Newsweek Magazine The Bible So Misunderstood Its a Sin By Kurt Eichenwald On 122314 at 654 AM The good book is so misquoted its a sin Maelle Doliveux for Newsweek Culture They wave their Bibles at passersby screaming their condemnations of homosexuals They fall on their knees worshipping at the base of granite monuments to the Ten Commandments while demanding prayer in school They appeal to God to save America from their political opponents mostly Democrats They gather in football stadiums by the thousands to pray for the countrys salvation They are Gods frauds cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which Bible verses they heed with less care than they exercise in selecting side orders for lunch They are joined by religious rationalizersfundamentalists who unable to find Scripture supporting their biases and beliefs twist phrases and modify translations to prove they are honoring the Bibles words This is no longer a matter of personal or private faith With politicians social leaders and even some clergy invoking a book they seem to have never read and whose phrases they dont understand America is being besieged by Biblical illiteracy Climate change is said to be impossible because of promises God made to Noah Mosaic law from the Old Testament directs American government creationism should be taught in schools helping Syrians resist chemical weapons attacks is a sign of the end timesall of these arguments have been advanced by modern evangelical politicians and their brethren yet none of them The Bible is not the book many American fundamentalists and political opportunists think it is or more precisely what they want it to be Their lack of knowledge about the Bible is well established A Pew Research poll in 2010 found that evangelicals ranked only a smidgen higher than atheists in familiarity with the New Testament and Jesuss teachings Americans revere the Biblebut by and large they dont read it wrote George Gallup Jr and Jim Castelli pollsters and researchers whose work focused on religion in the United States The Barna Group a Christian polling firm found in 2012 that Newsweeks exploration here of the Bibles history and meaning is not intended to advance a particular theology or debate the existence of God Rather it is designed to shine a light on a book that has been abused by people who claim to revere it but dont read it in the process creating misery for others When the illiteracy of selfproclaimed Biblical literalists leads parents to banish children from their homes when it sets neighbor against neighbor when it engenders hate and condemnation when it impedes science and undermines intellectual advancement the topic has become too important for Americans to ignore This examinationbased in large part on the works of scores of theologians and scholars some of which dates back centuriesis a review of the Bibles history and a recounting of its words It is only through accepting where the Bible comes from and who put it togetherthat anyone can comprehend what historys most important book says and just as important what it does not say Moses carries the ten commandment tablets Ken WelshDesignPicscom Sign up for our Newsletter Update your preferences Playing Telephone with the Word of God No television preacher has ever read the Bible Neither has any evangelical politician Neither has the pope Neither have I And neither have you At best weve all read a bad translationa translation of translations of translations of handcopied copies of copies of copies of copies and on and on hundreds of times About 400 years passed between the writing of the first Christian manuscripts and their compilation into the New Testament Thats the same amount of time between the arrival of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and today The first books of the Old Testament were written 1000 years before that In other words some 1500 years passed between the day the first biblical author put stick to clay and when the books that would become the New Testament were chosen There were no printing presses beforehand or until 1000 years later There were no vacuumsealed technologies to preserve paper for centuries Back then writings from one era could be passed to the next only by copying them by hand While there were professional scribes whose lives were dedicated to this grueling work they did not start copying the letters and testaments about Jesuss time until centuries after they were written Prior to that amateurs handled the job These manuscripts were originally written in Koiné or common Greek and not all of the amateur copyists spoke the language or were even fully literate Some copied the script without understanding the words And Koiné was written in what is known as scriptio continua meaning no spaces between words and no punctuation So a sentence like weshouldgoeatmom could be interpreted as We should go eat Mom or We should go eat Mom Sentences can have different meaning depending on where the spaces are placed For example godisnowhere could be God is now here or God is nowhere None of this mattered for centuries because Christians were certain God had guided the hand not only of the original writers but also of all those copyists But in the past 100 years or so tens of thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament have been discovered dating back centuries And what biblical scholars now know is that later versions of the books differ significantly from earlier ones in fact even copies from the same time periods differ from each other There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament says Dr Bart D Ehrman a groundbreaking biblical scholar and professor at the University of North Carolina who has written many books on the New Testament Most of those discrepancies are little more than the handwritten