Films of the Decade: 5-1
5. Superbad (2007): Superbad wins the award for the funniest film of the decade. Although perhaps too vulgar and overly raunchy for some, I found the tale of three soon-to-be-high-school-graduate-virgins to be full of laughs from beginning to end. Part of the delight comes in the actors’ ability to make us really believe that this is the way they talk and think. The constant cursing and sex lingo rolls off their tongue so smoothly and without restraint that one believes every word that they say. None of it feels forced or over-the-top. In fact, the entire film is like that. It serves as a surprisingly authentic look at adolescence. Equally refreshing are two cops who—instead of chasing down troublesome teenagers—are themselves rebellious adolescents at heart who have no qualms about drinking on the job, shooting stop signs to kill time, or pretending to arrest a young man just so he can look like a bad-ass in front of his peers.
4. V for Vendetta (2006): If it qualifies, V for Vendetta is my favorite comic book film ever made. It features a rare perfect blend of stylistic action and intellectual themes. This is a revenge tale. It is also a mystery tale. It is an ideas tale. And, of course, it is a political tale. This film blurs the lines between right and wrong, between governments and their people, and between terrorists and saviors. And it embodies the Lockean ideal that people have the right to overthrow their rulers and their governments when they are no longer working in their best interest. Far from being a commentary on the virtues of totalitarianism, V for Vendetta reminds us that it is the people—and not the governments that represent them—who ultimately have the power. And it also reminds us that such ideas are, well, bulletproof.
3. Inglourious Basterds (2009): Quentin Tarantino may very well be my favorite director (with the possible exception of Christopher Nolan) and Inglourious Basterds is a major reason why. It is my pick for the best film of 2009 and justice would not be absent from the Oscars if Tarantino and the film itself are both given top awards. Christoph Waltz is equally deserving for his role as the brilliant and menacing “Jew-Hunting” Nazi, SS Colonel Hans Landa. Characteristic of Tarantino, the film is split up into multiple chapters that each serve as short films in and of themselves; contains very graphic and stylized violence; is highly unpredictable; evades categorization (what type of film is this, really?); and features some of the best, well-written, clever, entertaining dialogue that the film medium has to offer. Not meant to be an historically accurate reenactment but an act of filmmaking creativity, it succeeds wonderfully.
2. The Prestige (2006): The Prestige is Christopher Nolan’s much-overlooked masterpiece. It never quite garnered the critical praise and cult following of Memento and never came close to becoming as popular as the monster known as The Dark Knight. Yet I think it is, even if only slightly, my favorite Nolan film to date. I found The Prestige to be so complex and so ingenious that it was the film I choose to do a six-page analysis on for my intro to film class a few years back. Its complexity and ingenuity are derived from its editing, its unorthodox time structure, its characters, its psychology, and ultimately from its excellent blending of form and content. As is usual for Nolan, the lead characters are less-than-admirable: they are obsessively ambitious, sometimes boarding on the psychotic. And it is the editing that allows Nolan to confuse his audience by messing with time and by throwing them into all sorts of blind alleys. This is as much of a film about deceiving the audience as it is about characters that deceive for a living. The question is: “Are you watching closely?”
1. The Lord of the Rings (2001) (2002) (2003): The Star Wars of my generation, The Lord of the Rings trilogy goes down in my book as the greatest filmmaking achievement of the decade. I can still claim to this day that watching the Fellowship of the Ring for the first time in December of 2001 is the single greatest movie experience of my life. It was unexpected, it was unprecedented, it changed my life.
Thanks to the genius of Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh, Howard Shore, Weta Workshop, Weta Digital, and many others, nearly every aspect of LOTR was top tier. The acting was solid through and through; the musical score was one of the best ever; the special effects—CGI as well as the use of models—were ahead of its time; the writing was inspiring; the cinematography was grand; and the story (much thanks to the author) was epic.
