christians, Funk's students, and his colleagues. Some is positively maudlin. "I agonize over their slavery as opposed to my freedom. I have a residual hankering to free my fellow human beings from that bondage (of orthodox Christian belief), which can be as abusive as any form of slavery . . . " (Of Raymond Brown and John Meier!) "In their hands, orthodoxy is safe, but critical scholarship is at risk. Faith seems to make them immune from the facts." "I found myself playing the role of an academic John the Baptist."
Funk reminds me a bit of Karl Marx. He has lost his faith, but retains a Messiah complex. He has nothing good to say about anyone -- his former students, Christians, fellow academics -- who deigns to disagree with him. He sees himself as a revolutionary. "Throw off your faith in a God who answers prayer, in a Christ who conquered death! You have nothing to lose but your chains!" But Marx could at least be poetic. Funk's weaknesses as a writer and a scholar make his exalted view of his role in history hard for me to take seriously.
The scholarly weaknesses are many.
For one thing, there is that talk about the "evolution" of the "sayings tradition." By 70 AD, young disciples of Jesus (and mostly would have been young) would only be 50 or 60 years old. What was to stop them from giving direct imput? Why must we assume that only second or third hand reports were available by that time?
Also, like all the Jesus Seminar material, Honest to Jesus bases its argument on taking the "Gospel" of Thomas seriously. I find I can't do that. Perhaps it would help if Funk answered the powerful arguments against Thomas levied by Meier, Wright, Sanders, and other top-notch scholars. But he opts out, evidently preferring ad hominem attacks to rational debate.
Funk does better on parables and aphorisms. Surely, as he says, it is highly unlikely that any early scribe invented the peculiar and remarkable sayings of Jesus. It does not however follow, as Funk assumes, that any "conventional morality" in the Gospels must be a transplant, because Jesus must be unpredictable. A person who only offers exotic teaching is a smart-aleck or a sophist, not a true sage. Great literary critics, like Chesterton, Lin Yutang, or even Thomas Cahill, recognize in the Gospels a higher synthesis of obvious and subtle truths, rather than playing those levels of truth off against one another as Funk does.
"Physician, heal thyself." Here's another problem. Funk praises metaphor, but speaks almost exclusively in cliches. He commends kindness, but then savagely attacks everyone arounnd him. He derides dogmatism, but is himself remarkably dogmatic.
The basic message of this book can almost be summed up thus: "Jesus taught wonderful things, but his disciples misunderstood him completely. Fortunately, a crack team of scholarly experts, led by yours truly, has advanced in scientific understanding far beyond their hapless peers, to say nothing of the disciples or ordinary pew proles. We few experts are able to see through Christian lies about Jesus to the truth: Jesus not only rode donkeys, he also voted for them. Repent and be saved."
Politics aside (as far as possible, please), why should we care what Funk's deconstructed, human Jesus would want, or "demand?" He does not explain.
And in the end, Funk offers no very strong historical argument for his skepticism, but a lame philosophical prejudice. "In the wake of the Enlightenment . . . we presumably know better." As he put it in another book, how can people who have "seen the heavens through Galileo's telescope" believe in miracles?
Skeptics are going to have to do better than that.
I just read books by NT Wright and Rodney Stark on related topics. That's how to do scholarship! They set their ideas out in clear, dispassionate, and sometimes witty phrases, without undue polemic, fairly explaining opposing positions and why they chose to differ. Crossan and Borg can also be read with pleasure, and a measure of respect. But as with Marx, the combination of flaky theories, self-righteous self-promotion, shrill invective, and stitled prose that I found here, made reading this book a painful chore.
author, Jesus and the Religions of Man
Besides its funny.......2003-12-16
Honest To Jesus is all that the reviewers describe. It is a comprehensive look at contemporary scholarship, techniques and thinking about Jesus, the person. Although it can be heavy-going at times because of all the information included, it is worth persisting because the rewards are considerable. If Funk's anger is clear at times, so is his sensse of humor and proportion which he applies to himself as well as others. For a look at the pre-Easter, historical, and always challenging man known as Jesus I strongly recommend this book
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Citation Details
Title: Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium. (book reviews)
Author: Schuyler Brown
Publication:
Theological Studies (Refereed)
Date: June 1, 1997
Publisher: Theological Studies, Inc.
Volume: v58
Issue: n2
Page: p348(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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