equivalent of a typo but that error was then included by future scribes There were also minor changes made by literate scribes centuries after the manuscripts were written because of what they decided were flaws in the accounts they were recopying For example an early version of Luke 316 in the New Testament said John answered saying to all of them The problem was that no one had asked John anything so a fifth century scribe fixed that by changing the words to John knowing what they were thinking said But this discussion is about something much more important than whether some scribe in the Middle Ages decided God had not been paying attention while guiding the hand of Luke Indeed there are significant differences in copies that touch on far more profound issues Scribes added whole sections of the New Testament and removed words and sentences that contradicted emerging orthodox beliefs Take one of the most famous tales from the New Testament which starts in John 753 A group of Pharisees and others bring a woman caught committing adultery to Jesus Under Mosaic Lawthe laws of Moses handed down in the Old Testamentshe must be stoned to death The Pharisees ask Jesus whether the woman should be released or killed hoping to force him to choose between honoring Mosaic Law and his teachings of forgiveness Jesus replies He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone The group leaves and Jesus tells the woman to sin no Texas Gov Rick Perry gives a closing address at The Response an event at Reliant Stadium that drew roughly 30000 people in Houston on Aug 6 2011 Erika RichThe Daily TexanAP Its a powerful story known even by those with just a passing knowledge of the Bible It was depicted in Mel Gibsons movie The Passion of the Christ and is often used to point out the hypocrisy of Christians who denounce what they perceive to be the sins of others Unfortunately John didnt write it Scribes made it up sometime in the Middle Ages It does not appear in any of the three other Gospels or in any of the early Greek versions of John Even if the Gospel of John is an infallible telling of the history of Jesuss ministry the event simply never happened Moreover according to Ehrman the writing style for that story is different from the rest of John and the section includes phrases For Pentecostal Christians an important section of the Bible appears in the Gospel of Mark 161718 These verses say that those who believe in Jesus will speak in tongues and have extraordinary powers such as the ability to cast out demons heal the sick and handle snakes Pentecostal ministers often babble incomprehensible sounds proclaimingbased in part on these verses in Markthat the noises they are making show that the Holy Spirit is in them Its also a primary justification for the emergence of the Pentecostal snakehandlers But once again the verses came from a creative scribe long after the Gospel of Mark was written In fact the earliest versions of Mark stop at 168 Its an awkward ending with three women who have gone to the tomb where Jesus was laid after the Crucifixion encountering a man who tells them to let the disciples know that the resurrected Jesus will see them in Galilee The women flee the tomb and neither said they any thing to any man for they were afraid In early copies of the original Greek writings thats it The 12 verses that follow in modern BiblesJesus appearing to Mary Magdalene and the Disciples and then ascending to Heavenare not there A significant moment that would be hard to forget one would think The same is true for other critical portions of the Bible such as 1 John 57 For there are three that bear record in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one Luke 2220 Likewise also the cup after supper saying This cup is the new testament in my blood which is shed for you and Luke 2451 And it came to pass while he blessed them he was parted from them and carried up into heaven These first appeared in manuscripts used by the translators who created the King James Bible but are These are not the only parts of the Bible that appear to have been added much later There are many many morein fact far more than can be explored without filling up the next several issues of Newsweek Hands of poll workers are seen on a Bible as head precinct judge Deloris ReidSmith reads the voters oath to poll workers before opening the polls at the Grove Presbyterian Church in Charlotte North Carolina Nov 4 2014 Chris KeaneReuters Translation Transubstantiation Then comes the problem of accurate translation Many words in New Testament Greek dont have clear English equivalents Sentence structure idioms stylistic differencesall of these are challenges when converting versions of the New Testament books into English And this cant be solved with a Berlitz course Koiné is ancient Greek and not spoken anymore This is why English translations differ with many having been revised to reflect the views and guesses of the modern translators The gold standard of English Bibles is the King James Version completed in 1611 but that was not a translation of the original Greek Instead a Church of England committee relied primarily on Latin manuscripts translated from Greek According to Jason David BeDuhn a professor of religious studies at Northern Arizona University and author of Truth in Translation it was often very hard for the committee to find the correct English words The committee sometimes compared Latin translations with the earlier Greek copies found discrepancies and decided that the Latin versionthe later versionwas correct and the earlier Greek manuscripts were wrong The goal of the translators was to create a Bible that was a gorgeous work that was very accurate in its translation and clear in its meaning but that didnt happen The King James Bible is a beautiful