Having never read the LOTR books prior to viewing the film, in a matter of three hours I had been converted into a LOTR nerd. I would soon come to read the books, learn about a man named Tolkien, study the mythology behind his world, and kiss his grave while studying abroad in Oxford, England. Although in many ways my film tastes have changed since that time—now favoring more psychologically and philosophically driven films over grand epics—no film has affected my life more than LOTR. And there is no film that I am looking forward to more than The Hobbit, set to release in the Winter of 2011, a full decade after its predecessor. One can only hope that it will be half as great.
Honorable Mention:
The Bourne Trilogy
School of Rock
Napoleon Dynamite
Catch Me If You Can
Signs
No Country For Old Men
Films of the Decade: 10-6
10. Gladiator (2000): My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next. Few lines make the hair on the back of my neck stand up as much as this one. Gladiator actually succeeds at doing that quite frequently. This is an exceedingly powerful revenge tale that takes place at the end of the Golden Age of Rome, an age that was, according to Edward Gibbon, unparalleled. As far as historical epics go, Gladiator is unparalleled. Though try as they might in the upcoming Robin Hood, it will be immensely difficult for Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe to match the beauty and grandeur of their first masterpiece.
9. Memento (2000): This is the film where Christopher Nolan has so eloquently decided to diagnose his audience with Anterograde Amnesia, the very disease that the lead character suffers from. Although plenty of directors had messed around with time before, I am not aware of anything quite like this prior to the release of Memento. The reason for this, I would guess, is not because it had never been thought of before, but because no one thought it could work. The idea seems absurd: Nolan has quite literally taken a sequence of chronological scenes and played them in reverse order. But what sort of story could merit such a jarring form? How about a story about someone with a memory disorder? Brilliant. Content beautifully blended with form equals winner.
8. Kill Bill (2003) (2004): I would want to kill Bill too if he did to me what he does to the lead character, __________ (Uma Thurman), in this Quentin Tarantino homage-to-the-70’s kung-fu extravaganza. Once you meet him, however, Bill doesn’t seem like such a bad guy. He is actually quite likeable and the more you get to know him, the more you become surprised (as surprised as __________) that Bill would be capable of such an evil act. That is what I have come to expect from Tarantino: characters that are as unpredictable as the plot itself. Another thing I have come to expect from a Tarantino film is style. And let’s just say he delivers. Featuring an atom bombs worth of style—whether in its violence, its colors, its writing, or in its characters—Kill Bill is a gourmet feast for the eyes and for the ears.
7. The Dark Knight (2008): The Dark Knight is a comic book movie, right? Then how come it doesn’t feel like one? Probably because Christopher Nolan has done such a remarkable job at meshing comic book content with the classic crime-drama formula. His dedication to creating a gritty, nasty, brutally real world pays off wonderfully, delivering one excellent film that just so happens to be about Batman. It also contains one of the greatest opening sequences I have ever seen on film. And, of course, I don’t think I need to comment too extensively on Heath Ledger’s performance. Much has already been said about it. But I will say this: when AFI releases an updated version of their top 100 heroes and villains list, they would do well to place Ledger’s Joker toward the top. He gets my vote for the greatest performance of the decade.
6. The Departed (2006): A fast paced crime-drama, The Departed gives us an entangled web of complex relationships that sets us up for one hell of a ride. A grungy kid from the back streets of Boston is hired to work undercover for the cops by infiltrating the Irish Mob while the Mob sends one of their own—a well-groomed, trustworthy, officer—into cop land. Both sides know there’s a rat. Both attempt to weed him out. But how? Blood. Sweat. And laughs. Yes, laughs. All of it taking place in Irish Catholic Boston, accents and all. This is Scorsese at his best.
Films of the Decade: 15-11
15. A Knight’s Tale (2001): A Knight’s Tale is one of a kind. It’s a highly romanticized medieval (fairy) tale that is charming, comical, and just plain silly. It never takes itself too seriously (coughsoundtrackcoughcough) and it certainly never pretends to be historically plausible. And yet it still manages to create a world that is, visually speaking, quite believable (although a medieval scholar would probably tell me otherwise). The film also introduced me to two of my current favorite actors—Paul Bettany and Heath Ledger—who are predictably excellent as Geoffrey Chaucer and a young peasant striving to change his stars.
