Why I Am Not a Disciple of Vapor Trails

For those of you not familiar with Rush (which probably encompasses the majority of my readers), Vapor Trails was Rush’s “Resurrection Album” from 2002. I call it their Resurrection Album because it was their first studio album in six years – by far the longest off period of their career – and because it came after a series of unimaginable personal tragedies in the life of their drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart (his only child was killed in a 1-car accident on her way back to college for the Fall 1997 semester, and 6 months later, his wife/partner of 20+ years died of cancer).

After four years without writing, recording, or touring, Rush finally got back into the studio in 2001. By their own later admission, it took them longer to write and arrange the music for Vapor Trails than any other album they had ever done. 14 months, I believe, is how long they spent writing, arranging, and recording the music for this long-awaited album. It was finally released in 2002, and they hit the road again, and have been touring and recording regularly ever since.

Vapor Trails, however, has proven to be their slowest selling album ever. To date, five years since its release, it still has only sold 300,000 copies or thereabouts – not even Gold yet. The primary complaint from die-hard Rush fans about this album centers on its production quality. The Rush Internet message boards have had literally hundreds of threads, with thousands and thousands of replies, discussing this issue over the years. The album displays what is known in the industry as “clipping,” which is a reference to the waveforms created by the amplifiers. It basically happens by turning an amplifier up beyond its capacity, which causes the signal to cut and clip at its peak. It results in a sound that is distorted and blaring. And distorted and blaring is a perfect way to describe the general production of this album. When listening to it, you get the distinct impression that the microphones and amplifiers were turned up as loud as they could go, and it sort of gives you the feeling that you are listening to a radio station that is not quite on the right dial and is turned up too loud. If your favorite radio station is 100.1, imagine tuning it to 100.2 and then turning it up really loud. That’s sort of what listening to Vapor Trails is like.

Like most people, the production is probably the first thing that turns me off about this album. It is simply difficult to listen to. One of the regular members on the message board I frequent has done a “re-master” of the album, and offers to burn it for free for anyone who has purchased an authentic copy of the album. I have a copy of this “re-mastered” Vapor Trails, and while it is better than the original, there is only so much you can do to an album that was recorded poorly to start with. In general, the album has the feeling of one produced by a garage band with their brother’s recording equipment, rather than by a major band on a major record label. The production simply doesn’t sound professional.

For many people, the production issue is where it stops. I know a lot of Rush fans who think Vapor Trails is a great album, displaying great songs with meaningful lyrics, despite the production woes. For me, however, the production issue – while probably the most important – is simply the beginning.

Aside from the poor production, I get the impression that the band simply didn’t have its chemistry back yet when they recorded this album. I think that is evidenced not only by the fact that it took them so long to get it written, arranged, and recorded, but also by a number of pitfalls in the music itself. It’s sort of like a baseball team who has great chemistry, then enters the off-season and doesn’t play together for 4 months, and then requires 2 or 3 months in the spring to get their chemistry back. Rush is known for its incredible chemistry and synergy, but I think the 4-year lay-off following Neil’s personal tragedies had a very strong impact on the band’s chemistry. “H to O, no flow without the other,” as the lyrics say to Rush’s 1982 song “Chemistry,” and I think the “flow” was definitely off during the recording of Vapor Trails. Perhaps it would have served them better to have had a reunion tour first, then recorded a new album. But that’s neither here nor there – they chose to enter the studio first, and I think their atrophying chemistry is evident in the album they produced.

Evidence of this lack of chemistry abounds throughout the album. The first problem is a tendency toward repetition that you don’t see on other albums. The songs “One Little Victory,” “Secret Touch,” and “Freeze,” are all good songs, but are simply too long. Now, if you know anything about Rush’s music, you know they have written a lot of long songs (“2112,” which is one of their signature songs, is over 20 minutes long). So when I say these songs are “too long,” I’m not suggesting that I can’t enjoy a long song or even an “epic” song. However, in the past, when Rush recorded long songs, they were always fresh and exciting for the duration of the song. “Jacob’s Ladder,” for instance, from 1980, is about 10 minutes long, and only has about two stanzas’ worth of lyrics, but the music is constantly changing throughout the song. It’s what would have been called in the 19th century a durchkomponiert song – meaning that it doesn’t have repetitive refrains, but rather new riffs and new melodies throughout. In the case of “One Little Victory,” “Secret Touch,” and “Freeze,” however, there is no durchkomponiert aspect. Instead, they repeat the same riffs and phrases over and over and over again. “Freeze” and “Secret Touch” are both over 6 minutes long, but really only have about 2 minutes’ worth of original music. The rest is just repetition of the main riff and chorus. If they weren’t going to add in new bridges and new lyrics, then these songs would have worked much better at about 4 minutes apiece, instead of in excess of 6 minutes. Same goes for “One Little Victory,” which is over 5 minutes long and just repeats the same phrase and riff endlessly.

There is also an issue surrounding guitar solos. Inexplicably, Alex Lifeson – despite being one of the most talented and innovative lead guitarists in rock n’ roll – intentionally chose not to play many guitar solos on this album. And the very few solos that he does play sound distorted and watered down. I don’t know of many Rush fans that don’t find this curious and at least slightly annoying.

Another piece of evidence that points toward lack of chemistry is an apparent need by the band and/or their producer to “thicken” the songs with layer upon layer of voiceovers and instrumental sounds. The result is a very burdensome sound that causes all the detail to be washed out. Part of this, of course, goes back to the production quality as well. The song “Peaceable Kingdom,” for instance, is a great song, but I can hardly tell what any of the lyrics are, because Geddy’s voice is drowned out by the layers of voiceovers singing “Ooooh” and “Aaaaah” and all the layers of guitars. Same is true of “How It Is.” Geddy’s voice – which should be the most prominent sound – is instead the least prominent, and these two songs in particular just sound washed out and like they were recorded under water.

Yet another negative aspect of the album is an infuriating tendency to have all the wrongs sounds at the wrong times. To explain what I mean, I point to the song “Secret Touch,” already referenced above. This song is very much a hard rocker, and it has a driving, heavy guitar sound throughout. However, the guitar is almost too growling and too distorted, and it causes the song to come off with a throbbing sound instead of a crisp, hard rock sound. Tie this back to production as well. The problem is, there is a very nice bridge near the end where Alex plays a riff all by himself, and the drums and bass guitar cut out. In concert, this is a great moment, and Alex’s guitar sounds just right, and it just flat out rocks. However, the exact opposite is true on the album. Instead of continuing that heavy, growling guitar sound that characterizes the rest of the song, it’s like Alex’s guitar suddenly becomes watered down and wimpy, right at the moment when it should be at its strongest. It turns an otherwise exciting bridge into a let down. The recorded version just doesn’t pull it off.

Another song that has this same infuriating quality is “Sweet Miracle.” The opening riff of this song is one of the best moments on the album. It’s a driving riff that really has a good, rocking sound. It’s also one of the few spots on the album where the production sounds pretty decent. As you listen to the intro, you think it’s going to be a really great song. Unfortunately, after the introductory riff, the song changes and simply folds on top of itself like a sprinter who has just been hamstrung. After that, it just drags on and on with a whiney, slow-paced gait. The lyrics discuss the new love flame that entered Neil’s life in the wake of his wife’s death, and how this flame became a “sweet miracle of life” for him. I’m sure the lyrics are deeply relevant and meaningful for Neil, but they don’t really do anything for me. Geddy whines them out against a painfully dragging chorus, and the song simply ends up being one of my least favorite in Rush’s entire catalogue of albums. And this coming despite an intro that is one of the best moments on the whole album! Infuriating!

In the end, I suppose, it comes back to the garage band production quality. No less than five songs on the album – “Ghost Rider,” “Peaceable Kingdom,” “How It Is,” “Earthshine,” and “Nocturne” – would all be fantastic songs, worthy of high acclaim within Rush’s catalogue of music. But the layered voiceovers, muddy guitar sound, and amateur production quality simply ruin them. Of course I can still listen to and enjoy these songs. But when I listen to them, I can’t help but think of how much more excellent they could be if they didn’t sound like they were recorded by My Older Brother Jimbo. Then when you add in “One Little Victory,” “Secret Touch,” and “Freeze,” which are all good songs, but suffer both from production woes and repetition, you have at least 8 out of 13 songs that are very good, Rush-quality songs. In fact, “Vapor Trail,” and “Sweet Miracle” are really the only two songs on the album that annoy me more than excite me, but that’s really nothing to complain about – even as a diehard fan, there are going to be some songs on every album that don’t grab you.

So why am I not an ardent fan of Vapor Trails?