piece of English literature says BeDuhn In terms of the other two goals however this translation falls short For subsequent English Bibles those slightly off translations in King James were then often converted into phrases that most closely fitted the preconceptions of even more translators In other words religious convictions determined translation choices For example προσκυνέω a Greek word used about 60 times in the New Testament equates to something along the lines of to prostrate oneself as well as to praise God That was translated into Latin as adoro which in the King James Bible became worship But those two words dont mean precisely the same thing When the King James Bible was written worship could be As a result throughout the King James Bible people worship many things A slave worships his owner the assembled of Satan worship an angel and Roman soldiers mocking Jesus worship him In each of these instances the word does not mean praise Gods glory or anything like that instead it means to bow or prostrate oneself But English Bibles adopted laterthe New International Bible the New American Standard Bible the Living Bible and so ondropped the word worship when it referenced anyone other than God or Jesus And so each time προσκυνέω appeared in the Greek manuscript regarding Jesus in these newer Bibles he is worshipped but when applied to someone else the exact same word is translated as bow or something similar By translating the same word different ways these modern Bibles are adding a bit of linguistic support to the idea that the people who knew Jesus understood him to be God In other words with a little translational trickery a fundamental tenet of Christianitythat Jesus is Godwas reinforced in the Bible even in places where it directly contradicts the rest of the verse David displaying the head of Goliath to the Jews from the Old Testament circa 1050 BC Hulton ArchiveGetty That kind of manipulation occurs many times In Philippians the King James Version translates some words to designate Jesus as being in the form of God The Greek word for form could simply mean Jesus was in the image of God But the publishers of some Bibles decided to insert their beliefs into translations that had nothing to do with the Greek The Living Bible for example says Jesus was Godeven though modern translators pretty much just invented the words Which raises a big issue for Christians the Trinitythe belief that Jesus and God are the same and with the Holy Spirit are a single entityis a fundamental yet deeply confusing tenet So where does the clear declaration of God and Jesus as part of a triumvirate appear in the Greek manuscripts Nowhere And in that deception lies a story of mass killings Birth of Christ Ken WelshDesignPicscom The Sociopath Emperor Why would God in conveying his message to the world speak in whispers and riddles It seems nonsensical but the belief that he refused to convey a clear message has led to the slaughter of many thousands of Christians by Christians In fact Christians are believed to have massacred more followers of Jesus than any other group or nation Those who believed in the Trinity butchered Christians who didnt Groups who believed Jesus was two entitiesGod and mankilled those who thought Jesus was merely flesh and blood Some felt certain God inspired Old Testament Scriptures others were convinced they were the product of a different evil God Some believed the Crucifixion brought salvation to humankind others insisted it didnt and still others believed Jesus wasnt crucified Indeed for hundreds of years after the death of Jesus groups adopted radically conflicting writings about the details of his life and the meaning of his ministry and murdered those who disagreed For many centuries Christianity was first a battle of books and then a battle of blood The reason in large part was that there were no universally accepted manuscripts that set out what it meant to be a Christian so most sects had their own gospels There was the Gospel of Mary Magdalene the Gospel of Simon Peter the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Barnabas One sect of Christianitythe Gnosticsbelieved that the disciple Thomas was not only Jesuss twin brother but also the founder of churches across Asia Christianity was in chaos in its early days with some sects declaring the others heretics And then in the early 300s Emperor Constantine of Rome declared he had become follower of Jesus ended his empires persecution of Christians and set out to reconcile the disputes among the sects Constantine was a brutal sociopath who murdered his after he proclaimed that he had converted from worshipping the sun god to being a Christian Yet he also changed the course of Christian history ultimately influencing which books made it into the New Testament By that point the primary disputes centered on whether Jesus was Godthe followers of a priest named Arius said no that God created Jesus But the Bishop of Alexander said yes that Jesus had existed throughout all eternity The dispute raged on in the streets of Constantinople with everyoneshopkeepers bakers and tradesmenarguing about which view was right Constantine in a reflection of his shallow understanding of theology was annoyed that what he considered a minor dispute was causing such turmoil and feared that it weaken him politically So he decided to force an agreement on the question Cody Walsh 18 left and Eric Hoglund 21 center dance and sing during the opening musical act of the nondenominational prayer and fasting event entitled The Response at Reliant Stadium August 6 2011 in Houston Brandon ThibodeauxGetty Constantine convened a meeting in the lakeside town of Nicaea Invitations were sent around the world to bishops and leaders of various sects although not all of them The group included the educated