14. The Hangover (2009): What a great idea for a film. Take a group of guys to Vegas, get them extremely drunk, but only film the aftereffects. This leaves the audience as unaware of what transpired during the wild and wacky night as the characters themselves. Then reveal, piece by hilarious piece, what happened via the visible consequences of those actions. Great premise, great delivery. This film made by stomach hurt. One of the best laugh-out-loud comedies of the decade.
13. Blood Diamond (2006): Blood Diamond does two things well: it entertains and it informs. Hopefully this film will at least make individuals who are planning on purchasing diamonds a little more self-aware of their financial transactions. Personally, I would hope it does more. I hope it makes people cynical of the entire Western glamour façade. Not likely. With that aside, this film qua film is great. Its pacing is excellent, its actions scenes are thrilling, and its characters are passionate. Some may be put-off by Leonardo DiCaprio’s African accent, but I would suggest that that’s only because they aren’t use to that sort of sound coming from his mouth. And Djimon Hounsou’s performance is so powerful and intense that you quite literally believe that the veins on his head are going to burst.
12. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004): Charlie Kaufman, the writer and auteur of Eternal Sunshine, is a mastermind who doesn’t shy away from using the impossible in order to explore—in completely novel ways—some of the most important, complex, and thought provoking questions that humans have thought to ask. Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? That is the central question of Eternal Sunshine. More broadly, however, it raises questions about the good life and what constitutes it. Is a life in which we have no heartaches a desirable one? Is the erasing of one’s particular memories ever the best possible route one can take? The arguments pull both ways. Furthermore, does the act of erasing our particular memories ever completely erase the overall affect that such experiences had on us? Or will such experiences shine eternally on us, forever shaping who we are, no matter how much we strive to forget, no matter how great our desire is to be someone else? And did I mention that the cinematography and acting is top notch? Well, it is.
11. Little Miss Sunshine (2006): I think the above picture explains the essence of this film more than words can. Little Miss Sunshine is funny, dark, cute, intelligent, cynical, sweet, absurd, and wholly original all at the same time. And when a film embodies so many diverse and seemingly contradictory adjectives, language and description come to an end…
Films of the Decade: 20-16
20. The Incredibles (2004): The Incredibles is not only my favorite animation of the decade—and my favorite of all the Pixar films—I also think it is one of the greatest (and one of the most overlooked) superhero flicks ever made. For me, this film is a breath of fresh air. One of the most ignored aspects of this new and illustrious generation of superhero films is the fact that sometimes animation is preferable to live action. Animation is virtually unlimited in its creative potential because it isn’t held back by the limitations of the camera or by the need to look realistic. The possibilities thus become endless; and if you have the right team for the job (which Pixar always seems to have), live action will not be missed. More films need to follow suit. Oh and did I mention that this is the only Pixar film to date (with the possible exception of Up) to focus its story entirely around humans (albeit super)? Also a plus.
19. Stranger Than Fiction (2006): Is your life a comedy or a tragedy? That’s the question that Stranger Than Fiction continually asks us as we watch Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) struggle to make sense of the voice in his head that has recently begun narrating his life and that has just informed him that he will soon kick the bucket. A second question that the film raises is equally self-reflective: what makes our lives worth living in the first place? What gives our lives meaning, if anything? Crick is an IRS agent whose life is dull, mundane, and fill-in-the-blank with similar cognates. He reminds one of Sisyphus, the ancient king condemned to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down, for eternity. The only difference is that Crick is mortal. And it is not until he finds out about his imminent death that his life seems to acquire meaning. The film features an excellent cast—including one of Ferrell’s greatest performances—and a story that is as unique as it is thoughtful.
