On Dialects

The other day, I submitted a chapter of my novel, "The Bridge Beckons" to my critique group. I'd rewritten the ending, making it more concise, tightening it up a lot. We have a new lady in our group who hadn't read any of my novel before, and I did not tell her one of the characters was an Italian immigrant. I simply wrote his speech using odd words and awkward sentence structures, speech patterns, idioms, etc., typical of Italian immigrants. I didn't mis-spell any words. I didn't even abreviate any words or add "a"s to the ends of his words, you know like "you know'a go to the store," or, "I like'a you be my friend," kind of stuff. No, I simply wrote his speech the way I think he should talk, and the new lady immediately picked up on it and complimented me on how realistic I'd made him sound. She could tell right off he was an Italian immigrant without all that dialectic mis-spelling.

I think that's what we should strive for. I know it's hard, but it can be done if we listen. Listen to foreigners and people from different parts of our own country, assuming you're from the U.S.A., such as Southerners, New Englanders, etc. Listen to how they talk, how they form their sentences. The word choices they use. For instance, only a Southerner would know how much a "mess" of beans is, or how far a spell is. And maybe I'm wrong, but I've only heard of a "frappe" (spelling is probably wrong) when talking to a person from New England. Or, how about a "hot ticket?" And what about those guys from the Bronx? How would you say, "Hey mister. You can park your car on thirty third and third street?" Would you be inclined to just read it as it's written, or would you almost instinctivelly add in the Bronx accent? (I'm not someone from another country would get this, but I'm hoping they will.)

So, you see, there are many things we can use, aside from laborious mis-spellings, to make a character "sound" like he/she is from some specific place. Try it. Listen to how other people speak, then try to copy it down on paper without using mis-spellings. It can work. I promise.

I thought the comments by Anonymous blogger were very well written and insightful. So, I decided to use them and my responses as the next page of my blog site. I hope it may spur even more discussions on the subject of, was Jesus Christ married?

-----------------------------------------------

Anonymous,

I can certainly appreciate the expression of your beliefs and I certainly don't mind your doing so on my blog site. In fact, I welcome religious discussion as long as it can remain respectful.

You said some interesting things:

1) Jesus was both "fully God and fully man."

I agree with that statement and don't see any reason that would prevent Jesus from being married. Keep in mind, I'm not saying He WAS married, just that I believe He could have been.

2)"Christ's purpose was to ransom the Church with His blood, which is His bride."

Metaphorically, yes. Christ is the bridegroom, the church, in a metaphorical sense, is the bride. Still I see no reason He couldn't have been married.

3) "Human relationships here are a shadowy, flawed reflection of that holy love Christ has for His own."

Huh? I disagree with that statement. Jesus's relationship with us is ultimately personal, not a shadowy, flawed reflection of anything. I used to be a Protestant and I've never heard of that doctrine, even in the Catholic church.

4)"There is also the fact that being fully God as well as fully man, any children He fathered would have been of the same substance as God, meaning they were also God, which would have really been impossible to reconcile the Trinity to."

I don't think so. In my belief structure, Jesus was both mortal and immortal. He had the ability to die, or He could have lived forever, but rather he gave his life voluntarily on the cross for us.

It's His mortal half that would have sired children, assuming there were any. I don't see any conflict there with the God Head, or as you call it The Holy Trinity.

5) "Jesus' other relationships were spoken of, but nowhere is a wife mentioned, and the husband/wife relationship supercedes the parent/child relationship. If He had been married, it certainly would have been mentioned. Since the biblical teaching is that the marriage bed is holy in the eyes of God, there would be no reason to "hide" a marriage in the original texts or the immediate copies after. People would have been able to accept a marriage, because it was acceptable and holy."

A wife is not mentioned out of respect and love for her. Can you imagine what infidels would do to her name, or even to her personally, if they even suspected He had a wife. Consider the kinds of things they already say about Jesus and his Father. I think, if Jesus had a wife, he kept her out of the public eye for her protection as well. If the Jews knew who His wife and children were, don't you think they would have tried to use them, even abuse them, to get at Jesus somehow?

I think, as I said in my original posting, that the fact that the Jews did not ridicule Jesus for NOT being married is evidence that He probably was. It was a rule, if not a law, among the Jews that in order to be a rabbi, a man had to be 30 years of age, which is when Jesus began His ministry, and had to be married. Not mentioned, possibly for the reasons I stated above.

Anonymous, I appreciate your comments. They're insightful and indicate a true love for our Savior.

Thank you,
Paul

Read More »

Recently, I interviewed published author Ellen Hopkins. She has a unique writing style, writing novels in verse. She has targeted her novel to young adults. Critics and young people both have told her they love her style and the books she writes.

For more information about her, read my interview with her at: http://www.writers4writers.com/phpnuke/n4wjune.pdf

Read More »

I recently saw the move “The DiVinci Code” and just finished reading the book. I found it very interesting as far as the story line goes. It’s a good murder mystery with a wonderfully exotic background, that of the Priory of Sion, the Nights Templar, and the Holy Grail. The book couldn’t have been easy for Dan Brown to write. The research alone must have taken months. However, I feel he came to some incorrect conclusions in his research.