and the illiterate zealots and hermits Constantine arrived wearing jewels and gold on his scarlet robe and pearls on his crown eager to discuss the true essence of a poor carpenter who had died 300 years before Things that are today accepted without much thought were adopted or reinforced at Nicaea For example the Old Testament was clear in declaring that God rested on the seventh day making it the Sabbath The seventh day of the week is Saturday the day of Jewish worship and rest Jesus himself invoked the holiness of the Jewish Sabbath The word Sunday does not appear in the Bible either as the Sabbath or anything else But four years before Nicaea Constantine declared Sunday as a day of rest in honor of the sun god At Nicaea rules were adopted regarding the proper positions for prayer on Sundaysstanding not kneeling nothing was said of the Jewish Sabbath or Saturday Many theologians and Christian historians believe that it was at this moment to satisfy Constantine and his commitment to his empires many sun worshippers that the Holy Sabbath was moved by one day contradicting the clear words of what ultimately became the Bible And while the Bible mentioned nothing about the day of Jesuss birth the birth of the sun god was celebrated on December 25 in Rome Christian historians of the 12th century wrote that The majority of the time at Nicaea was spent debating whether Jesus was a man who was the son of God as Arius proclaimed or God himself as the church hierarchy maintained The followers of Arius marshaled evidence from the letters of Paul and other Christian writings In the Gospel of Mark speaking of the Second Coming Jesus said But of that day and that hour knoweth no man no not the angels which are in heaven neither the Son but the Father In Pauls first letter to the Corinthians he wrote that there is but one God the Fatherand Pauls writings are consistent in his reference to God as one being and Jesus as his son Same with the Gospel of Matthew where Peter tells Jesus that he is the Son of the living God and Jesus responds that Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in heaven Jesus even called out to God as his Father as he was dying on the cross But Constantine sided with those who believed Jesus was both God and man so a statement of belief called the Nicene Creed was composed to proclaim that Those who refused to sign the statement were banished Others were slaughtered After they had returned home and were far from Rome some who signed the document later sent letters to Constantine saying they had only done so out of fear for their lives About 50 years later in AD 381 the Romans held another meeting this time in Constantinople There a new agreement was reachedJesus wasnt two he was now threeFather Son and Holy Ghost The Nicene Creed was rewritten and those who refused to sign the statement were banished and another wholesale slaughter began this time of those who rejected the Trinity a concept that is nowhere in the original Greek manuscripts and is often contradicted by it To this day congregants in Christian churches at Sunday services worldwide recite the Nicene Creed which serves as affirmation of their belief in the Trinity It is doubtful many of them know the words they utter are not from the Bible and were the cause of so much bloodshed Some modern Christians attempt to use the Gospel of John to justify the Trinityeven though it doesnt explicitly mention itbut they are relying on bad translations of the Greek and sentences inserted by scribes To understand how what we call the Bible was made you must see how the beliefs that became part of Christian orthodoxy were pushed into it by the Holy Roman Empire By the fifth century the political and theological councils voted on which of the many Gospels in circulation were to make up the New Testament With the power of Rome behind them the practitioners of this proclaimed orthodoxy wiped out other sects and tried to destroy every copy of their Gospels and other writings And recall that they were already working from a fundamentally flawed document Errors and revisions by copyists had been written in by the fifth century and several books of the New Testament including some attributed to Paul are now considered forgeries perpetrated by famous figures in Christianity to bolster their theological arguments It is small wonder then that there are so many contradictions in the New Testament Some of those contradictions are trivial but some create huge problems for evangelicals insisting they are living by the word of God Members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kan stage a protest outside the nondenominational prayer and fasting event entitled The Response at Reliant Stadium Aug 6 2011 in Houston Brandon ThibodeauxGetty No Three Kings To illustrate how even seemingly trivial contradictions can have profound consequences lets recount the story of Christmas Jesus was born in a house in Bethlehem His father Joseph had been planning to divorce Mary until he dreamed that shed conceived a child through the Holy Spirit No wise men showed up for the birth and no brilliant star shone overhead Joseph and his family then fled to Egypt where they remained for years Later they returned to Israel hoping to live in Judea but that proved problematic so they settled in a small town called Nazareth Not the version you are familiar with No angel appearing to Mary Not born in a manger No one saying there was no room at the inn No gold frankincense or myrrh Fleeing to Egypt First living in Nazareth when Jesus was a child not before he was born You may not recognize this version but it is a story of Jesuss birth found in the Gospels Two GospelsMatthew and Luketell the story of when Jesus was born but in quite different ways Contradictions abound In creating the familiar Christmas