18. Harry Potter (2001-2009): I should note that I am primarily talking about the heart of the series: films three, four, and five. These are the films that began exploring darker and more mature themes. The first two films are more children-oriented by comparison and the sixth film felt like a filler for the finale. With that out of the way, I think the Harry Potter films are an excellent artistic achievement: although forced to cut out large portions of the books to conserve time, these films nonetheless succeed in recreating J.K. Rowling’s bizarre wizarding world. The films were also able to draw upon the deep and vast reservoir of British actors, the sort of quality crop that are necessary to make a fantasy genre film believable. Names such as Gary Oldman, Emma Thompson, and Alan Rickman, make for an outstanding cast that add character to the films. Oh, and did I mention that Emma Watson is one of the most gorgeous beings in the universe Oh, I didn’t? Oh, that’s irrelevant to the films’ quality? Sorry.
17. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006): Guillermo del Toro’s El Laberinto del Fauno (the original title did not reference Pan and del Toro himself apparently stated that the faun is not the Greek god of shepherds) is an artistic masterpiece of the highest order. The film is exceedingly dark—featuring one of the most gruesome death scenes I have ever seen on film—but also remarkably beautiful. Del Toro purposely blends real-world scenes with Ofelia’s fantasy-world scenes, forcing his audience to question the lines between the two. Are Ofelia’s fantasies merely the result of a little girls wandering imagination? Or is there more to the world than meets the eye? Or perhaps both are true. Perhaps this is del Toro’s way of showing us that fantasies (myths) don’t have to be literal in order to be real, in order to be true. This film would have been in my top 10 if it had played out a bit differently to the satisfaction of my personal desires (more on that below). But it nevertheless remains a brilliant piece of filmmaking that should not be missed.
SPOILER ALERT!!! After watching the film through twice, I have to admit that I would have preferred that the faun come to life at the end and kill the Captain in the labyrinth. He didn’t need to save Ofelia. It could have been after her death. But I suppose I was really hoping, deep down, that in some way, shape, or form, the fantasy world literally connected with our world. That may have downplayed certain powerful aspects of the film, but as the film progresses, one becomes increasingly convinced that these fantasies really are just the fantasies of a little girl. Del Toro really had the opportunity to throw us for a loop, one that I wish he would have taken. He could have even presented it in such a way that made us question the lines between the two worlds even more. In any event, the thought of the faun ripping the Captain to shreds is a pleasant one.
16. Pineapple Express (2008): For all the taboo that surrounds marijuana in our society, there is something unmistakably funny about the drug culture, especially when it involves Seth Rogen and a very impressive performance by James Franco. The film plays out like a good cat-and-mouse adventure thriller—including some unexpectedly terrific car-chase and shootout scenes—that also finds plenty of time to slow down for some hilarious raunchy and drug-related dialogue. This is just one more film to add to Judd Apatow’s never-ending-greatest-hits catalog.
Films of the Decade: 25-21
Over the next five days I will be documenting my 25 favorite films from the years 2000-2009. All of these films were released during the decade that will come to represent my generation. This was the decade in which I grew through my teen years into adulthood. Based on interaction with older adults, these are the most influential years in a person’s life. This is the time when all of one’s psychological traits (character, tastes, desires, etc.) become solidified. It’s no accident that those of the baby boomer generation reminisce about the golden age of music when The Beatles and Bob Dylan reigned supreme and equally dismiss modern pop-stars such as Taylor Swift and Jay-Z. Oh wait, bad example (anyone, in any age, should prefer the former to the latter because, as a matter of objective fact, they are better). The point is that people have a tendency to latch onto the time and culture in which they became of age. And the decade of 2000 is that time and culture for me.
Let me make a few qualifiers before I get started:
Qualifier 1: Any entry on the list that is made up of multiple films will count simply as one entry. Thus, if Star Wars was included on the list, it would only take up one slot even though all three films would be included in that slot. If I feel the need to make further qualifications, they will be noted in the comments below each entry.
