The day came when our of our children has spread her wings and flown from the nest. She’s gone to University in a city far from us, and will be living there.

It was a day of mixed emotions.

Will she be alright?

Have we done a good job raising her?

Will she cope?

What if there’s a big spider?

It’s been a few tense days waiting to see how she goes. (rather like waiting for exam results for a really important subject)

On day 3, she sent a very positive text

I guess we are OK.

P.S. – our shoulders feel lighter

This book has a rather refreshing view on Jesus’s life rather than the religion built around him.

It struggles with that concept however, because it’s honestly hard to examine Jesus without any pre-assumptions. If you simply ignore the introduction and the revised ‘modern’ foreword chapters, the bulk of the book is well researched, and provides constant references to support the the authors assumptions.

In other words, it strives to get to the bottom of who Jesus really was without all the modern day hype.

It was originally written in 1976, and is still available new, which says something good.

The book reveals that Jesus actually existed, arguing that even if you ignore the bible completely, he is mentioned in Roman historical records at the time (he caused a riot at a market among other things) 

Jewish society at the time was quite segregated, much like the Indian caste system or the English upper/lower class.
Prestige was more valued than money in Jewish society, in much the same way that it is in Japanese society even today. (p70), and they were very much into virtue signalling.

As an example, Sinners were a well defined class of their own and included those who had sinful or unclean proffessions like tax collecters, thieves, gamblers, etc. Included were herdsman because they ‘could’ purposefully let their stock graze the neighbours property. Once you were classed as a sinner, you were there for life, although in theory a prostitute could redeem themselves via a rather tortuous procedure. (p30)

Another point to remember is that Jewish society was doomed at the time -the Romans were slowly taking over, and setting up a tax system in Judea. This rather ramped up the anxiety and tension at the time, as it would mean paying tax to the Romans rather than sacrifices to God.

Of note is the vally of Gehenna which is the origin of hell for both the Christians and the Jews. It was a most unholy place where centuries before, the most wicked of all deeds had been committed to appease pagan gods. In Jesus’s time, it was the site of a rubbish dump, where continously smoldering fires, where everything was decomposting and been eaten by worms (p114)

Most of the book is written like a biography and recalls Jesus’s life in those ancient times and what he was likely to be thinking. 

In conclusion, I found it to be an informative book, that manages to give us an insight into the times that Jesus lived in, and the political and religious struggles that they endured. 

https://youtu.be/olB61kO_iSw?si=GIY9BxQoFIYwfHG1

Our second duck Josephine has been very patiently sitting on a nest of eggs for the past month, so it was uncharacteristic of her to be up and about yesterday…

I think she wanted to let us know of her latest arrivals, eight nine ten ducklings.

Meanwhile, our very clucky chicken is a proud foster mum to a young chick.

That brings our numbers up to two geese, seven chickens, and twenty ducks + a cat.

It’s been good so far, but we will cap our numbers at what we have, least it gets unmanageable.
That means collecting any more duck eggs, least they become ducklings…