1. The production is amateurish and causes you to feel like you’re listening to a radio station not quite on the right tuning, and turned up way too loud;

2. Alex inexplicably chooses to play almost no guitar solos, and those that he does play sound wimpy and watered down;

3. The thick overdubs and layering give the songs a muddy, distorted sound and drown out Geddy’s voice such that it is frequently difficult to even tell what he’s saying;

4. Several of the songs are otherwise good, but are ruined by being too long due to a lack of original material and an influx of burdensome and pointless repetition;

5. Several of the songs are simply infuriating because the tone quality of Alex’s guitar seems to turn wimpy at just the moment when it needs to be strongest;

6. “Sweet Miracle” is a dragging, boring, whiney song that is made even more maddening by having an intro that is one of the best moments on the album and belies the drudgery that is to come; and

7. A good number of songs would be excellent additions to the Rush catalogue, but are simply ruined due to sound quality and amateurish production.

As such, if I were to rank Rush’s 19 studio albums, I would probably place Vapor Trails in my bottom three. I hate to do that, because I am not one of those who only appreciates Rush’s old stuff (their most recent album, Snakes & Arrows, may very well top my list of Rush albums), but Vapor Trails simply does not grab me the way that most Rush albums grab me. I might even go so far as to say that Vapor Trails is in spot 18 on my list, above only 2004’s Feedback album, which was not an album of original material, but merely a short, 8-track EP covering 1960’s songs that had originally inspired the band. That means that Vapor Trails, due to all the things listed above, may be my least favorite Rush album of original material. Even if they completely re-recorded the album with professional-style production, I’m not sure that my opinion would change much. There are some great songs on the album, but repetition, lack of chemistry, too many voiceovers and layers, lack of guitar solos, frequently weak lyrics, and an unusually large number of songs that are just “so-so” – all these things would still probably put Vapor Trails at or near the bottom for me. I have tried to really “get” this album, and see past the poor production. But even when I discount production issues, this album just doesn’t do it for me the way that other Rush albums do.

Now, having said all this, I want to make an important point: even a “poor” Rush album is a great album. I’m comparing Vapor Trails not to the record industry as a whole, but to the remainder of Rush’s body of work. Against albums like Snakes & Arrows, Permanent Waves, 2112, and Hold Your Fire, Vapor Trails simply doesn’t compare, musically or lyrically – and certainly not production-wise. As a modern rock n’ roll album, however, I think it’s a great album. In my opinion, Rush doesn’t have any actual “bad albums.” They simply have some that are not as good or captivating as the others.

So what caused it? A bad producer? Lack of chemistry due to a 4-year hiatus? A desire to get involved in the “loudness wars” and make an album that was louder and more blaring than the competitors? It might have been a little bit of all those things. But whatever the reason, this is why I can not call myself a disciple of Vapor Trails.

A Kentucky Boy in Minnesota

About 1,510 miles, 27 hours and 40 minutes in the car, 37 hours and 30 minutes at the destination, and 65 hours and 10 minutes total round trip – that was my 3-day mini-vacation to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, to see my favorite band, Rush.

Nervously excited about the trip, I was unable to get to bed Friday night, and did not end up falling asleep until after 1:00 a.m. My alarm was set for 5:00 a.m., but I turned it off when it rang, and didn’t even really wake up. I finally roused myself right at 7:00, hurriedly took a shower and gathered my things together, and managed to pull out of the driveway at 7:30. I exited my neighborhood right after dawn on a cloudy late summer morning in Kentucky.

With the exception of Wisconsin, I have visited every state east of the Mississippi River, and most of the states of the southwest, as well as California. The one area of the country I have not visited, however, is the swath of states stretching from Kansas, north through the heartland, and west to Washington. About 20 years ago, in the late 1980’s, when I was about 13, I made a couple of trips to Chicago, but had never been north past that point. As I would be visiting two states I had never seen before (Wisconsin and Minnesota), and as I love solitary travel, I was really excited about this trip.

With my CD case lying open to the first page of Rush albums, I headed west down Interstate 64, toward Louisville. It was already warm, and by the time I hit Louisville, the thermometer was reading in the low 80’s, despite not even being 9:00 yet. This would prove to be the high water mark for temperature for my weekend. It was still cloudy, and continued to be so as I crossed Louisville and entered Indiana.

As a Kentuckian by birth, having spent 27 of my 32 years in this state, I have a healthy and deeply-bred derision of Indiana. It’s flat, empty, not particularly pretty, and, inexplicably, it stinks. Now, I’ve been in other states that seem to smell funny – northern Louisiana reeks of sulfur, and East Texas has a curious burnt wood smell – but Indiana just simply smells like shit. Literally. During the 300 or so miles from New Albany to Gary, I got distinct whiffs of cattle excrement at least five or six random times. In my experience, this is generally par for the course when traveling through rural Indiana. And here I thought that Indiana farmers only grew corn.


This was a Chinese place somewhere in Indiana. The sign reads
"You a carry out a Chinese fast food." Nice.

The most amusing part of the trip through Indiana was a bit of graffiti I saw on a highway sign. In addition to the other irritating things about Indiana, they love to clutter their Interstates with signs. And I don’t mean billboards – every state has those – I’m talking about street signs: “Wrong Way” signs on the opposite side of the Interstate, No Parking signs all along the entrance and exit ramps into rest areas, countless signs telling you it’s now three miles closer than the last sign to the city ahead, and on and on and on. One of these repetitive signs is about drunk driving. It says something like “Report impaired drivers – Call 911.” On one of these signs, underneath the “Report impaired drivers” phrase, someone had spray painted: “No one likes a snitch.” I got a good laugh out of that one.

I passed through Indianapolis in a blur, never leaving Interstate 65, and finally arrived just after lunchtime in Chicago, Illinois. Right about the time I was entering the Chicago metro area, the clouds parted as though by the Hand of Providence, and the remainder of the trip was sunny and clear. It took me about an hour or so to get across Chicago, but I took a bunch of pictures of the skyline on the way.


The Sears Tower, as seen from my car.

The road I was on – Interstate 90 – is a toll road all the way to the Wisconsin border, so it was nice to put away my wallet after a couple of hours of toll booths and traffic jams.

Entering Wisconsin, I immediately discovered that it looked sort of like Indiana, except not ugly or smelly. It seemed to be a beautiful state, with wide sweeping corn fields interlocked with plains of rolling, emerald green, and silos by the dozen. All the barns were painted the same rich, brick red, with white trim – just like you see in the pictures. I guess it was that emerald green that surprised me most. It was almost reminiscent of Ireland.



Residents of Wisconsin, evidently, love their water parks. I saw no less than five or six different water parks along Interstates 90 and 94 as I wound my way northward, past Madison and Eau Claire. There literally seemed to be a water park at every exit. One rather large place, advertised for miles and miles on billboards, is called Wisconsin Dells, but it was only one of many that I saw.


Hi, my name is Scott and I love Rush.

As you get farther into Wisconsin, the cornfields and emerald green grass is replaced by hilly terrain, rocky outcrops, and groves of pine trees. It reminded me a lot of Arkansas.

And, of course, there was the cheese. Signs advertising various styles of cheese abounded all along the Interstate, and one sign in particular caught my attention because of the incongruity of the advertisement: “FIREWORKS and CHEESE!” Still another sign stood at an Interstate off ramp, towering high into the sky, with a huge brown sign proclaiming “CHEESE” in big block letters, and then, farther down on the post, a much smaller sign saying, almost as an afterthought: “sandwiches.” I couldn’t tell if that was supposed to mean they were selling cheese sandwiches, or if they were merely pointing out that they’d sell you cheese, and, if you want it, a sandwich too.

I entered St. Paul around dusk. The sun cast an orange glow across the bellies of the clouds that hung in the sky, and it was a nice touch for my first entrance into the Twin Cities. The area reminded me a lot of Houston, sans palm trees – very flat and very clean and pretty. I took Interstate 494 south toward Bloomington, passing the Mall of America and finally arriving at my friend Mike’s house almost exactly thirteen hours after leaving Lexington. I found the turnoff for his house by looking for the ski jump that stands on one of the few legitimate hills in the Twin Cities.

Mike’s house was a beautiful 2-story home in a quiet area of the Twin Cities. He and has wife gave me my own bedroom and bathroom in the finished basement, and Mike had enchiladas and margaritas ready for my arrival. We ended the evening, naturally, by talking about Rush and watching a documentary on the making of their latest album, Snakes & Arrows.

On Sunday morning, Mike took me to see the sites. We went first into downtown Minneapolis, where we looked at and went inside the Basilica of St. Mary, billed as the oldest basilica in the United States (apparently there aren’t a lot of old basilicas in the U.S. – this one was completed in 1914). It was a beautiful gray building with two large turrets overshadowed by a stained copper dome.





A mass was in progress when we went inside, so we did not get to see the sanctuary, but the foyer was very pretty with arched ceilings and a large crucifix adorning the wall inside a spiral staircase.



I considered dipping my hand into the holy water, but decided it would be sacrilegious.

