Tuesday, January 02, 2007
New Christian Title Is Left Behind
Here are the latest bestseller lists, with Mitch Albom's "For One More Day" atop the fiction list and Hilary Clinton's future running mate Barack Obama on top of the nonfiction list. But what struck me most this week was the collapse of "John's Story: The Last Eyewitness" at #27. It's only been out since late November but the new collaboration by the authors behind the Left Behind series has been a big commercial flop. Check out the diary posted by Jerry B. Jenkins at Amazon and it doesn't sound like their book tour has been a lot of fun either. Given the stunning success of the Left Behind series, which stretches to dozens of books both in the main series and in spin-offs for teens, etc., I'm not quite sure why this new series (a proposed look at all four authors of the Gospels) has failed entirely to reach even their core audience. Perhaps it's the title? Catholics, at least, acknowledge that the Gospels were NOT written by eyewitnesses to Jesus; they were written decades later by people who got their info second and third hand.
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6 comments:
It thinks it due to the fact that they milked the utter dry with the Left Behind series. The first couple books were fun, but then it became tiresome and drawn out. If they had stuck to their original 6 or 8 book idea instead of changing mid-stream to make as much loot as possible, the product might have been better and they would have maintained some credibility within their demographic.
I know I only read the last few books just to know how they would end it. Then they came out with sequels and prequels and I just passed.
Yeah, but they continued to hit bestseller lists and dominate sales, even if people were increasingly disappointed. Besides, at least this new series will only have four entries, unless it did really well and they're started including the gospels that didn't make the final cut.
True, but I'm just burnt out on their style of writing which wasn't very good to begin with.
The title is a bit of a bore, but that wouldn't keep me from reading it if I was interested in more of their work. As for the loaded portion of your blog post, I hold to the idea that the Gospels were written before the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD since there is not mention of that event. As such, I also think that the original authors were the believers whose names are attributed to them. If they were just attributing names to the Gospels why choose Mark over Peter? Or Luke over Paul?
Is that what your Church teaches as Biblical scholarship? I honestly didn't think anyone questioned the fact, I mean idea, that the Gospels had been written by people who DIDN'T ever meet or hear Jesus speak. It was so uncontroversial, we were taught it in 6th grade at Catholic School. Is your version the widely accepted take of your faith's main scholars?
I'm not sure whether my view is "the widely accepted take of your faith's main scholars" since I don't even know where to begin to quantify that. I do know that it is the belief of many of the Christians that I interact with regularly and I think there is evidence on both sides of the argument that makes sense. I do feel like future archeological finds will lend more credence to this position, but I can understand why others might disagree.
Well, golly, if that's what you were always taught and that's what most of the faithful people you interact with are taught and belive, then yeah, I'd say that was the widely accepted opinion of your church. I wasn't laying a trap, just wondering if you were a rebel on this or in line with most of the people you worship with. Most of the Biblical studies I read are of course for mainstream audiences, not academics and most of them aren't by Catholics and I hadn't realized this was a point of debate. Thanks for correcting me.
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