tale Christians took a little bit of one story mixed it with a little bit of the other and ignored all of the contradictions in the two The version recounted above does the same it uses parts of those stories from the two Gospels that are usually ignored So there are two blended versions and two Gospel versions Take There are also deep logical flaws here that should be apparent to anyone giving the Bible a close read Many Christians read the Old Testament as having several prophecies that the Messiah will be a descendant of David a towering biblical figure who was the second ruler of the Kingdom of Israel And both Matthew and Luke offer that proofboth trace Jesuss lineage to his father Joseph and from there back to David ExceptJoseph wasnt Jesuss father Jesus is the son of God remember Moreover the genealogies recounted in the two Gospels are different each identifying different men as Josephs father and grandfather Mary the mother of Jesus can be the only parent with a bloodline to David but neither Gospel makes any mention of that The stories in the four Gospels of Jesuss death and resurrection differ as well When brought before Pontius Pilate in the Gospel of Mark Jesus speaks only two words and is never declared innocent In the Gospel of John Jesus engages in extended conversations with Pilate who repeatedly proclaims this Jewish prisoner to be innocent and deserving of release The Book of John was the last to be written and came at a time when gentiles in Rome were gaining dramatically more influence over Christianity that explains why the Romans are largely absolved from responsibility for Jesuss death and blame And who went to anoint Jesus in his tomb In Matthew it was Mary and another woman named Mary and an angel met them there In Mark it was Mary Magdalene Mary the mother of James and Salome and a young man met them In John it was Mary alone no one met her As told in Matthew the disciples go to Galilee after the Crucifixion and see Jesus ascend to heaven in Acts written by Luke the disciples stay in Jerusalem and see Jesus ascend from there Some of the contradictions are conflicts between what evangelicals consider absolute and what Jesus actually said For example evangelicals are always talking about family values But to Jesus family was an impediment to reaching God In the Gospel of Matthew he states And every one that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my names sake shall receive an hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life Then there is what many fundamentalist Christians hold to be the most important of all elements of the Bible the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world What modern evangelicals want to believe can not be reconciled with the Bible In the Gospel of Mark Jesus says of the Apocalypse This generation shall not pass till all these things be donein other words the people alive in his time would see the end of the world Paul in 1 Corinthians is even clearer he states The time is short He then instructs other Christians given that the Two problems That does nothing to counter what either Jesus or Paul said And even in ancient times many Christian leaders proclaimed 2 Peter to be a forgery an opinion almost universally shared by biblical scholars today None of this is meant to demean the Bible but all of it is fact Christians angered by these facts should be angry with the Bible not the messenger God Wrestling Dragons The next time someone tells you the biblical story of Creation is true ask that person Which one Few of the Christian faithful seem to know the Bible contains multiple creation stories The first appears on Page 1 Genesis 1 so that is the version most people tend to embrace However it isnt hard to find the second version Its Genesis 2 which usually starts on the same page Genesis 1 begins with the words In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth Genesis 2 starts with This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created Careful readers have long known that the two stories contradict each other Genesis 1 begins with expanses of water that God separates creating the earth between them Genesis 2 describes a world without enough water which is then introduced Vegetation exists before the sun and the stars in Genesis 1 its the other way around in Genesis 2 In Genesis 1 man is created after plants and animals in Genesis 2 plants and animals come after man In Genesis 1 Adam and Eve are created together in Genesis 2 Eve is created out of Adams rib This is nothing unusual for the Old Testament In fact even though many evangelical Christians insist that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament including Deuteronomy which talks about Moses having died and been buried biblical scholars have concluded that two Jewish sects wrote many of the books Each prepared its version of Old Testament and the two were joined together without any attempt to reconcile the many contradictions These duplications are known as doublets In most cases says Richard Elliott Friedman a biblical scholar at the University of Georgia one of the versions of the doublet story would refer to the deity by the divine name Yahweh and the other version of the story would refer to the deity simply as God Once the different narratives appearing in the Bible were divided by the word they used to reference God other terms and characteristics turned up repeatedly in one or the other group This tended to support the hypothesis that someone had taken two different old source documents cut them up and woven them together in the first five books of the Old Testament Friedman says The doublets make reading the Old Testament the literary equivalent of a hall of mirrors Take the Genesis story of Noah and the flood In Genesis 6 God tells Noah to build an ark and