After our spiritual renewal inside St. Mary’s, we walked across a pedestrian bridge spanning one of the city’s Interstates. This led directly into the Sculpture Garden – claimed by Minnesotans to be the largest urban sculpture garden in the country. The centerpiece is an unusual fountain sculpture of an enormous spoon holding a bright red cherry. If you stand in just the right spot, you can see St. Mary’s towering in the distance beyond the cherry. A Catholic friend of mind commented wryly on the incongruity of a huge cherry sculpture situated in a park next door to a basilica named for the Perpetual Virgin. Well, the cherry is intact, after all.



After walking around Sculpture Garden, we headed over to St. Paul to pick up our friend Becca. Becca is a devout Jew of the Conservative tradition, and she was decked out in a Rush T-shirt with a watermelon-styled kippah perched on the crown of her head (a kippah is otherwise known to us Adam Sandler fans as a “yarmulke”). In the center of the kippah she had a button with the arrow image from the Snakes & Arrows album. A Rush fan to the end, she is.

We took a walk into downtown St. Paul and saw Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. This church is apparently the oldest continuously used church building in the Twin Cities, and it is in a building that was originally built in 1854 by the Universalist Society.



We got there in between masses, so we were able to go inside the sanctuary. It was very beautiful, smelled of incense, and had the customary confession closets in the back.



On the front was a sculpture of the Blessed Virgin appearing to Saint Bernadette in Lourdes, and the doors were painted in a royal blue, decked out with fleur-de-lis, which – as I pointed out to Mike – is the city symbol of Louisville, Kentucky.



After Our Lady of Lourdes, we went a few blocks down to St. Anthony Falls, which is the only natural waterfall on the Mississippi River. Problem is, it’s no longer natural. Sometime in the late 19th century, the water was diverted with dams, and now the waterfall goes over a concrete basin.



It’s really pretty down there, and the river at this spot is flanked on either side by Pillsbury and Gold Medal grain mills – apparently the Twin Cities are a major producer of flour.



After seeing St. Anthony Falls, we walked over near Lake Calhoun – one of the touted “10,000” lakes of Minnesota. As we walked past, the sun shimmered off the dark blue surface, and sailboats dotted the expanse of waters, making for a really beautiful late summer scene.



We stopped and ate at a nearby restaurant called Little Tel Aviv, which served authentic kosher Israeli food. Becca ordered for us, and we shared four appetizers, made up of foods I couldn’t pronounce, but which tasted really good.

After we left the restaurant, the only bad moment of the weekend occurred. As we were pulling out of a 2-way street onto a 1-way street, we were all looking right to make sure the road was clear, and as Mike turned out, we ran into another car coming from the opposite direction. It was a very low-impact accident – none of the airbags in either car went off. Despite that, the girls in the other car were rather rude and irritated, and one of them was pretending to be hurt. She even called an ambulance. With two years working in a law firm that specializes in insurance defense for car accidents, I was able to give Mike some good advice – I don’t think he had anything to worry about. There is no way that girl was hurt.

While Mike waited for the police to arrive, Becca and I went up to a used bookstore nearby. I sat and read from Sam Harris’s atheist manifesto The End of Faith, while Becca perused the poetry section. She ended up buying four books, including one for me called After the Lost War, which is a modern epic poem written from the Southern perspective in the aftermath of the Civil War.

We finally got home following the fender bender, and Mike’s family and I headed over to the concert venue (Becca had been picked up by her friend, with whom she was going to the concert). We stopped and ate at a snazzy Italian place called Cossetta’s Italian Market & Pizzeria. While we were there, we took a bunch of pictures with other Rush fans we know through the message boards, and got word of a rumor that Neil Peart had been at the cigar store a few doors down about an hour earlier, buying cigarettes. This came, apparently, from someone who worked there. We were all rather bummed out that we hadn’t gotten a chance to meet him and become lifelong best friends.

At 6:30, we headed over to the venue and found our seats. Mike and his son were in the front row, at the far edge of the stage, stage right, in front of where Alex Lifeson stands. I was in row 14, but after running into a mutual friend from the message board who also had first row seats, I was able to upgrade to row 10, as he had an extra ticket he hadn’t been able to sell.

The show was fantastic. I won’t bore those of you who aren’t Rush fans with intimate details, but this was the third show I had seen in 8 days, and it was the best of the three. The acoustics in the indoor venue were excellent, and I felt that The Holy Trinity was in prime form. Geddy Lee’s voice sounded great, especially considering this show was at the end of the American leg of the tour. I was especially animated at this show (probably because I knew it was my last of the year), and by the end I was soaked in sweat and had a cracking, hoarse voice.


Geddy Lee is fuckin' awesome!


The Holy Trinity.

As I did at the Cincinnati show, I wore my Caress of Steel Tour 1975-76 replica T-shirt. I bought this shirt a few years ago online, and it is a replica of the shirts sold during the actual tour of the mid-1970’s. In Cincinnati, I had a number of people ask me if the shirt was authentic, and I always told them the truth. This time around, however, I was in a Vegas mood, so I decided to tell everyone who asked that it was the real deal. I must have told this lie to 10 different people. The general response was, “Awesome, dude! That’s incredible! I wish I had taken care of my old tour shirts! Geddy Lee is fuckin’ awesome!” I even came up with a story about how it was my Dad’s shirt, and he had kept good care of it over the years, and now I wear it to all the shows. My Dad saw them in Louisville, so the story went, but Louisville doesn’t appear on the list of cities on the back of the shirt, so I figure he must have been too high to remember exactly where he saw them (at this point in the story, I would add in a nice chuckle). For anyone who knows my straight-laced, chemistry professor Dad, who was a conservative evangelical Christian in the 1970’s who once berated my Mom for listening to (gasp!) Billy Joel, you’ll know what an amusing fabrication this is. Making up total lies and telling them to strangers is oddly entertaining.

During the intermission, I was able to have a moment of kindness to a fellow Rush fan. I got to talking with a guy who was standing outside smoking, and after the obligatory discussion about my authentic 1975-76 tour shirt, I asked him where he was sitting. Section 109 or thereabouts, I think he told me. So I offered to give him my 14th row ticket, which I was now not using. He was shocked and offered to give me money, but I told him he could have it. I did let him buy me a beer, though. He had told me his favorite song was 2112 – which was the song and album by the same title that really launched Rush into the limelight back in 1976 – but I didn’t have the heart to tell him they weren’t going to play it.

Well, after the concert was over, of course, the Big Let Down set in. That’s the only bad thing about waiting all summer to see a concert. With so much build up and excitement, you bottom out when it’s all over. It wasn’t quite so bad after Minnesota, however, as it was the week before after Cincinnati and Columbus.

I got up about 7:30 on Monday morning, ate breakfast, said my good-byes to Mike, and headed home. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it out of the driveway. My car, which has never given me any sort of trouble whatsoever, magically refused to start when I tried to turn it on. I turned the key over and over, but the engine just kept whining without catching. I started getting that panicky “This can’t be happening” feeling. Here I was, 750 miles from home on a Monday morning in Minnesota, a credit card maxed out, very little in my checking account, no family any closer than Indianapolis, and my car wouldn’t start. I really started to freak out, but I kept on turning the key and finally the mother started. Mike came back outside and I turned it off and started it again to see if it would do the same thing, and it fired right up the second time. I finally headed out about 10:00.

On the way home, I decided to take a little extra time and see a few sites. I drove past the Mall of America (which Mike said is sort of an over-hyped disappointment), and took a few pictures for my wife. Later, a few miles into Wisconsin, I got off at an exit that had a sign for the Laura Ingalls Wilder Highway. I wasn’t sure what this was, but I’ve always been a Little House on the Prairie fan, so I figured I’d see what it was all about. Unfortunately, I never found it. However, the town there, called Menomonie, was pretty, and I took a few pictures. It’s apparently a college town, with a school there called Stout University or something similar.


A building in Menomonie, Wisconsin.

Not long outside of Menomonie, it started raining, and it didn’t stop until I got to Chicago. That was a real pain in the ass, and made for a slow and stressful trip. It also ensured that I entered Chicago right about rush hour, and it took me nearly three hours to get from Elgin, on the western side of Chicago, to Gary, Indiana, on the eastern side of Chicago. I coasted into my driveway at about 12:40 a.m. on Tuesday morning, and was about ready to collapse by that point.


I miss Rush.

All in all, it was a great trip. I got to see states and sites I had never seen before, and I had quite a bit of “me” time alone in the car with just my music and the countryside. Add on top of that the excellent Rush concert, and it made for a well-deserved and timely weekend getaway.

Checking In

This might be the longest period I've had without blogging. Just too much going on in life. I've got too blog posts under construction, however -- one is a travelog of my recent trip to Minnesota, and the other is an essay about the Gospel of Thomas. Be sure to stay tuned for those :)

Other than that, I am looking for jobs and trying not to have panic attacks due to stress and worry. Saw Mom and Dad this weekend and that was nice, although the kids were a nightmare as usual.

