R.W. Holmen's Blog: Spirit of a Liberal, page 7

Kindle, iPad, Nook & more; will eBooks rule the world?

The Amazon Kindle has long been the leader in the eBook revolution, but Apple's rollout of the iPad in the past few months has heightened awareness of the eBook phenomenon.  For the uninitiated who haven't been paying attention, eBook reading devices (such as Kindle, iPad, Nook, etc.) allow users to read books in electronic format.  Poppycock, you say?  A passing fad?  For better or worse, the answer is a resounding no, and the major publishing houses are scared to death, and recent news...

Flattering reviews

Two new reviews of my novel, A Wretched Man, came in over the weekend.  Both offered 5 star ratings.  Here are snippets and links.

Leola Harris, aka "Tea", offered this from "I Love to Read":

a stupendous novel about Paul, The Apostle …The book is beautifully written full of descriptions of the Holy Land's landscape and Agriculture … made me read further, stop reading, begin reading and so on throughout the book. My mind was being cleared for new knowledge vs. old knowledge …I questioned and...

We get letters, we get stacks and stacks of letters

Is it a mixed metaphor to apply Perry Como's jingle from the fifties to emails?  Who is Perry Como you ask?  Whatever.

My novel, A Wretched Man, has been out for four months, and I'm beginning to accumulate reader's comments.  One reader even called my cell phone one morning to suggest he had just finished the book at his lake cabin, and he wanted me to know how much he enjoyed it. 

Here's a sampling of email comments:

Anna said,

I am truly enjoying the novel!  I think you did an outstanding job...

Book Review: The Bible and Homosexual Practice by Robert Gagnon

Author Robert Gagnon has parlayed his best selling 2001 treatise into a role as theological spokesman par excellence on behalf of the conservative camps within the various mainline Christian denominations concerning LGBT issues.  With bona fide scholarly credentials behind his conservative argumentation (B.A. degree from Dartmouth College, an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary), he provides the intellectual cover for those who oppose gay...

What did Paul the Apostle look like?

Last year an ancient watercolor of Paul was discovered in Rome, and last week it was announced that laser cleaning of the same 4th century catacomb revealed ancient icons of other disciples.  On the left is the watercolor of Paul and on the right is the icon of Peter.

These discoveries raise the question, what did the apostle Paul look like? The answer, of course, is that we don't know.  Neither his own writings nor the Acts of the Apostles, the two canonical sources of information about the ...

Novel study guide

Numerous purchasers of A Wretched Man novel have asked about a study guide suitable for group discussions.  In response, I have prepared a five page pdf document that offers numerous questions, section by section.  Some questions are simple (discuss the Aramaic or Greek names of the characters) and others are designed to be open-ended and thought-provoking (think of the times in your life when you felt the presence of God.  Do you think your experience was similar to or different from Paul's ...

Paul the apostle: a view from down under

I happened upon a Catholic forum from Australia (Catholica—a global conversation) that appears to have pretty heady theological discussions.  The post I found was written by Ian Elmer, and I note a lengthy list of contributions by this Pauline scholar. 

The lengthy article summarized Paul's personal history with a view toward understanding the source of his insight, especially since he was not an original follower of Jesus and only became so after the crucifixion.  To what extent did Paul...

Saint and sinner: Paul as human being

Paul is the protagonist of my novel, which is to say, he is the main character.  He is neither hero nor villain but thoroughly human with flaws and foibles like the rest of us.  He fights externally with James and the Jerusalem establishment and internally with his own perceived sinfulness.  He can rise to the heroic in his defense of the outsider as a child of God, but he also descends to the despotic in cursing those who disagree with "his gospel".

In the past couple of days, I have come...

Book Review: The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

Published in 1979, The Gnostic Gospels has received the National Book Award and has become the leading work regarding the Nag Hammadi texts discovered in 1945, and Pagels is recognized as a preeminent authority on these Coptic language, gnostic flavored texts.

Although discovered in 1945, the texts remained outside public purview for many years due to scholarly and governmental squabbling over access.  When western scholars finally obtained access to the discoveries, Pagels was entering...

Latest Review of "A Wretched Man" published

The Historical Novel Society is highly respected in the field of historical fiction.  They offer an online presence and also publish two prestigious print magazines, The Historical Novels Review (quarterly), and Solander (twice yearly).  Thus, I am delighted to report that they have offered a very favorable review of my work,  A Wretched Man, a novel of Paul the Apostle.

Here is their review, verbatim:

In A Wretched Man, Holmen remains faithful to the historical origins of Christianity in the...