Wandering Elder

I am a big fan of the Star Wars movies/universe.  I look with great excitement towards the next installment of the movie series in December.  And as popular as Star Wars is, especially with the excitement about the new movie on its way, I find that my enjoyment of the Star Wars mythology is as much philosophical as it is from the entertainment of the movies themselves. In particular, I have found that a recurring question pops into my head as I watch the movies - especially the original three.  The question is this: why do the Jedi live such solitary existences?  Of course the obvious answer lies in Episode III where the Jedi are infiltrated and betrayed not only by Darth Vader, but by the machinations of the politically ambitious Emperor Palpatine who has been maneuvering the Jedi towards destruction for a long, long time.  After the Empire turns on the Jedi, they become hunted people.  Hence the need to live in isolation. But is that it?  I under...

I would like to take this opportunity to provide a review to Richard Hays' book Reading Backwards  which is published through Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014.  It isn't a huge tome through which one has to slog, but it does contain a very interesting reading of the Bible.  My complete review was about 28 pages long, so an abbreviation is appropriate.  I would certainly encourage you to read Hays' book.  I would be happy to talk more about it at length. As I read Richard Hays’ book Reading Backwards , I found myself to be puzzled by his terminology and proposed method.   His basic argument is that Jesus is prefigured in the Old Testament, and that the Old Testament is to be “figurally” read as the manger; the law and the prophets as the cloths in which he was wrapped. [1]   The language he is using is Luther, [2] but Hays point is this:   “Only if we frame the question this way, only if we embrace figural interpretation, can we make sense of...

Well, the Fantastic Four are about to hit the screen...again.  Good luck to you, First Family of the Marvel Universe! I have been a fan of the Marvel Universe for a long time.  When I started getting comic books, I found I was more drawn to Marvel than to DC, not that I thought DC was inferior.  I was just hooked into the Marvel Universe far more deeply than with DC. As such, these last few years have been good for Marvel fans.  The movies that have been produced have been spectacular - mostly, anyway.  But I have found that the great specter of money and politics have gotten involved in the Marvel Universe (cinematic), and it kind of makes me cringe. For example, the studio that owns the right to the Avengers doesn't own the right to X-Men, and subsequently can't use the word mutant.   The sad thing, though, is that while studios have this or that right to this or that character, Marvel fans know  their universe and recognize that in order to te...