The Questionable Authorship of Second Peter

The New Testament letter of Second Peter has traditionally been credited to Simon Peter, the apostle, as a follow-up to the letter that we know as First Peter. The letter itself states that the author is Simon Peter and that this is his “second letter.” But what is the evidence that Second Peter was actually written by Peter the apostle? There are a number of interesting clues, all of which lead to an almost unassailable conclusion that Second Peter could not possibly have been written by Peter the apostle, no matter what the Church tells us.

The first clue comes simply by analyzing the text. If we assume, for a moment, that First and Second Peter were written by the same author, we would expect to see a similar writing style in the two letters. Unfortunately (that is, unfortunately for those who argue that the two letters have the same author), the writing styles vary dramatically. First Peter is written in a gentle, loving, reserved style, and focuses on teaching its listeners how to live serene, peaceful, and Godly lives. It includes a suggestion that Christ’s return is very near at hand. Second Peter, on the other hand, is forceful, unforgiving, and has a hellfire and brimstone tone that would have made Jonathan Edwards proud. It has all the hallmarks, in fact, of Christian writings from the early 2nd century, which, of course, would make it about 50 years too late for Simon Peter, who most likely died in Rome during the persecutions of Nero in the mid-60’s C.E. It also does an about-face from First Peter in suggesting that Christ’s return isn’t so near after all. We’ll get into that more later.

Of course, writing styles alone can’t lead us to a definitive conclusion about authorship. So we move on to the second clue. This clue involves what we know of the historical Simon Peter. Born in rural Galilee, and living in Capernaum as a fisherman when he first met Jesus, Simon Peter most certainly came from a poor, uneducated family. Archaeological digs in the area of Capernaum – which sits on the Sea of Galilee – have found that it was little more than a one-road village with a few ramshackle huts. There are no structures remaining from the era in question, which leads to the logical conclusion that the homes were made of mud brick or wood, with thatched roofs. This would have been par for the course for rural villages in 1st century Galilee. Furthermore, there is no archaeological evidence that Capernaum had any synagogues or schools. It was literally just a little cluster of huts, populated by fishermen and laborers. Its population was less than 1,000. From this evidence, we can make the conclusion that Peter was an uneducated laborer from rural, backwater Galilee. Being uneducated, he would have most certainly been illiterate. He would have spoken Aramaic, and might have understood Hebrew, but he most probably would not have been able to read or write either language. He certainly wouldn’t have known Greek at all, as only the most educated scribes could read or speak Greek.

This brings up, of course, an interesting conundrum. How could an illiterate peasant from rural Galilee have written letters in fluent Greek? Furthermore, the writer of Second Peter is clearly an expert on the Hebrew bible, as he quotes it freely and accurately throughout his letter. Simon Peter, as illustrated above, would not have been able to read Hebrew. Therefore, he could only have been familiar with the Hebrew scriptures through teachings at the synagogue. And, as we have seen, Capernaum had no synagogues, and no schools. Simon Peter would likely have had very little, if any, knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures – certainly not the kind of knowledge required to quote those scriptures so fluently, eloquently, and accurately, as the writer of Second Peter does. Is it possible that, following Jesus’s death, Peter took it upon himself to become a full time student, studying Greek and Hebrew in both speech and literature, familiarizing himself with the intricacies of the Hebrew scriptures and learning to write Greek with fluency and style? Possible? I suppose. Probable? Not on your life. If Peter was the missionary that he is portrayed to be throughout the New Testament, when would he have had time (not to mention money) for such study? Greek and Hebrew teachers weren’t exactly a dime a dozen in 1st century Palestine. Peter would have needed to spend literally years in Jerusalem studying with the best rabbis and scribes to have any hope of becoming the prolific and knowledgeable writer who wrote Second Peter (or First Peter, for that matter). Where would he have gotten the money for this, and why would he have spent such effort learning the Hebrew scriptures, when his focus was, presumably, on Jesus and his message? And how could he have done his missionary work if he was in Jerusalem for years on end becoming a prolific linguist and author?

The more reasonable counter-argument to this clue is that Peter simply used an interpreter/scribe to write his letters. There is no evidence of that in the letters themselves, however, and it seems unlikely that Peter could have afforded a personal scribe. However, it is possible that such a scribe might have offered his talents, supposing he was a converted Christian. Still, assuming the scribe would have been writing from Peter’s dictation, how did Peter become a man of such in-depth Hebrew scriptural knowledge, such that he could quote and reference the Hebrew scriptures so fluidly and accurately? Only rabbis and those who had devoted their entire lives to the study of Hebrew scriptures could quote and reference Hebrew scriptures so fluently. Furthermore, how did Simon Peter go from an uneducated peasant who probably couldn’t even write his name, to being able to dictate beautifully constructed letters that had all the elements of good structural prose?

From here, we move on to the next clue. A good portion of Second Peter deals with warnings of false prophets, and another section deals in depth with the second coming of Christ. As to the former, is it reasonable to assume that the issue of false prophets was a big one in the 60’s C.E., when Second Peter was supposedly written? In fact, we have almost no evidence to suggest this. Most of the New Testament and non-canonical texts in existence that deal with false teachers are late 1st century or 2nd century writings. As Christianity spread, a lot of new theologies spread along with it, and by the start of the 2nd century, many of these “unorthodox” views were prominent in many communities. So early in Christian history, it is hard to imagine that Peter would have been concerned with false prophets. His primary concern was spreading the message – there had not been enough time yet for false teachers to twist it into something unorthodox. Yet, in Second Peter, the writer even goes so far as to explain that prophecy is guided by the Holy Spirit, not by the prophet himself. 2 Peter 1:21 – “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” This seems a case of “protesting too much.” Would Simon Peter – Jesus’s right hand man and the leader of the Christian Church – have needed to include this caveat?

As to the sections of Second Peter that deal with Christ’s second coming, the writer goes out of his way to encourage his readers to be patient. He quotes common gripes of the time when he refers to those who say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?” He encourages his readers to stay strong, but to recognize that to God a thousand years is like a day and a day is like a thousand years (which is one of his instances of quoting Hebrew scripture). Clearly, he was writing at a time when fear and impatience over Christ’s return were at the forefront of many Christian communities. Early on in Christian history, Christians had expected Christ’s return in their own lifetimes. This is evident, for instance, in the writings of Paul (who was a contemporary of Peter), from the 50’s and 60’s C.E. By the end of the 1st century, when Christ still hadn’t returned, a lot of people began to fear that he wasn’t coming back at all. This is evidenced in books like the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus tells his disciples to build the church first, in preparation for his return – that is, the gospel must be spread first, before Christ will return. This was a way that Matthew and his contemporaries explained the fact that Christ hadn’t come back yet. But as the years and decades passed, this anxiety only grew. So when you read Second Peter’s encouragement to stay the course, but to recognize that God’s time is different than man’s time, it can only fit reasonably into a later period, when these issues were at the forefront of Christian consciousness. If Peter was writing his letter in the same era as Paul (60’s C.E.), why were his listeners so concerned about the delay of the second coming? At that time, they were still in the first generation following Jesus’s death. It wasn’t an issue for Christians of that era, and, as alluded to above, this is evidenced by Paul’s own writings, where he makes it clear that he believes Jesus’s return is imminent. It was only after that generation that people began to worry. And don’t forget that in First Peter, the author seems serenely confident that Jesus is returning soon (“The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear-minded and self-controlled”). If we assume First Peter was written sometime in the 60’s C.E. (which is a big assumption to make, but we’ll make it for the sake of argument), why is there such a sudden change in perspective after only a few years? Surely it would have taken more than a couple of years with no Jesus for the Christian population to suddenly start asking “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?”

The fourth clue we turn to is a reference that the writer of Second Peter makes to Paul himself. At the end of the letter, he encourages his readers to study the words of “our dear brother Paul.” He then goes on to acknowledge that Paul’s letters are sometimes confusing, and that “ignorant and unstable people” distort them, as they do other scriptures. The first thing that raises an eyebrow in this passage is the loving reference to Paul, and the encouragement to stick closely to Paul’s teachings. If you read my blog on the rift between Peter and Paul, you know that many scholars have good reason for supposing Peter and Paul were as much competitors in early Christian theology as they were teammates. Considering that the two men evidently disagreed on some of the most central aspects of Christian theology, it seems unlikely that Peter would have heaped such flowery praise on Paul.

