quotes from Critical Appendix, "The Birth of Christianity: Reality and Myth"

1. 

"...Thus, the family of Jesus is presented as having thought him out of his mind, to begin with, and as explicitly repudiated by Jesus. This is complemented by the contemptuous description of the Apostles, who also constituted, together with Upright Jacob [Jesus' brother], the core of the Jesist coterie in Jerusalem. They are constantly described as bickering over precedence and rewards..."
"... The counterposition of these two attitudes--that Simon the Rock recognized Jesus as Messiah but denied the salvational function of the resurrection--is no more than a way of indicating that the Jerusalem group headed by Upright Jacob did not believe in Jesus except as the Jewish Messiah [the bringer of the very terrestrial Kingdom of God that would simply restore Hebrew sovereignty and defeat the Romans]. His role as Lord of the Universe, of Divine Savior of Mankind, meant nothing to them. In short, the viewpoint of Paul is put forth in Mark in such a way as to take advantage of the Jewish debacle. The ground plan of Mark goes far beyod details; it has a profound apologetic aim..."
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2.

"After almost 2 centuries of the most painstaking, intense study by scores of thousands of able, conscientious scholars, the amount of information refined out of the sources can be contained in a few lines.
"There is no assurance of the most primitive facts about Jesus the man: the significance of the word "Nazarene," the date and place of his birth, his parents, his family, his milieu. All such information is summed up in a disconcertingly barren statement: in the words of Charles Guignebert, Jesus was 'born somewhere in Galilee in the time of Emperor Augustus, in a modest family that aside from him numbered a good half-dozen children.'
"Moreover, the paucity of information about the background and personality of Jesus the man is reinforced by the utter absence of any indication of original teaching; whatever Jesus thought about religion, and in particular about Judaism, his own ideas failed to survive his death. He could neither have foreseen nor desired the state of affairs that replaced the Kingdom of God he was promoting, and even though the genetic relationship between himself and Chrisitanity is evident, it can only be in the narrow sense that the new religion coagulated through speculations around the meaning of his death."
...
"Generations of higher critics have stubbornly disregarded the titanic fact staring at them from out of the desert of the documentation-- the causal connection between Jesus's initial emergence as a herald of the Kingdom of God and his execution by the Romans as an insurrectoinist-- and have accepted as plausible what was a mere apologia on the part of the believers of the first phase of the evolving faith [roman converts]."
...
"But once it is accepted that the thought of founding a new religion never even crossed Jesus's mind, it becomes obvious that Christianity derives not from anything Jesus did but from what happened after his death. Thus it was after his death that the germination and efflorescence of a new religion took place, rooted in the primordial vision of Jesus resurrected and glorified... 'If Jesus was not resurrected the faith was in vain.'
"But if this is so, it means that the entire vast library of literature on Christian origins, to the extent that it struggled to fling a bridge from the religion itself to the figure of its putative founder, was condemned to sterility... Jesus had originated nothing in the religion that sprang up over his dead body."

Veggie Tomato Soup

24oz creamy tomato soup
12oz roasted red pepper soup
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 chopped zucchini
1/2 pint chopped mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic
1 chopped tomato
1/4 cup slivered sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 lb raw shrimp - skinned/deveined
Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp chili powder
stale baguette/ stale sourdough bread

Rinse and chop all veggies and set aside. Heat large pot and add soups and stock. Once simmering, add chopped veggies and olive oil. Heat sauté pan, add enough oil to coat pan - once hot, add shrimp : pink shrimp on both sides, then add to soup pot. Simmer just until all ingredients are hot ~15 min. Salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat, cut stale bread into 1" cubes. Dish soup and add bread cubes on top to serve.

