The cover of the Pope's new children's book

Emperor Palpatine Pope Benedict XVI has published his first children’s book!  The pope, apparently already an author of many volumes, has taken it upon himself to educate young ones about his religion.  Maybe entice them to get into it a bit more.  Granted, I can’t really tell you what its about (the title is Gli Amici Di Gesu?!) because I don’t even know two words of Italian, but from the cover illustration, it looks like its about Jesus.  If I had to guess, I would say its about the friends of Jesus (Amici IS one of the words I know!).  So I’ll have to trust Shelf Life’s brief summary:

It features a collection of the Pope’s descriptions of Jesus’ relationship with his “first companions,” including the original 12 apostles, Matthias, and St. Paul.

(That sounds like a terribly boring book to me, but heck, what do I know.  If I were a kid, this would not sell me on Catholicism.)

And, side note, when does he have time to do this? I mean, come on–if Obama doesn’t have time to write a book about ‘Bo, how does the leader of the entire Catholic Church have time to do this?  Can’t he at least cop to a ghostwriter?  Everybody does it.

Don’t worry, English and Spanish versions are forthcoming.  Maybe some nice US editor will spruce it up a bit… make it look less, well, church-y.  Its a kids book after all!  Can’t wait to give it a go.  I hope they have a nice Judas chapter…

Okay, religiously-offensive post over.

This article in the Boston Globe reports that, “a team of scholars at Germany’s Berlin-Brandenberg Academy of Sciences will complete the first phase of what will ultimately be an unprecedented, two-decade effort to throw light on the origins of the Koran.”

The international project, called the Corpus Coranicum, uses the internet to create “something that scholars of the Koran have long yearned for: a central repository of imagery, information, and analysis about the Muslim holy book,” according to the Globe. “Modern research into Islam’s origin and early years has been hampered by the paucity and inaccessibility of ancient texts, and the reluctance of Muslim governments in places like Yemen to allow wide access to them.”

But now, this project, which draws on some of the earliest Korans known, in Istanbul, Cairo, Paris, and Morocco, allows “users to study for themselves images of thousands of pages of early Korans, texts that differ in small but potentially telling ways from the modern standard version. The project will also link passages in the text to analogous ones in the New Testament and Hebrew Bible, and offer an exhaustive critical,” says the Globe.

According to the project’s scholars, it will be the world’s first “critical edition” of the Koran, a resource that gathers historical evidence and scholarly literature into one searchable, cross-referenced whole. And, because it is web-based, it will accessible to the world.

This last point seems to have stirred up the beginnings of controversy in parts of the Muslim world where the text is taken to be God’s exact dictation to the Angel Gabriel. To say that the text has historic roots, has existed through time, with permutations, is to many considered slanderous. And, as the Globe reports, “Already, the creators of the Corpus Coranicum, in response to press coverage in Germany, have felt the need to publicly insist on al-Jazeera and in visits to Muslim countries that they have no intention of undermining the faith.”

According to the Globe, “No mainstream Koranic scholars see the Corpus Coranicum, or work like it, triggering a Muslim Reformation. So far, the debates over the roots of the Koran have remained within academia, and most scholars don’t see that changing. ‘Most Muslims simply don’t care about this sort of work, any more than most Christians care about the Dead Sea Scrolls,’ says Walid Saleh, an Islamic scholar at the University of Toronto specializing in the history of Koranic interpretation. ‘This is a Western academic enterprise, this critical historical study.’”

In a controversy that brings to mind the recent contretemps in Denmark, in which the caricaturing of the prophet Muhammad led to widespread Muslim outrage, at least one-hundred deaths, and the attempted assassination of the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India has acted to proscribe a textbook featuring a caricature of Jesus Christ. Christ is believed by Catholics and rival Christian sects to be the son and incarnation of God. In a report from Indiaedunews.net, spokesman Babu Joseph states that “The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India has written to all its member schools across the country to ban this publisher.” He said the bishops have asked authorities in the north-eastern state of Meghalaya (one of only three in which Christians are the majority) to “take strict action against the publisher so that it becomes a deterrent for others doing similar things.” The publisher in question is Skyline Publications in Delhi.

The BBC reports that the Meghalaya government “has taken speedy action by seizing all the copies of the textbook from schools and bookshops.”

Babu Joseph says, “Jesus Christ is central to Christian faith and Christian life. The attempt to tarnish his image is highly objectionable and goes against the spirit of religious tolerance in India.”

According to Debraj Ray, Julius Silver Professor of Economics and Director of Graduate Studies, New York University, Hindu/Muslim conflict in India resulted in “around 10,000 deaths and 30,000 injuries over 1950–1995 (and of course, continuing thereafter). Numbers may look small relative to Indian population, but don’t capture displacement, insecurity, segregation, loss of livelihood, and widespread fear.”

The offending image portrays Christ holding a cigarette and a beer. Christ is well-known to have preferred wine.

Jose Saramago, provocateur

An agence France Press report says that Portuguese writer and Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago has gotten into a row with the Catholic Church in Portugal over comments he made during the launch of his new book, Cain — a Saramago-style retelling of the story of Adam and Eve’s son who famously killed his brother, Abel.