The second statement in this passage about Paul is the most intriguing. Indeed, it is the most important clue in our search for evidence of Second Peter’s author. It is the reference to Paul’s letters being in the possession of the target audience, and those letters being “scripture.” Scripture, of course, consists of collected religious writings, used and studied by communities to deepen their spirituality and their understanding of their god. Hebrew scriptures consisted of the Torah, the writings of the judges, and the prophetic writings. These had been collected over the course of many centuries, and had been read, studied, interpreted, and applied for many, many years. For Second Peter to call Paul’s writings “scripture,” it is clear that Paul’s letters had already been collected together, copied, and dispersed throughout the Christian communities. There is virtually no chance at all that this was the case during Paul’s own lifetime. Paul’s letters would not have been gathered together as “scripture” until many decades after his death. His letters, after all, were individual letters to individual Christian communities – not generalized tomes written for all people. It would have taken years for all his writings to be gathered into something that could be called “scripture,” and then dispersed around the Christian world. If the writer of Second Peter was writing to a community that already had copies of Paul’s letters, which they were studying and reading as “scripture,” then clearly it was a community that existed many decades after Paul’s (and thereby Peter’s) death. It would appear that, in his effort to secretly write in Peter’s name, the author of Second Peter openly gave away his own ruse.

When you add all these clues together, it paints a pretty convincing picture. It would be practically impossible to argue reasonably that Second Peter was written by the apostle Peter. Yet, this is precisely what the Church has done for 2,000 years. Academia, scholarship, and the scientific method be damned, apparently.

Despite the Church’s traditional stance on this issue, most every scholar agrees that not only was Second Peter not written by the apostle Peter, but it was, in fact, probably the last book of the New Testament to be written. It is dated as late as 120 C.E. This would mean its composition came later than some other Christian writings that are not in the canon – such as the Gospel of Thomas and perhaps several others.

If this is the case, what does it say for the validity of the teachings? That’s something that you will have to determine for yourself.

But in the meantime, why was Second Peter selected, but texts such as the Gospel of Thomas were not? Indeed, Second Peter was apparently included only grudgingly, and only after fierce debate over its authenticity.

But why did the ecumenical councils exclude the earlier Christian text known as the Gospel of Thomas? For that, you’ll have to read my next blog.

Peter and Paul - A Rift

Were Peter and Paul good friends who felt that they were working together in the spread of Jesus’s message, or were they bitter competitors who both felt that the other had the wrong idea?

While the first possibility is the one generally accepted by the faithful, and the second possibility is one pushed by those who either have a strong bias toward one theology over another or who have an agenda to discredit Christianity as a whole, the truth is probably somewhere closer to in between.

As I understand it from my years associated with the protestant Christian church, the general feeling among mainline Christians – if they even consider it at all (and most don’t) – is that Peter and Paul, like the other apostles, were generally united in their efforts to spread Jesus’s message. The evidence, however, is that most all of the primary apostles (that is, both members of Jesus’s inner circle, as well as early Christians like Paul who never actually met Jesus) had their own ideas about the meaning of Jesus’s life. By the 300’s C.E., Rome’s version of orthodox Christian theology had deftly woven these competing apostolic theologies together, set up Peter as the primary apostle on whose theology (that is, the Church’s interpretation of Peter’s theology) the Church’s dogma would follow, and had put together a nice little package of orthodox Christian writings. These writings, of course, came to be called the New Testament and were introduced to the faithful as the only divinely-inspired Christian texts. The countless myriad other Christian texts were first called heresy and greatly discouraged, and then, beginning in the 390’s C.E., were outlawed completely by Emperor Theodosius, who subsequently sent his lackeys around the empire to collect and destroy the banned texts.

It’s little wonder these non-canonical Christian texts were largely unknown until the 19th century, and many that we do have now (through various archaeological discoveries over the last hundred years) are incomplete and unreadable. Countless others, no doubt, have never been discovered. Yet, I’ve had traditionally-believing Christians in just the last six months point to the fact that these non-canonical texts are so rare and so few-and-far-between that it must be God’s way of showing that they are unreliable – if they were reliable, so the argument went, they’d still be around. They’re rare, of course, because the Church systematically destroyed them 1700 years ago! It had nothing to do with God!

But I digress...

Even in the canon, there is much evidence of the contention between Peter and Paul. Scholars and theologians generally portray Peter as the missionary to the Jews, while Paul is described as the missionary to the Gentiles. Paul himself paints it precisely this way in his letter to the Galatians. Indeed, it is widely understood that Paul was the one who first began spreading the “Good News” to the Gentiles in large numbers.

What could have led to such a dichotomous set-up? Why was Paul designated the Gentile missionary, while Peter was designated the Jewish missionary? If they were doing God’s work, shouldn’t they have been missionaries to everyone? Why the specialization?

Clues both in the canon and outside of the canon can help lead us toward an answer. In Galatians 2, Paul admonishes “Cephas” for not eating with the Gentiles. Galatians 2:11 reads: “When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.” He goes on to explain that Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles when his Jewish friends were around. Paul then transcribes a two or three paragraph admonishment that he supposedly gave to Peter in front of everyone, calling him to the carpet for not associating with Gentiles and even calling him a hypocrite and suggesting that he fooled Baranabas (Paul’s missionary companion) into doing the same thing.

Pretty harsh words for two men supposedly united in a cause.

Anyone familiar with Jewish eating customs will quickly be able to figure out the significance of this admonishing by Paul. Paul, who argued that Jesus’s message was for everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, did not believe it was necessary to become a Jew, and live by Jewish law, in order to accept the message of Jesus and become a Christian. In other words, one did not have to live by the kosher rules of Jewish consumption in order to be a Christian. Peter, apparently, felt differently. When given the opportunity to eat with Gentile converts in front of his Jewish friends, he chose not to. He did not want to eat Gentile food, as it would have meant he was breaking kosher Jewish laws. Not only did he, apparently, not want to do this for himself, but he also did not want to offend other Jewish Christians. Paul clearly took issue with this, and upbraided him for it in public. For it to have been important enough to reference in one of his letters, it must have been a major issue between the two Christian leaders – one that everyone knew about.

Some scholars and theologians, in an effort to preserve the idea of Peter and Paul being united in the message of Christ, have attempted to suggest that the “Cephas” referred to in Paul’s letter is not Peter. If you read my previous blog, you will know that “Cephas” is the Greek transliteration of Peter’s Aramaic nickname – Kepha. It is true that in most places in the New Testament, the writers referred to Peter as “Petros” – that is, they translated his name from Aramaic to Greek, rather than “Cephas.” But there are several places, Paul’s letter included, where the Greek transliteration was used instead, for whatever reason. It’s hard to imagine that there would have been two major Christian leaders named Cephas, particularly when you consider that “Cephas” is not a real name at all, but merely a transliteration of one language to another. Were there really two prominent Aramaic-speaking Jewish Christians in 1st century Palestine whose nicknames were “Kepha,” thus transliterating into the Greek “Cephas”? Probably not. Most every reputable scholar and theologian agree that Paul’s Cephas was, in fact, Simon Peter.

If we assume that Paul’s Cephas was Simon Peter, then we are faced with trying to understand the context of this apparently major disagreement the two had on the necessity of abiding by Jewish law and custom. Peter seems to have believed that Gentiles first needed to convert to Judaism – with all its kosher laws – before becoming Christian. Paul, on the other hand, makes it clear that we are saved through grace alone, and works (that is, sticking to kosher laws, etc.) are not necessary for salvation. In Galatians 2:16, during his admonishment to Peter, Paul says, “A man is not justified by observing the law [that is, the Jewish law], but by faith in Jesus Christ.”

The writer of James takes up this very issue when he argues that while we are saved through grace, a faith without works is dead. James, apparently, wanted to heal the long-standing rift created by the prominent disagreement between Peter and Paul, over whether religious laws had to be followed in order for salvation to be granted. James, then, argued that salvation comes through faith, but that without works, there can be no faith. A nice middle ground. But, as alluded to above, the very fact that James felt it necessary to address this issue so in-depth in his writings is evidence that it was a major issue in the early Christian church – and it’s an issue that can be traced to a fundamental disagreement between Peter and Paul – one that eventually led Paul to proclaim himself the missionary to the Gentiles, while Peter stuck with the Jews.

There are other clues to the rift in the New Testament as well. Luke, who wrote two volumes of Christian works – the first a narrative of Jesus’s life, and the second a narrative of the early days of Christianity – wrote many years after Paul’s death. His books, of course, are known to us as the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles. Luke seems to have been aware of Peter and Paul’s disagreement, and so, in an effort to show that Peter didn’t really think you had to be Jewish before you could be a Christian, he describes a scene in which Peter converts a Roman centurion – that is, a Gentile – to Christianity, after eating with him, no less. It starts with a story that is a Sunday School favorite – Peter dreams of a large sheet covered with a bunch of Gentile (that is, unclean) food. God instructs him to eat it. Peter is appalled and tells God he hasn’t ever eaten unclean food in his life. God then tells Peter that he shouldn’t call anything unclean that God has made pure. Peter then goes and eats with the Gentile centurion and converts him to Christianity. Clearly Luke was familiar with the kosher disagreement between Peter and Paul, and he attempts to “clear Peter’s name” by describing this scene in which God himself tells Peter that non-kosher is just fine. In my opinion – and in the opinion of many scholars – this is a rather blatant attempt by the writer of Acts to counter contemporary ideas that Peter had been a follower of Jewish law right up to his death.