Roast Veggies/ Fruits

Roasted Heirloom Tomatoes and Plums
[seen w/ Morrocan spiced short ribs]

Tomatoes are actually fruits, work with their sweetness and acidity when preparing with heavier foods like red meats to give a warm and light flavor contrast

the key to great veggies is to not overcook and let their naturally delicious flavors come out

1 qt heirloom tomatoes
3 plums cut into ~1" cubes
1 Tbsp honey/agave nectar
grapeseed oil
sea salt

place tomatoes and plum cubes in roasting dish, drizzle with oil and honey/nectar, dash of salt, toss to coat the fruit
roast at 350°F and remove as soon as tomatoes start to split

Raw Veggies I

raw veggie dip

3 raw Brussels sprouts

3 green onions

1/2 avocado

2 garlic cloves

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp grape seed oil

1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

salt

steak seasoning



put all ingredients into food processor

[to prep avocado: slice in half around pit, twist the two halves, use spoon to remove flesh from skin]

season to taste

eat with naan, rice crackers, or celery

or leave corsely processed and serve as a slaw

Preparing Veggies I

simple salads: dark leaf base, 2+ tasty veggies, protein / starch, acid, and oil

here:
baby spinach
1/2 bell pepper-julienne
1/2 onion- sliced
toss with 1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar and 1Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, pinch sea salt/cracked pepper
topped with roasted red potato and white cheddar wafer

to make cheddar wafers: heat small non-stick pan to low-med, lay single layer of shredded white cheddar. allow to melt, use paper towel to soak up extra oil. once it can be moved with a spatchula, flip for 10 seconds, remove from pan to paper towel, and shape quickly while warm

Preparing Veggies II

easy tasty veggies... if they were this good when i was a kid, i woulda eaten 'em

Green Beans

4 Red Potatoes

1 lemon cut in wedges

1 TBSP butter

Blanch a hand full of whole green beans :

- use beans at room temp

- bring pot of water to a boil

- add green beans and boil until they are neon green ~5 min, quickly strain

- cut red potatoes in ~1" cubes
- heat non-stick pan med-heat, melt 1 TBSP butter
- add lemon wedges and potatoes - once potatoes start to brown, add blanched green beans
- toss in the pan until potatoes are just browned ~3-5min - don't need to be cooked through, the raw crunch adds to the texture
- pinch salt/pepper

A Starting Point

I have not indulged in writing in so long... I've tried to use it to cope, but it became the method of expelling... expelling to destroy. I am unsure if it's a result of gaining substance and solid ground under me or the jazz on the radio - making me long for those endless hours at a coffee shop : alternately reading and writing, enveloped and saturated with the smells of coffee, pastries, and yes, sunlight filtered through panes of glass, with its playful dynamic, dancing with the cool dark and its rich upholstery.

I'd often thought in times of great turmoil and great joys, that I'd like for someone to know of my life. It's no exceptional life, but it's my life; something I rarely speak about, even to those who know me best. I've been reading a number of memoirs: novels or short stories about amazing or moving events - the things that made deep impressions; how they were neither good nor bad situations in the end, but both; they were something that disrupted monotony - a little turbulence to recolor the atmosphere; a mess to force one to repaint their inner walls which helped to then reconcile the inner world with the outer universe.

I cannot say when my life began. I like to avoid definitions; so defining everything that could be meant by "life", I won't exclude. I can say that my living has included a series of several deaths: undoings, little oblivions, difficult transitions... you get the idea. My existence, personally, is quite vexing. In association to Judeo-Christian norms: one may say that I have an old soul. But, were that it were entirely of human experience, I'm convinced I would've been much more proficient in understanding "being human." My earliest ability to reconcile my physical existence was the conjecture that I was something - not an "angel", but something watching, watching these humans and getting rather perturbed at how they muck up such simple things to create vast, deadly, emotional dramas that never cease, and for what? Here comes, peeking over my shoulder, the ruling element of the universe (God, et al), and says, "so, you think you could do better?" Oh, it's on, God. I'm comfortably certain that I am quite the amusement for It - I imagine several smirks and head-shaking being done at my expense.

I am a living oxymoron, occupying both poles in almost every degree simultaneously. It becomes an art form to develop any semblance of consistency in opinions, sentiments, actions - luckily I realized early to drop several gender-based pretenses in order to comply with what I knew to be more relevant. I am 8 years old, and I am 80: too young for shame, and too old to care; too young to be bitter and conditioned, but old and wizened from past bitterness, too old to care about appropriateness; young enough to have superhero hopes and dreams, always seeing the world in new and beautiful lights, but old enough to see a world of life behind me and the futility of it all.