Brown claims the Nights Templar, and the Priory of Sion do exist, as does Opus Dei. I have no doubt these organizations were, or are real, and to at least some degree, secretive. I also don't doubt some of the so-called "scriptures" he uses, i.e. the Gospel of Phillip," and others he makes reference to, might indeed exist. And, they might indeed say that Jesus Christ was merely human and was married. There are a lot of what I would term "apostate," or apocryphal, writings existing from around 300 A.D. and later. Few, of these "apostate" writings exist much before that time, which is about the time of the Council of Nicaea that was called by (who I would call less than Christian) Emperor Constantine in an effort to (as Dan Brown correctly explains in his The DiVinci Code) unite the various Christian and pagan sects under one united, universal (catholic - meaning universal) church. Constantine was NOT a Christian. He had no ecclesiastical, or priesthood, authority to do this. As Dan Brown correctly states, it was done for political reasons, not religious ones. And before anyone castigates me as a heretic, read the history books for yourself.

Brown also makes a big issue of Jesus Christ being married, and probably to Mary Magdalene. Personally, I don’t have a problem with that. And, I think Brown’s assertion is correct that the Council of Nicaea tried to stifle that kind of thinking as many people thought the idea that He could have been married somehow makes him less than Devine. I seriously disagree with that assertion. To me, for Jesus to have remained single would have been breaking his own rules, or commandments if you prefer. Jesus, or Jehova as he was known in the Old Testament, gave as the first commandment to man through Adam and Eve that we should be married (i.e. be fruitful and multiply). The Apostle Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 11:11 “... neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.” In other words, marriage is ordained by God. It is His plan for happiness and procreation in this world and in the world to come. Surely, Jesus would obey His own commandments, just as he did the commandment to be baptized., though he was sinless. “To fulfill ALL righteousness,” He said.

If Jesus had remained single, he could not have been known as a rabbi. Jewish law required a man desiring to be a rabbi, to be both 30 years old (the age Jesus began his ministry) and married. His Jewish contemporaries would surly have ridiculed him for that, if He hadn’t been married. I think Dan Brown has it partially correct, assuming Jesus was married and had children, that His wife and possible children were kept from the public eye in an effort to protect them. Can you imagine what the Jewish leaders would have done to them if they knew who Jesus’s family were? Hence, no mention is made of any such relationship in the scriptures, though there are some spurious accounts of his having a wife and children in apocryphal texts, plus, I tend to think if He weren’t married, something would have been said about it to explain why he wasn’t married, and how he could still be a rabbi.

Now, this is where Dan Brown’s research gets fuzzy and where he draws some wrong conclusions. Certainly, Jesus’s wife and offspring, assuming there were any, would be protected by the leadership of the church, not some Knights Templar, or Priory of Sion. But let’s give Mr. Brown the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say there was such lineage protected by an organization such as these. Brown’s reasoning falls apart when he accepts the apocryphal texts that depict Jesus Christ as merely a mortal, as equal in authority to the Holy Scriptures that clearly show him as both a mortal man and God. Brown goes on to conclude that it was Mary Magdalene who was a god, not Jesus Christ. She held the power and the authority to run the church. This assertion is strictly wrong. Jesus himself gave the authority to continue the Church the 12 apostles, and in particular to Peter. Brown claims that the apocryphal texts say that Mary Magdalene was in opposition to Peter, but that is definitely in error. True, it was Mary who first saw the resurrected Christ, but to whom did she run to spread the news? None other than the recognized earthly head of the Church, Peter.

I believe the fact that Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene was no mere accident, or an act of mercy either. I think it demonstrates a deeper love between Mary and Jesus than that of a mere disciple. Otherwise, why didn’t He first appear to Peter, the chief apostle? That would make more sense, unless Jesus and Mary had a special kind of relationship, possibly that of being husband and wife.

As for Mary and her supposedly sullied past, I have to agree partly with Brown, that she was NEVER a whore. I have to agree with Brown’s assertion that the early Catholic Church leaders, or someone else perhaps, doctored the original text of the early Gospel writers. They possibly confused Mary with the woman Jesus rescued from being stoned. Or, they purposely tried to sully her reputation, as a marriage relationship between her and Jesus would make Him appear less than Godly. To me, however, there is nothing ungodly about the sanctity of marriage, especially when you consider the sacred and eternal nature of the marriage bond. A bond that can last into eternity.

To sum up and repeat my original assertion, I don’t have a problem believing Jesus could have been married, or even had offspring. Dan Brown’s explanation goes too far, however, in his claim that Mary Magdalene was His power and authority.

But remember, as has been stated so many times, The DiVinci Code is fiction. Like I said, I saw the movie and read the book and enjoyed a good murder mystery.

Read More »