“The Bible is a manual of bad morals (which) has a powerful influence on our culture and even our way of life. Without the Bible, we would be different, and probably better people,” Saramago is quoted as saying.

The AFP report went on to say Saramago attacked “‘a cruel, jealous and unbearable God (who) exists only in our heads’ and said he did not think his book would cause problems for the Catholic Church ‘because Catholics do not read the Bible. It might offend Jews, but that doesn’t really matter to me.’”

Father Manuel Marujao, the spokesman for the Portuguese conference of bishops, told the AFP he thought the remarks were a publicity stunt, saying “A writer of Jose Saramago’s standing can criticise, (but) insults do no-one any good, particularly a Nobel Prize winner.”

And Rabbi Elieze Martino, spokesman for the Jewish community in Lisbon, told the AFP the Jewish world would not be shocked by the writings of Saramago or anyone else. “Saramago does not know the Bible,” the rabbi said, “he has only superficial understanding of it.”

Saramago got himself into trouble once before with an earlier novel, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, published in 1992. That book depicted Jesus’s life with Mary Magdalene, his trying to back out of his crucifixion and his being used by God to control the world.

Saramago left Portugal at that time and moved to the Canary Islands. No word yet if his planning on moving shop this time out.

North Carolina pastor Marc Grizzard “says his church plans to burn Bibles and books by Christian authors on Halloween to light a fire under true believers,” reports a frighteningly brief Associated Press wire story.

For example, Grizzard says “the King James version of the Bible is the only one his small western North Carolina church follows. He says all other versions, such as the Living Bible, are ’satanic’ and ‘perversions’ of God’s word,” and will be kindling for the bonfire. Likewise, he says, “the 14 members of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church also will burn music and books by Christian authors, such as Billy Graham and Rick Warren.”

According to this video report below, they will be serving barbecue chicken at the book burning.

Oscar Wilde: 100 years after his death, the Vatican cuts him some slack

Something has gotten into the water at the Vatican. First, after years of Harry Potter bashing (scroll down to see the story “Man who wears pointy hat and robes and feeds dead flesh of his god to chanting acolytes says book about wizards is evil” on MobyLives ancien), the Vatican last week came out in favor of the whole Harry Potter franchise, as this Boston Globe story (”Vatican gives thumbs up to Harry Potter?) reports.

Now, days later, it seems “the Holy See has also revealed an unexpected soft spot for Oscar Wilde,” says Alison Flood in a Guardian report.

“Despite the Catholic Church’s condemnation of practising homosexuality,” Flood reports, the Vatican’s official newspaper L’Osservatore Romano “has now run a glowing review of a new book about the famously doomed lover of Lord Alfred Douglas.” In the review (of Paolo Gulisano’s The Portrait of Oscar Wilde) the newspaper’s Andrea Monda says, “Wilde was a man of great, intense feelings, who behind the lightness of his writing, behind a mask of frivolity or cynicism, hid a deep knowledge of the mysterious value of life.”

Flood says the article is the latest in an “unlikely love affair,” the first sign of which appeared two years ago when the Vatican “published a collection of his quips in the book Provocations: Aphorisms for an Anti-conformist Christianity.” Among the “quips”: “I can resist everything except temptation.” But perhaps the Wilde quip that they liked even better was about Catholicism being the religion “for saints and sinners alone — for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do.”

Abdulkarim Soroush

One of Iran’s longtime leading intellectuals, Abdulkarim Soroush, who was “chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to ‘Islamicize’ Iran’s universities,” is “sending shock waves through Iran’s clerical establishment” because he has questioned the traditional Muslim concept of who wrote the Koran, according to a report in The New York Times by Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabar. As Tabar carefully explains it, “Muslims have long believed that their holy book was transmitted word for word by God through the Prophet Muhammad.” However, Soroush gave an interview with Dutch radio in which he said “that the prophet was no parrot.” As a result of the remarks, “Soroush has been described as a Muslim Luther,” notes Tabar, while others “have accused him of heresy, which is punishable by death.”

Michael S. Hyatt, Christian publisher behind the scheme to dupe bloggers

In a Guardian blog entry, the relenteless Ed Champion summarizes the recent brouhaha over Christian publisher Thomas Nelson’s ruse to get bloggers writing about its books. As Champion notes, Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt announced on his blog that the company would give “free” books to bloggers who posted a 200-word review on their blogs, and also posted the review on “a consumer detail page” such as Amazon. What’s more, Champion notes, Hyatt required bloggers “to enroll in the Book Reviewer Blogger program, submitting his or her name, address, phone number ….” Champion notes Hyatt’s claim that 605 people signed up for the program on day one. He doesn’t comment on the essential dishonesy and manipulativeness of the Chirstian publisher’s campaign — that is, he doesn’t mention that every publisher gives out “free” books to reviewers. They’re called review copies, and publishers don’t force critics to place copy on Amazon, nor to provide personal information for data mining. Champion does note, however, the other blogs criticizing Nelson for its dishonesty, such as Chad Post, head of Open Letter Books, who also notes in an entry on his blog: “The real kicker is the book they’re launching along with this program: Lynne Spears’s Through the Storm about raising Britney and Jaime Lynn. Wow. Sign me up.”