Evidence of this rift between Peter and Paul is even more prominent in non-canonical writings. A set of writings attributed to a 1st century Christian leader named Clement includes a letter supposedly written by Peter to James – the same James who wrote about faith and works, referenced above. (The Clementine writings were supposedly written by the man who the Roman Catholic Church calls Pope Clement I, the fourth bishop of Rome, the third in succession after Peter, and an actual traveling companion of Peter. A whole series of blogs could be written about whether Clement actually authored this set of writings, or whether it was authored later and simply attributed to him, or whether it was based on some of his authentic writings – now lost – but was heavily changed and edited. After that, we could go into a discussion of whether Clement himself even existed, and whether he was, in fact, a bishop of Rome, and whether he was actually a companion of Peter. But this isn’t the place to delve into all that.)

In this letter supposedly transcribed by Clement, Peter rails against those who suggest that he teaches a “dissolution of the law.” He states, emphatically, that he never teaches for dissolution of Jewish law, “for to do so means to act contrary to the law of God which was made to Moses and was confirmed by our Lord.” He goes on to talk about how many Gentiles have rejected his “lawful” preaching and have preferred a “lawless and absurd doctrine” preached by “the man who is my enemy.” This is a clear and obvious reference to Paul.

In another Clementine writing, called the Clementine Homilies, there is a confrontation between Peter and a character named Simon Magus. Simon Magus appears in the New Testament, as well as in other non-canonical writings. He was a magician (that is, a pagan who worked wonders) in Rome, and some evidence even suggests that he was, in fact, a rival Christian leader. In one non-canonical work (The Acts of Peter, written in the 2nd century), Simon Magus and Peter engage in a long, drawn-out battle of magic. The winner (who, of course, is ultimately Peter) has the pleasure of getting all the masses to proclaim allegiance to his god. In the Clementine Homilies, however, Simon Magus is portrayed as rival Christian leader, and a rather lengthy passage is devoted to Peter’s derision for this pagan-in-sheep’s-clothing. Interestingly enough, even though the name used is that of Simon Magus, all the “facts” given about his life – and about which Peter speaks with contempt – are “facts” we know from the life of Paul. For instance, Peter says that Simon’s conversion on the road to Damascus was a sham, and that just because he saw a vision of Jesus decades after Jesus’s death, did not give him authority over people like Peter, who knew Jesus personally. Of course, it was Paul who was converted on the road to Damascus, and it was Paul who claimed authority through a vision he had of Jesus. Clearly, the writer of this non-canonical work was acutely aware of the rift between Peter and Paul, and used the character of Simon Magus to weakly mask the real source of Peter’s derision – that is, the apostle Paul.

Of course, just as we can’t read the New Testament as though it is a history book describing linear, historical events, we can’t read the Clementine writings, or any non-canonical work, as if they deal with literal events. However, we can glean from the non-canonical sources some insight into the mindset of the early Christians; as such, we can see that even in the 2nd century, perhaps as much as 100 years after Peter and Paul had both died, traditions surrounding their theological disagreements remained. If no such disagreement had ever existed, stories such as the ones I have outlined above would not have come into existence. It’s a matter of following the trail of canonical and non-canonical evidence to logical conclusions.

While mainstream Christian theology suggests that Peter and Paul were a united front in spreading the message of Christ, I believe the textual evidence points more toward Peter and Paul being as much competitors as they were comrades. In the book of 2 Peter, which has traditionally been credited to Peter himself, the writer, after a vitriolic exposition on the dangers of false prophets and a long, flowery sermon on the second coming of Jesus, encourages his readers to follow the teachings of “our dear brother Paul.” He goes on to admit that while Paul’s writings are sometimes confusing, they should be studied deeply and followed completely. Bearing in mind the likely reality that Peter and Paul had some major theological differences, what are the chances Peter himself actually wrote this passage? I’ll delve into that in my next blog.

The Kingdom of God

The book of 2 Peter, although containing a claim of authorship by Peter the apostle, is dated by most scholars as the latest New Testament book, written as late as 120 C.E. (making it later than some non-canonical writings, such as the gospels of Thomas and Peter). Virtually all scholars agree that it was not written by Peter, due to a variety of clues in the text, the least of which is the fact that Peter was an uneducated fisherman from backwater Galilee, and would have almost certainly been illiterate. Even if he could have written in Aramaic, it is a virtual certainty that he could not have read or written Greek fluently enough to have written 2 Peter (or 1 Peter, for that matter), nor have been fluent and educated enough in Hebrew to have quoted the Old Testament so freely in his writings. To suggest such a thing is to simply be ignorant of peasant life in 1st century Palestine.

Regardless, the book of 2 Peter is a harsh, 3-chapter letter, supposedly as a follow-up to the letter of 1 Peter, wherein the author lays a stream of vitriol against false prophets and those who fall away from the Christian faith. In the final chapter, the author turns to questions of when Jesus will return. He starts, in verse 3:2, by saying that he wants to “recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.” He then goes on to talk about the imminent return of Jesus and the ushering in of God’s kingdom. It is clear, then, that the writer of this canonical book is supporting the idea that not only is Jesus returning soon, but that Jesus, during his life, taught the same thing. The writer of 2 Peter does include the caveat that “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day,” which is quoted from Psalms, but it is clear from his tone and his admonitions that he fully believes Jesus is coming soon, just as Jesus himself promised. “You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” Read the passage yourself and see if you don’t get the same impression.

The point, of course is this: when you follow the scriptures from the earliest stories to the latest stories, you can see an obvious and apparent change in theology that goes like this:

1. The earliest teachings of Jesus indicate that God’s kingdom is imminent, and that Jesus himself is bringing this Kingdom, and those who hear his message must repent now in order to not be left out of God’s coming kingdom. This is generally why many scholars describe Jesus as an apocalyptic wisdom teacher -- that is, someone claiming to have special insight from God and urging followers to take the message to heart, for the end of the world is near -- there were many like him in 1st century Palestine.

2. After Jesus is executed, it seems that all hope is lost, but then the apostles experience the resurrection (however you interpret what the resurrection was), and Jesus’s message begins to spread out from Palestine.

3. That message includes a promise that Jesus will return to usher in the kingdom of God, as he had promised on earth. It is clear from the earliest writings (Paul and Mark, for instance) that this return is expected in their very own lifetimes.

4. By the time several generations have passed, and Matthew, Luke, and John are writing their gospels, fears and worries are beginning to arise because most, if not all, of the earliest followers are dead, and Jesus still hasn’t returned. Thus, you have the appearance, in Matthew’s gospel, of the idea that Jesus brought the message of salvation, and will return to usher in God’s kingdom, but the church must be built on earth first, before that happens (thus, the passage where Jesus tells Peter he is the rock upon which the church will be built, and then later utters the great commission to go out to all nations and teach).

5. By the final books of the New Testament, everyone who knew Jesus personally is long dead, and it’s already a new century, and so you see writers, like the writer of 2 Peter, remarking about skeptics who say “Where is this coming he promised?”, urging Christians to hang on to the hope, to stay true to the faith, and to keep looking forward to Jesus’s imminent return...but adding caveats that to God a day is like a thousand years.

It’s very clear and obvious that early Christianity was forced, as the decades passed, to consistently change their theology in regards to the kingdom of God. It went from Jesus, who apparently preached that it was coming in his own lifetime, to Paul who preached that Jesus would return in Paul’s own lifetime to usher in the kingdom, to Matthew who said that the church had to be built first, to the writer of 2 Peter who urged followers to keep the faith but to remember that a day is like a thousand years to God.

My personal belief is that Jesus was right. The kingdom of God did come by and through his teachings, and was experienced and exemplified through his death and resurrection (which, of course, I understand as a spiritual awakening, not a physical resuscitation). The people following in his footsteps in the first 8 or 9 decades after his death kept waiting for him to return in glory so that God’s kingdom could be ushered in, and they never realized that the kingdom was already here, available to them through Jesus’s life itself. And for the 2000 years since that time, many Christians, in my opinion, have been making the same mistake.

Jesus’s message was about abundant and renewed life in the here and now...it is my opinion that Jesus’s message was never about life after death.

The Etymology of New Testament Names

I am currently working on a short novel fictionalizing the birth of Christianity as it might really have happened, stripped of the mythology that strangles our common understanding of the event. It started as a short story, but as I have written more and studied more, I have decided that it would serve me better as a short novel. There’s too much I want to dramatize to fit it all into a short story.

