new links

It's about time I updated my site with new links, especially blogs that I've been visiting regularly.

One that I've found recently, which seems to fit right in with a lot of what I post here is, Messianic Musings, Rabbi Derek Leman's blog.

If you look at some of my earlier blogs regarding messianic/emerging hybrids, you'll know that I did a Google search about two years ago and couldn't find any blogs that were at the same time Messianic and Emerging-friendly (not that any of them were unfriendly, they just weren't into blogging -- apart from the occasional congregation that had one for posting church announcements, or those making political statements, etc.) Anyway, I did another Google recently, and one of the results had something from Messianic Musings that mentioned Scot McKnight. Anyway, have a look for yourself.

Being that I'm into Science Fiction, especially the writing of it, I also find SF Novelists a good site. It's got regular entries by a number of current authors on how they write, or what delights/peeves/affects them about writing, etc. I think I was pointed to that site by Tobias Buckell's blog, the author of Crystal Rain, and more recently, Ragamuffin. I don't know if he still has the first 10 or so chapters of Ragamuffin available for viewing. If you like reading a captivating novel half way through and putting it off indefinitely, you might want to check it out.

Anyway, that's a starter. I may add some more later.

The Adventures of Eetoo

As promised, I've uploaded The Adventures of Eetoo for public viewing. This is only for a limited time. As soon as I submit my final draft to the publisher, I'll reduce it to just the first few chapters to be readable online.

I realise recently that it has something in common with Ben Hur -- except it's a science fiction narrative. Like Ben Hur it follows the history of the main character in other places, but the final part of the story takes place during Passion Week in Jerusalem, where the main character and his companion witness the climactic events of Messiah's life and death, before they return to their home on their own planet with all their questions answered.

The challenges in writing such a story fall into two cattigories: 1. Mixing Science Fiction with a Biblical scenario in a tasteful and readable way. The main character is from a primitive culture himself -- albeit on a distant planet -- so when he arrives on Earth, he doesn't dwarf all the other characters with his advanced sophistication. He neither moves nor changes history with his high tech gadgets -- though they do help him through a few problems he encounters. 2. Research. Since writing The Emissary, a fictionalised story of the apostle Paul, I've done a lot of reading into first century Jewish and Greco-Roman culture, Rabbinical Judaism, as well as a branch of research called Jesus Studies. While The Emissary probably isn't marketable yet (though I'm confident it's historically viable) I've been able to fall back on a lot of that reading and research for Eetoo. It won't confirm all the traditional ideas we have of Jesus, but I believe it captures the 'Jesus of History' in a way that brings a depth to the gospel message. It follows the Gospel account, while placing it solidly in it's first century Jewish context, correcting some of the misconceptions we've developed regarding Judaism and how Yeshua related to it.

My background in understanding culture, the nature of languages, some reading on Quantum Mechanics, and how I've come to understand the Christian message, all play a part. I've also made sure that the plot moves along and doesn't leave the reader bored. I hope you're in for an enjoyable read.

enjoy

Politics a la Alan Creech

First, I'll just say, I'm grateful to be living in a country where elections don't last a whole year..!!
As for what to do with things like politics and issues like abortion, I found Alan chreech's sentiments very close to mine.

He's against abortion, believing it to be murder, but...

... As Christians, I think we'd be better off concentrating our energy on being
Christian and helping one another to facilitate our individual and collective
transformation into the Image of Christ. If that were done, I'd say the number
of abortions would seriously decrease. Abortion is bad, but it's nowhere near
the center of my faith-life.

More Changes

Another change in preparation to being a published author. I've simply changed the URL for the blog to reflect the name that will appear on my novel, soon to be published -- my own.

I'm dumping the name 'Tishbyte'. That name was an idea I had many years ago, combining computer technology with the prophetic, namely Elijah the Tishbite (though the spelling, 'Tishbyte' wasn't compatible with the Hebrew pronounciation, Teesh-beet). It was a usefull name in the days when I was trying to run my website like an E-zine, although it never really took off. I tried to act like I was a whole editorial staff, but it really the site never was more than what I'm making it into now, an author's page.

The content probably won't change much. I'll still be writing about things that interest me, and if you want to know what that is, simply look at the archives. All my old posts will remain, even a few that started out as 'articles' when Tishbyte was an e-zine.

Allegory on PDF

I've now distilled my latest edition of the novella, Allegory, and the accompanying article, A Study on Judgement, as a PDF file. My present intention is that this remains as a free download. It's copyright in my name, but that's to insure it isn't misused. Anyone who downloads it is free to make copies to give to people, as long as they don't change it.

Anyway, here it is.

I'll post a permanent link to it later on this page, in a prominent place.

Enjoy...

...an example of what I'm talking about:

Okay, we really haven't been talking about it on this blog, but we could just as well have been.

The reason I'm a Protestant is because I believe in Yeshua, and I didn't happen to be baptised in the Roman Catholic Church. Going strictly by the etimology, the term 'Protestant' probably doesn't apply to me because I'm not a non-Catholic out of protest. My belief is that the sign over the door neither saves nor damns, but it's the faith accompanied by its fruit. I may not agree with every point of Roman Catholic doctrine, just as I probably probably don't agree 100% with any one church's creed. But neither do I see a chruches official creed as necessarily defining every single person who happens to belong to that church.

In that light, I found Alan Creech's latest autobiographical blog entry encouraging. It's a good read.

Allegory

I've just finished doing some needed editing on my novella Allegory, and its companion article, A Study on Judgement. I intend to keep links to these prominently posted on any future author's page as free downloads. Even if they get published in the future in paper format, I plan to retain the right to allow free downloading of the electronic version. The subject matter is such that I don't think I can, of good conscience, make everyone pay before they receive such an important message.