Friday, December 30, 2016

Authorship and Dating of the Gospels


Before my father (John H. Jakob) passed away in 2011, he spent a number of months (years?) doing research and working on a paper with another gentleman (Bill Hallinan, Phoenix, AZ). 

The paper deals with the question of authorship and dating of the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke).

Yes, this is a tribute to my dad's legacy. But it is also an important, interesting topic that deserves to be more widely publicized. 

As you might know, many contemporary authors now believe the synoptic gospels were written in the period 65 - 80 AD.  My father's paper points out that this is simply not correct.  Dad's and Bill's paper provides evidence (and plenty of evidence, I might add) demonstrating the gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke themselves -- within approximately 10-15 years of Our Lord's death.

Recently I obtained the text of the document, and using OCR software extracted the contents into a word-processing format.  The new format makes the document easier to manage and update going forward.   Also, I have been in-touch with the other author, Bill Hallinan, and have secured his approval for distributing the new format.

For reference only, Here is a link to the OLD article in its (now obsolete) format:   http://authorshipdatingsynopticgospels.com/


Here is a link to the article in its newest, updated format:   http://www.zgrafsoftware.com/AuthorshipAndDating/AUTHORSHIP_AND_DATING.pdf






 

Monday, December 26, 2016

On St. Faustina






I think Sr. Faustina had it right a long time ago.  There are some strong words buried in a little verse in her chaplet:

Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

My goodness.  Not sure if a human being could offer a more perfect prayer...  

Yes, we offer ourselves, our lives.  But it's not enough -- because we are sinful...

So we offer Jesus.  And we offer the Body and Blood. It's Eucharistic.

It's not enough to pray for oneself or one's community.  That's too narrow-minded.  So we pray for the whole world.


St. Faustina is now on-track to become a doctor of the church.  Let's hope it goes well. One can learn more about Sr. Faustina and the Divine Mercy here:

http://www.thedivinemercy.org/library/article.php?NID=5198

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Santa Fe, Guadalupe



This is a short little video called "Santa Fe".

It's a short meditation with pictures and a piano / instrumental accompaniment. It includes a few famous expressions of faith appearing the gospels.

Santa Fe





Also, a little instrumental called "Guadalupe" composed in 2003 or 2004.

Musically and performance-wise, there's some stuff that needs to be reworked and cleaned up. There could be more instrumental variety in places, for example. And I made some sloppy mixing choices.

But I probably won't get around to doing anything for a while. So it's kind of a "work-in-progress".

Mary thank you for being my mother and for being patient with me. Lord Jesus forgive me for all my sins...

https://www.soundclick.com/html5/v4/player.cfm?songID=13757847




A Welcome Without Words...



Well, this is the first post.  I could try to say something.  But perhaps it would be better just to listen and ponder...