In writing the book, I have decided not to use the common English names that we normally use to refer to the various main characters in the biblical stories. Thus, you won’t see names like Peter, Andrew, and Jesus in my story. Instead, in order to better ground the story in historical terms, I am using the characters’ transcribed Aramaic names. The apostle John, for instance, wasn’t really called “John.” That’s just an English version of his real Aramaic name. Aramaic, of course, does not use the Latin alphabet like English does (it was based on the Hebrew alphabet and was derived from Hebrew), so in order to write the real Aramaic names in English, I have to transcribe them into Latin characters. So while the spelling isn’t historically accurate, the way the name sounds will be as close to historical as I can get it. This involves not only researching the etymology of all the names of all the characters, but also coming up with a reasonable English spelling of the Aramaic name.

In doing this research, I’ve come across some fascinating tidbits. I’ll outline these below:

1. Jesus

As much as we identify with the name “Jesus,” this was, of course, not his real name – which sort of makes hymns like “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know,” seem rather silly. If you listen to certain hymns, and listen to the way some people talk about Jesus’s name, it seems that a lot of people actually hold the name “Jesus” as somehow holy and spiritual. This sort of devotion to the name “Jesus” is reemphasized when we warn against “taking the Lord’s name in vain” or ending our prayer’s with “in Jesus’ name, a-men.” Indeed, Jesus’s name is an important and integral part of mainline Christian theology. Because of this, we easily forget and/or gloss over the fact that the enunciated name “Jesus” was not what Jesus was called. In fact, his real name doesn’t sound like “Jesus” at all. To his ears, the name “Jesus” would as been as foreign as calling him Billy or George.

In Aramaic, Jesus’s name was “Yeshua” – pronounced “yesh-wa.” That’s an English spelling, of course, but “Yeshua” is how it would have sounded to Jesus’s own ears. You can see that there is very little similarity between the two names. The interesting thing is that Jesus appears to have been named for the Old Testament figure of Joshua. Joshua was the successor of Moses, and is the one who actually led the Israelites into the Promised Land. As such, he is an important figure in Jewish history. In Hebrew, Joshua’s name was “Yehoshua.” When the Aramaic-speaking Jews of the 1st century (1,200 years after the time of Joshua) wanted to name their child for this important Jewish figure, they used the Aramaic version of the Hebrew “Yehoshua” and called their child “Yeshua.” Basically, they simply dropped the second syllable. So Jesus, then, was most likely named after the ancient Jewish military leader who led the Israelites into the Promised Land. Bearing that in mind, it is interesting that we end up calling the two figures by different names in English. The Hebrew “Yehoshua” leads us, etymologically, to “Joshua,” while the Aramaic “Yeshua” leads us to “Jesus,” despite the fact that the two names were linguistically equal.

2. Peter

Next to Jesus, Peter is probably the most important figure in the New Testament. Roman Catholics revere him as the first pope, and all Christians revere him as Jesus’s number one guy. Most biblical scholars agree that whatever the resurrection was, Peter was probably the first to recognize it and the first to spread the message to other people. If we have Jesus to thank for the message, we have Peter to thank for determining that the message was important enough to pass on after Jesus’s death.

The etymology of Peter’s name is interesting. “Peter,” as most of us familiar with biblical passages will know, was actually a nickname. His birth name was Simon – or, in Aramaic, “Shimon” (pronounced “shee-mone”). However, according to the Gospels, at some point during his ministry, Jesus gave Simon a nickname. Matthew’s gospel says that Jesus decided to call Simon “the rock” because he would be the rock upon which the church was built (thus the Roman Catholic claim to apostolic succession). This is how Simon ended up being called Peter.

The New Testament, despite describing people who were Aramaic-speaking Jews, living in Roman-controlled Palestine, was written entirely in Greek. “Peter,” then, is an English transliteration of the Greek name “Petros.” “Petros,” on the other hand, was a Greek translation of the original Aramaic nickname. In Aramaic, the word for “rock” was “keef” (again, that’s an English spelling...but it shows how the Aramaic word would have been pronounced). Thus, when Jesus decided to call Simon “the rock,” he began calling him Keepha (or Kifa, or Keefa, or any of another dozen ways you could spell it in English). The New Testament, as I said above, was written in Greek. So in a few places, the Greek writers of the New Testament transliterated “Keepha” into Greek, thus calling him “Cephas.” If you’ve ever heard of the name “Cephas” before, and wondered why that was an alternative to Peter’s name, this is why – it was a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic nickname (my grandfather had a brother named Cephas). However, in many places in the New Testament, the writers simply translated (not transliterated) the Aramaic nickname into Greek. Since “petra” is the Greek word for “rock,” they called him Petros, to denote that it was a male name. And then, from “Petros,” we transliterate it into English as “Peter.”

When you look at the etymology of this name, you begin to realize that “Peter” is probably the most nonsensical choice – historically speaking – of names to call this apostle. As illustrated above, it is a transliteration of a Greek translation of an original Aramaic nickname. It would make a lot more sense to simply call him “Petros,” using the translated Greek name that is most often used in the original language of the New Testament, call him “Keepha” in order to stick to the actual Aramaic name, or, at the very least, translate the name from Aramaic directly into English, instead of first going through Greek.

Of course, if we did that, then the father of the Catholic Church, and Jesus’s closest apostle, would be Pope Rocky.

3. Bartholomew

Bartholomew is one of the lesser known and lesser illustrated apostles in the New Testament. Other than being one of Jesus’s named apostles, very little is known of him or his life. In Aramaic, his name was “Bartolmay” – or, more accurately “bar-Tolmay.” That name literally means “Son of Ptolemy.” This was the form 1st century Jews used for their surnames. Jesus’s full name, for instance, would have been “Yeshua bar-Yosef.” In other words, Bartholomew is referred to in the New Testament only by his last name, for some reason. Perhaps it’s a situation similar to ones we have today – some people, for whatever reason, get called by their last name more than their first name. I have a friend who, to this day, I call almost exclusively by his last name. It just fits him. Perhaps that was the case with the apostle Bartholomew. Either way, its curious that we don’t ever get a clear picture of what Bartholomew’s first name was.

In the Synoptic Gospels – that is, Matthew, Mark, and Luke – Bartholomew is listed as one of the 12 disciples. Additionally, most every other reference to him in those gospels always has him paired with the apostle Philip. Thus, we have a lot of references to “Philip and Bartholomew.” Apparently they were bosom buddies – maybe even relatives – who both decided to follow Jesus around Galilee, but tended to stick together. In the Gospel of John, however, there is no reference to Bartholomew. This, by itself, is not necessarily noteworthy, as John never gives a complete list of the apostles, and there are several others who are never mentioned as well. However, there are a couple of references to someone who appears to be an apostle, and whose name is Nathaniel. There are no references to an apostle called Nathaniel in any of the Synoptic Gospels. The interesting thing is that John’s references to Nathaniel always pair him with Philip. Thus, stories about “Philip and Nathaniel.” This leads many scholars to think that “Nathaniel” may have been the first name of the apostle Bartholomew. If this is true, it means that Bartholomew’s Aramaic name was something like “Natanel bar-Tolmay” – that is, “Nathaniel, son of Ptolemy.”

4. Andrew

Andrew is noted in the gospels to be the younger brother of Simon Peter. Together, Peter and Andrew were fishermen in Capernaum, and both were called by Jesus to be apostles. The New Testament writers – writing, of course, in Greek – called Andrew “Andreas.” “Andrew,” then, is simply our English transliteration of the Greek name “Andreas.” However, it is almost certain that Andrew’s real name was not “Andreas” – a 1st century Palestinian peasant Jew, with a brother given a good Jewish name (“Shimon”), would almost certainly not have been given a Greek name. So while it is possible that Andrew’s real name was the Greek “Andreas,” it is unlikely. The problem, however, is that scholars apparently don’t know what the equivalent Aramaic name would have been for Andrew. I don’t know if this is due to etymological discrepancies with the Greek name “Andreas,” or some other reason, but it appears that his real Aramaic name has been lost to history. As such, unless I can do some more research and uncover something, Andrew will be the only character in my story whose Greek equivalent name is used, as opposed to an Aramaic name.

5. Judas Iscariot

There is a lot that can be said about Judas, even down to whether or not he was a real historical figure or a literary construct used in the Gospels to represent the Jewish people as a whole, but none of that is relevant to this discussion. Judas’s name in Aramaic was “Yehuda,” and it was a name that was basically equivalent to the name of the Jewish nation. It would be like someone in the United States being named Americus, or a British person being named Britannia (this, along with a number of other clues, is one of the reasons some scholars postulate that Judas was not a real person, but rather a metaphorical representation of the Jewish nation – that is, those who betrayed Jesus – thus, the derogatory idea of the Jews as “Christ-killers”).

The more confusing name is the surname – “Iscariot.” No one is quite sure exactly what this means. In 1st century Palestine, Jews didn’t just have random surnames that held no relevant meaning, the way people may have surnames now that don’t necessarily hold any relevance. The surname for a 1st century Palestinian Jew was a means of saying who they were, who their father was, what group or profession they belonged to, or what town they lived in. Thus, you have surnames like that of Bartholomew – i.e., “son of” somebody – or you might have surnames that indicated the place the person was from – for example, “Saul of Tarsus” or “Mary Magdalene” (the latter meaning that her name was Mary and she was a Magdalene – that is, from the town of Magdala). In the case of Judas Iscariot, historians and scholars are divided on just what “Iscariot” refers to.