Qualifier 2: I am not a professional film critic. Therefore, the number of films that I have watched in the last ten years will be comparatively limited. It is highly likely that there are some exceptional films that I have not seen that would have been a contender for making this list, had I seen them. So while I have probably seen the majority of wide-release films in the decade that merit consideration—and thus many of the films that ordinary filmgoers care about—there are undoubtedly many independent and foreign films (and a few obscure wide-release films) that went under my radar. The downside of this is that there won’t be many unique movie suggestions. The upside is that readers will actually have seen many of the movies on the list and thus will be able to relate by agreeing or disagreeing. All too often I come across a professional critic’s top-movie list in which I haven’t even heard of half of the listed films, let alone seen them.
Qualifier 3: These are my favorite films of the decade. They are not necessarily the greatest films of the decade. The greatest films are usually those that break new ground by uprooting our expectations as to what a film can and should do (Pulp Fiction, Star Wars). They can also be films that perfect old formulas (Saving Private Ryan, Princess Bride). While I do think some of the films on my list certainly qualify as the greatest of the decade, I have to admit that some of them certainly do not. These films made the list only because they are personal favorites of mine. That is, I recognize that these films do not meet a certain set of objective criteria for greatness even though they do satisfy my subjective tastes. Ultimately, there are very few hard and fast lines between objective standards and subjective tastes: the weight we place on certain objective standards is itself going to be subjective. But I don’t think wholesale relativism is the correct answer either. But I’ll stop with the philosophy and get on to the list.
25. The Count of Monte Cristo (2002): When done right, revenge tales can be extremely satisfying. To say the least, Kevin Reynolds’ The Count of Monte Cristo is done right. We are given a likeable, innocent, uneducated protagonist, Edmund Dantes (James Caviezel), who is on top of the world: he has just recently been promoted to first mate of his ship and as a result has enough financial security to marry his girlfriend. Unfortunately for Dantes, his world is soon turned upside down through no fault of his own. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, becoming the victim of political conflict. From prison he plots his revenge and is finally given the opportunity from an unexpected and unlikely source. Monte Cristo gives us a gripping story, intriguing characters, a satisfying reversal of power, and the promise of oh-so-sweet revenge.
24. Dan In Real Life (2007): Dan In Real Life is the sole representative of the romantic comedy on this list. Boasting a beautiful soundtrack by Sondre Lerche and an unexpectedly down-to-earth performance by Steve Carell, this is one of the sweetest, homeliest, feel-good films of the decade. Dan is a widower struggling to raise three girls: the youngest never had a chance to know her mother, the middle child is an adolescent passionately in love with her first boyfriend, and the oldest is desperately seeking her driver’s license. Dan is overprotective of his daughters and it is not until he meets Marie, an attractive French woman, that he learns a few lessons about his own shortcomings and how love can make you feel and act like a teenager.
23. Moon (2009): I actually just found this gem a few weeks back and hope that its recentness isn’t the only reason why it made the list. Regardless, this is a great indie sci-fi flick about a man (Sam Rockwell) who has been given the sole task of controlling and maintaining a station on the Moon that provides the earth with vast amounts of energy. He is all alone but is kept sane by a talking robot and by videos that are occasionally sent to him of his wife and child. The film begins with his three-year mission almost at an end. Only two weeks remain before he returns home. I’m an ideas-man and this is a film about ideas. It’s a film that raises my favorite sorts of questions: metaphysical, epistemological, and moral ones. And that’s really all I can ask for.
22. The Last Samurai (2003): Is it historically accurate? Not exactly. Is it highly romanticized? Most definitely. But is it exceedingly beautiful? Without question. While The Last Samurai has some excellent action sequences, what really makes Edward Zwick’s epic so exceptional is its depiction of nineteenth-century samurai culture. The film features some of the most breathtakingly gorgeous, serene landscapes, and a musical score that will transfer you into that world. This is a world of stillness, of peace, of bliss, of tranquility, and of honor. The Japanese samurai are as beautiful as the environment: their way of life mirrors the world around them. Like the lead character, Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), I cannot help but feel envious of them. Western society looks barbaric and unworthy of life in comparison. Although this world is an idealization—it would likely never be that beautiful in the real world—I suspect that if heaven exists, it looks a bit like the one depicted in this film.
21. Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) (2006) (2007): I love pirates (not the Somali variety) and I love skeleton pirates even more. Most of all, I love wobbly, drunken, Keith-Richards inspired pirates who tie their back hair to the backs of sea turtles in order to escape from deserted islands. That sentence sums up the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy in a nutshell: it is an exciting adventure on the high seas that is both hilarious and dominated by Johnny Depp’s performance. I don’t think that there is any question that Captain Jack Sparrow is one of the most original and enjoyable characters of the decade. It’s not all about Depp, however. The world itself is a wonder to behold and the navy battles are among the best I have seen on film. Best of all, Pirates is just fun, fun, and more fun. One might say it is fun incarnate.
The Last Word
Here are a few lengthy quotes by my favorite thinker, Thomas Nagel. All of these quotes are taken from his book The Last Word. In the book he tackles a view that he calls subjectivism, which is his word for global relativism, or the view that there is nothing that can help ground our objective claims about the world. According to the subjectivist, every truth-claim that we make about the world is relative to one context or another: relative to a particular person, community, nation, culture, species, and so on. On this view, there are no universals, only particulars. For instance, my claim that X is true can only be analyzed in terms of the relativistic categories just mentioned. X can only be true relative to myself, to the culture I live in, to the human species, etc. Thus, X can never just be true, or more precisely, it can never be universally true. This is one of the oldest and most fundamental problems in Western philosophy and Nagel aligns himself strongly with the rationalist tradition (Plato, Descartes). Like his predecessors, he argues that reason has the last word in this debate and that it has it necessarily. In other words, there are some things that are universal—certain logical or mathematical principles for instance—that are needed to even make thought possible. Reason itself is thus not subject to context. As usual, Nagel’s language is grounded in his divide between the objective and subjective (or outer and inner) conceptions that we have of the world and ourselves.
Reason as mysteriously universal
Reason, if there is such a thing, can serve as a court of appeal not only against the received opinions and habits of our community but also against the peculiarities of our personal perspective. It is something each individual can find within himself, but at the same time it has universal authority. Reason provides, mysteriously, a way of distancing oneself from common opinion and received practices that is not a mere elevation of individuality–not a determination to express one’s idiosyncratic self rather than go along with everyone else. Whoever appeals to reason purports to discover a source of authority within himself that is not merely personal or societal, but universal–and that should also persuade others who are willing to listen to it…
What seems permanently puzzling about the phenomenon of reason, and what makes it so difficult to arrive at a satisfactory attitude toward it, is the relation it establishes between the particular and the universal. If there is such a thing as reason, it is a local activity of finite creatures that somehow enables them to make contact with universal truths, often of infinite range.
What Descartes really showed us about reason
I would explain the point of Descartes’ cogito this way. It reveals a limit to the kind of self-criticism that begins when one looks at oneself from the outside and considers the ways in which one’s convictions might have been produced by causes which fail to justify or validate them. What is revealed in this process of progressively destructive criticism is the unavoidability of reliance on a faculty that generates and understands all the skeptical possibilities. Epistemological skepticism, like selective relativism, is not possible without implicit reliance on the capacity for rational thought: It proceeds by the rational identification of logical possibilities compatible with the evidence, between which reason does not permit us to choose. Thus the skeptic gradually reaches a conception of himself as located in a world whose relation to him he cannot penetrate. But skepticism that is the product of an argument cannot be total. In the cogito the reliance on reason is made explicit, revealing a limit to this type of doubt. The true philosophical point consists not in Descartes’ conclusion that he exists (a result much more limited than he subsequently relies on), not even in the discovery of something absolutely certain. Rather, the point is that Descartes reveals that there are some thoughts which we cannot get outside of…
There are some types of thoughts that we cannot avoid simply having—that it is strictly impossible to consider merely from the outside, because they enter inevitably and directly into any process of considering ourselves from the outside, allowing us to construct the conception of a world in which, as a matter of objective fact, we and our subjective impressions are contained.
Understanding our limits
Thought always leads us back to the employment of unconditional reason if we try to challenge it globally, because one can’t criticize something with nothing; and one can’t criticize the more fundamental with the less fundamental. Logic cannot be displaced by anthropology. Arithmetic cannot be displaced by sociology, or by biology. Neither can ethics, in my view. I believe that once the category of thoughts that we cannot get outside of is recognized, the range of examples turns out to be quite wide…
Thought itself has priority over its description, because its description necessarily involves thought. The use of language has priority over its analysis, because the analysis of language necessarily involves its use. And in general, every external view of ourselves, every understanding of the contingency of our makeup and our responses as creatures in the world, has to be rooted in immediate first-order thought about the world. However successfully we may get outside of ourselves in certain respects, thereby subjecting ourselves to doubt, criticism, and revision, all of it must be done by some part of us that we haven’t got outside of, which simply has the thoughts, draws the inferences, forms the beliefs, makes the statements.
The Gospel of Thomas: Gnosticism or Early Christian Mysticism?
Link to an article in the recent issue of BAR:
What’s Up with the Gospel of Thomas by April DeConick
Excerpt:
The type of religiosity found in the Gospel of Thomas is not all that unusual. You can find references to it in Biblical and nonbiblical literature. It is nothing more than an early Christian expression of mysticism that developed out of an earlier, apocalyptically oriented Christianity that wished for the immediate end of the world. When the end didn’t happen, the Christians were forced to rethink and rewrite their cherished apocalyptic teachings…
We can even locate this mystical form of Christianity historically. It is a form that developed in eastern Syria in the late first and early second centuries, a form of Christianity that was an heir to early Jewish mystical traditions and a precursor to later Eastern Orthodoxy. I think that Thomas’s “place” in early Christianity was misidentified originally not because it represents a type of Christianity unfamiliar to the canonical tradition or deviant from it. The Gospel of Thomas was wrongly identified at first because Western theological interests controlled its interpretation within a Western Christian framework that could not explain its unfamiliar, mystical structure. Yet we now know—in part from manuscript discoveries like the Nag Hammadi collection—that there was a multiplicity of groups, beliefs and traditions in the diverse early Christian communities. Scholars who misunderstood the Gospel of Thomas mislabeled it as Gnostic in order to lump it together with other traditions they thought to be strange, heretical and late.
Bible In Five Statements
I would like to give a shout-out to Kristen who tagged me. Here’s the task I was given:
Summarize the Bible in five statements (fifteen words). The first statement – one word long, the second two, the third three, the fourth four and the last five words long. Or possibly you could do this in descending order. Tag five people.
I don’t tag people so ignore that last part.
My first attempt:
Contradictory
Obviously false
Horribly mistaken dogma
Why believe this nonsense?
Seriously, who believes this crap?
I felt something was a bit off however, so I decided to give it another shot. My second attempt:
Diverse
Exceedingly influential
Misunderstood for generations
Historically unreliable, theologically brilliant
Should the canon be closed?
Conservapedia and the Conservative Bible?
So apparently Conservapedia has decided to construct there own version of the Bible. Their argument and motivation for doing this goes something like this. Bible translators are, by and large, university professors. The majority of university professors are political liberals. Therefore, the Bible has been shaped over the years by politically liberal attitudes. The aim of Conservapedia then is to combat this liberal influence by constructing a more conservative-oriented translation.
Those not familiar with the issues involved in biblical translation might wonder how translators could shape the text in such a way so as to promote their own political agendas. So let me address a couple of those issues that translators face and where Conservapedia thinks they have gone wrong.