There is a brief reference in the Old Testament to a Jewish town called “Karioth.” No one knows exactly where this town might have been, and other than one brief reference in the Old Testament, it is otherwise unknown to history or archaeology. It is not believed to have still been in existence by the 1st century. However, some scholars have postulated that perhaps Judas was from Karioth, or that his family was historically from this town, and thus “Iscariot” is a bastardization of that town’s name.

Still others look toward a 1st century group of zealots known as the “iscarii” (“iscarii” means something like “dagger-man”). The iscarii were a group of extremist Jews who were intent on using terrorist tactics to drive the Romans out of the Promised Land. They engaged in everything from inciting rebellions to committing political assassinations. They were basically 1st century Palestine’s version of the PLO or the IRA. The iscarii, however, were not known to be in existence in Roman Palestine until the 40’s or 50’s C.E. That would have made it impossible for the historical Judas – who, we are told, committed suicide shortly after Jesus’s death in the early ‘30’s – to have been a member of the iscarii. Despite that, many scholars believe that this is the basis of the name “Iscariot,” and that either the iscarii, or some related group, were around earlier than we previously thought, or that perhaps the betrayal and suicide stories surrounding Judas were not true, and perhaps Judas, later in life, became part of the iscarii. If that were the case, it would mean that when the gospel writers were writing their stories many decades later, they were drawing on several layers of common knowledge and mythology – that is, they describe Judas as killing himself in the 30’s C.E., but still use his surname “Iscariot,” even though that wouldn’t have been a valid surname for him until long after his supposed suicide. Still other scholars suggest that “Iscariot” – derived from “iscarii” – might have simply been used by the New Testament writers as a derogatory reference – suggesting that Judas, the man who betrayed Jesus, was like a terrorist or extremist. In my opinion, that is probably the most reasonable conclusion.

One final, interesting point is the case of Simon the Zealot and Judas (or Jude) the Zealot. Simon the Zealot is the name of another of Jesus’s disciples about whom very little is known, and Judas the Zealot is another name for the apostle we know as James the Lesser, or St. Jude. The Zealots in 1st century Palestine were related to the iscarii, but were not necessarily assassins or terrorists. They were simply intent on driving the Romans out of the Promised Land, but not necessarily through violence (although this may have been part of their efforts as well). Some suggest that “Judas Iscariot” is simply another name or reference to either Simon the Zealot or, more likely, Judas the Zealot. This, of course, is rejected strongly by many Christian theologians, as it would imply that Jesus’s betrayer was the same person as the apostle James the Lesser, whom the church venerates as a saint.

Either way, there is no scholarly consensus on exactly what “Iscariot” refers to. In her novel “Mary, Called Magdalene,” writer Margaret George opts for the “iscarii” theory surrounding Judas’s name, and paints Judas as an assassin and Jewish zealot who falls under the sway of Jesus’s teachings about love and peace.

In my story, Judas is going to play an entirely different role, one which might make traditional believers bristle, or at least roll their eyes. I won’t give it away entirely, but I am developing Judas’s character more in line with the recently translated Gospel of Judas, which paints Judas as a confidant and conspirator with Jesus. It suggests Jesus actually approached Judas and asked him to betray him to the authorities, in order to fulfill his mission, and that Judas, despite knowing that it would make him a traitor in history, agreed to do it, in order to help Jesus do God’s work. I am not necessarily going with that specific route for my depiction of Judas, but I am basing my depiction of Judas on the idea that perhaps Judas wasn’t the evil betrayer of Christ that traditional Christian theology says he was. Perhaps there were other reasons why Judas became notorious to later Christian communities, unrelated to any betrayal of Jesus.

In summary, the important thing to remember from all these etymological discussions is that “Jesus’s precious name” wasn’t really “Jesus,” and his central apostle, the father of Christianity and the Catholic Church’s first pope, was named Rocky – you know, like the boxer.

Treatise on the Killing of Bugs

I have decided to stop killing bugs.

This may not seem like such an earth-shattering decision in the scheme of life, but I believe it’s vitally important.

For a long time now, I have read and heard Buddhist philosophical ideas about the sanctity of all life. My favorite Buddhist writer, Thich Nhat Hanh, routinely talks about vowing to protect all forms of life, from humans to animals to plants to minerals. As I’ve read these things and heard these things, I’ve always been a little bit skeptical. Obviously most of us can understand the importance of protecting the sanctity of human life, but animal life? Plant life? Mineral life?

Some time back, I was doing some walking meditation, and I had sort of a “break-through” (for lack of a better word). I was meditating on the idea of killing bugs. Why do we kill bugs? Understandably, if we find a black widow or some other poisonous bug in our house, we want to get the danger away from us. But what makes us step on a bug on the sidewalk, or squash a spider on the porch? Why, when we find a bug in the house, do we kill it, instead of just taking it outside? Why do we swat flies and spray bug spray at wasps? Are these insects really presenting a threat to us?

Killing bugs, of course, is a favorite past time of kids. It seems to be a way for them to dominate something else, the same way that they perhaps feel dominated by their parents, teachers, and older children.

I wonder if our propensity for killing bugs isn’t related to that need to dominate? I run my foot through an ant hill so the ants can’t later crawl into my house and get in my food. I squash a spider on the sidewalk because then it can’t come into my house and threaten me. I spray a wasp in my garage because then it can’t sneak up on me and sting me.

And yet, isn’t this the same mindset that causes the Stalins, Hitlers, and Pol Pots of the world to stamp out the potential danger they see in a certain race, culture, or political group?

Of course I’m not suggesting that someone’s propensity to step on spiders every time they see one is equal to the Nazis exterminating the European Jews. What I am suggesting, however, is that the prime motivation is the same. Kill now what may threaten us later.

Some may think, as I used to, that this is overblown and overdramatic. “I refuse to believe that stepping on a bug, putting a garden hoe through a snake, or chopping down a tree has anything to do with wars, genocide, and violence in general.”

And yet when I had that break-through, it suddenly dawned on me. The reason it matters is because if we can’t respect even the smallest of life, how can we ever respect each other? And, more importantly, if we can learn to respect and hold sanctified all forms of life, even the tiny spider on the sidewalk, then how much more can we learn to respect and hold sanctified human life?

If all human beings learned to respect even the smallest of life forms, could things like playground bullying, barroom brawls, violent crime, wars, and genocide ever happen?

I understand now why the Buddhists teach nonviolence not just to other humans, but to all forms of life, plants, and minerals. We must learn to cultivate nonviolence toward all living things, and water the seeds of love, compassion, and understanding within ourselves, if we ever hope to end things like violent crime and war.

Is this a Utopian dream? Maybe so. But as a lifelong Christian, who is now studying and practicing Buddhist philosophy and incorporating it into my Christian practice, I recognize that in the Western world, we have used our Christian understanding of reality to justify not working toward Utopian ideas. This is a fallen world, we say. We can only lean on God and hope for a better life in heaven, we say. And we use these concepts to justify continuing patterns of violence, hatred, and prejudice. Before we put a criminal to death, we send in a priest to pray for his immortal soul. This makes us feel better, because we may be ending his life on earth, but we’re arranging for his eternal life. What we’re really doing, however, is justifying violence and murder. We do the same thing when we send soldiers off to war to die bloody, violent deaths. “Well, at least, if he was a Christian, he will be rewarded in paradise.” This helps us justify the slaughter of thousands of young people. All of our ideas about the depravity of the world are mitigated – and, thereby, ignored – by looking toward a perfect, Utopian afterlife. It relieves us of any responsibility to work toward peace, love, compassion, and nonviolence. It convinces us that those things are unattainable in this life, and that we must wait until after death for such Utopian dreams.

I believe Jesus called us to have life now and to have it more abundantly. I believe Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God as a present reality, not a future, post-life hope. Jesus, therefore, called us to the same path of consuming love, compassion, and mindfulness that the Buddha called us to. The language and imagery is different, but the basic gist of the teaching is the same. Love wastefully. Live life fully in each and every moment. Respect life in all its myriad forms. Be everything that you can be. Buddhists call it watering the seeds of love, compassion, and nonviolence. Christians call it having life and having it more abundantly.

Looking toward a Utopian afterlife is not an excuse to ignore efforts for Utopia now. It is our responsibility to work toward heaven on earth, the kingdom of God, Nirvana, or half a dozen other terms that stand for consuming love, compassion, and nonviolence.

So I am not going to step on bugs anymore. I am going to respect all forms of life, even the lowliest forms of life, because if I can learn to do that, how much more can I respect fellow human beings?