First, there is the problem of deciding which English words to use in place of their Greek or Hebrew (original) counterparts. This is a problem any translator faces of any text, whether they are translating Spanish to German, German to Greek, or Greek to English. Conservapedia blames “defective” Bible translations for using various liberal-biased wordings. For instance, instead of combating harmful addictions by using the word “gamble,” some translations use “cast lots.” This and various other changes of a similar sort are unconvincing, however. For one, it is not the job of a translator to combat addictions. For two, if the purpose of using “gamble” instead of “cast lots” is to combat addictions, that is clear evidence that one’s language choice is based upon the promotion of a particular contemporary agenda. Thus, far from solving the problem that they set out to solve, Conservapedia is actually just adding to it. And third, would the use of “gamble” really help combat addictions? If we replaced “cast lots” with “gambling,” this would seem to promote rather than condemn gambling in light of the fact that the people of God do this quite frequently in the OT.
Another “corruption” said to be contained within some modern translations involves the usage of gender inclusive language, such as “brothers and sisters” instead of “brothers” or “fisher for people” instead of “fisher for men.” (One might wonder why Conservapedia would so readily admit that the fight for gender equality that lies behind the decision to use gender-inclusive language was and is a fight instigated by liberals). For my part, I have no problem with including or excluding gender-inclusive language. Excluding it is certainly more faithful to a literal translation of the text, but then again, including it doesn’t affect much of anything, especially if the translators make note of when they are using it (as any good study Bible does). I should also mention here that Paul often uses “brothers” when referring to his congregations. But even he likely means “brother and sisters” seeing as he taught equality between the sexes in all facets of life. So in these instances, the gender-inclusive language is probably a more accurate rendering.
The second problem translators face is the problem of deciding what the original biblical manuscripts actually contained. For instance, we have over five thousand different NT manuscripts, some consisting of entire books, others consisting of small, hand-sized fragments. The problem is that these manuscripts are not the originals but copies of copies of copies, and so on. To compound the problem, these manuscripts do not agree with one another. When scribes copied these manuscripts, they often made unintentional mistakes and intentional changes. Translators have the difficult task of looking through all of these manuscripts and attempting to determine what the originals looked like and what later scribes added or subtracted. So when creating modern Bible translations, the translators have to make a decision whether or not to include a number of disputed passages. Any respectable Bible (usually study bibles) will always footnote or bracket the disputed passages.
Conservapedia’s claim is that liberal scholars encourage some of these disputed passages by including them in their translations. To use an example cited by Conservapedia, Luke 23:34a is a quote by Jesus that he says while looking down upon the crowd from the cross. The words are well known: “Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” This passage, they claim, is disputed and not found in some of our earliest manuscripts. That is true. But they then go on to claim that this passage is a favorite among liberals but don’t cite any evidence for this being the case or for why this would even be the case. Presumably, this is a favorite among liberals because it seems to support the view that people are ignorant of their evil deeds and should therefore be shown mercy and perhaps given a second chance. Of course, this is just silly. If liberals want to support that view using the Bible, they have plenty of other undisputed verses to choose from, many of them coming from the same author of the book of Luke. (cf. Acts 3:17; 7:60; 13:27; 17:30 for other instances of pardonable ignorance. It should be noted that the theme of pardonable ignorance found in Acts and the general character of Jesus found in Luke are actually arguments in favor of the authenticity of Luke 23:34a. Not to mention, this passage is found in some of our early manuscripts and may just as likely have been deleted by later scribes as it was added).
In any event, why is Conservapedia combating what they see as a form of deception (including disputed passages) by using a form of their own (not including the disputed passages)? Why not do what most study bibles do with disputed passages: mark them with a footnote or bracket and tell the reader that this or that passage is disputed.
One of the major problems of this entire project is the fact that it is not conducted by learned scholars who have worked with these various manuscripts for decades, who have studied the required ancient languages for decades, and who have conversed with one another for decades. Rather, this is a project conducted purely by amateurs: amateurs who will have to construct their newly revised conservative translation either by relying on the very English translations that they despise (which would be ironic) or by heavily utilizing Strong’s concordance.
As Timothy Paul Jones—professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky—put it, this is merely a misguided effort to read contemporary politics back into the text by a group of individuals “who have probably never looked at an actual ancient manuscript.”
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