load it with animals and Noah did everything just as God commanded him Then in Genesis 7 God again tells Noah to load the ark with animals and Noah did all that the Lord commanded him Under the first set of instructions Noah was to bring two of every kind of creature onto the ark But the directions changed the second time with Noah told It gets stranger In Genesis 7712 Noah and his family board the ark and the flood begins Then in the very next verse Genesis 713 Noah and his family board the ark again and the flood begins a second time The water flooded the earth for 40 days Genesis 717 or 150 days Genesis 724 But Noah and his family stayed on the ark for a year Genesis 813 Even wellknown stories have contradictory versions As every child knows David killed Goliath its right there in 1 Samuel 1750 But dont tell those children to read 2 Samuel 2119 unless you want them to get really confused There it says in many versions of the Bible that Elhanan killed Goliath Other Bibles though fixed that to make it coincide with the words in 1 Chronicles were Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath These conflicting accounts are only serious matters because evangelicals insist the Old Testament is a valid means of debunking science But as these example show the Bible cant stop debunking itself In fact the Bible has three creation models and some experts maintain there are four In addition to the two in Genesis there is one referenced in the Books of Isaiah Psalms and Job In this version the world is created in the aftermath of a great battle between God and what theologians say is a dragon in the waters called Rahab And Rahab is not the only mythical creature that either coexisted with God or was created by him God plays with a sea monster named Leviathan Unicorns appear in the King James Bible although that wasnt the correct translation of the mythical creatures Evangelicals cite Genesis to challenge the science taught in classrooms but dont like to talk about those Old Testament books with monsters and magic Workers paste a public service announcement over a billboard with an antihomosexuality message on Bay Street in Staten Island NY on March 8 2000 The controversial billboard with a quotation from the Bible was paid for by an undisclosed party and was covered over by the billboard company after complaints Chris HondrosGetty Sarah Palin Is Sinning Right Now The declaration in 1 Timothyas recounted in the Living Bible the New American Standard Bible the New International Version Bible and otherscould not be more clear Those who practice homosexuality will not inherit the Kingdom of God But the translation there is odd in part because the word homosexual didnt even exist until more than 1800 years after when 1 Timothy was supposed to have been written So how did it get into the New Testament Simple The editors of these modern Bibles just made it up Like so many translators and scribes before them they had a religious conviction something they wanted to say that wasnt stated clearly enough in the original for their tastes And so they manipulated sentences to reinforce their convictions The original Bible verse in Koiné used ἀρσενοκοῖται for what has been translated as homosexual For the Latin Bible it was as masculorum concubitores The King James Version translated that as them that defile themselves with mankind Perhaps that means men who engage in sex with other men perhaps not The next thing to check here is whether 1 Timothy was based on a forgery And the answer to that is a resounding yes In 1807 a German scholar named Friedrich Schleiermacher published a letter observing that 1 Timothy used arguments that clashed with other letters written by Paul Moreover 1 Timothy attacks false teachings but they are not the types of teachings prevalent when Paul was writinginstead they are more akin to the beliefs of the Gnostics a sect that did not exist until long after Pauls death And at times whoever wrote this letter uses the same words But suppose for a moment that 1 Timothy was written by Paul and that defile themselves does refer to homosexuality In that case evangelical Christians and biblical literalists still have a lot of trouble on their hands Contrary to what so many fundamentalists believe outside of the emphasis on the Ten Commandments sins arent ranked The New Testament doesnt proclaim homosexuality the most heinous of all sins No every sin is equal in its significance to God In 1 Timothy Paul or whoever wrote it condemns the disobedient liars and drunks In other words for evangelicals who want to use Now lets talk about how 1 Timothy deals with women US Representative Michele Bachmann the Minnesota Republican slammed gay people as bullies last March for opposing legislation that would have allowed Arizona businesses to discriminate against samesex couples Well according to the Bible Bachmann should shut up and sit down In fact every female politician who insists the New Testament is the inerrant word of God needs to resign immediately or admit that she is a hypocrite Thats because 1 Timothy is one of the most virulently antiwoman books of the New Testament something else that sets it apart from other letters by Paul In the King James Version it says women must dress modestly cant embroider their hair cant wear pearls or gold and have to stay silent Moreover they cant hold any position of authority over men and arent even allowed to be teachersmeaning if they truly believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God women like Bachmann cant be in politics In fact while 1 Timothy has just one parenthetical clause that can Many Christians point to other parts of the New Testament when denouncing homosexuality Romans another letter attributed to Paul is a popular choice In the King James Bible it condemns men who lust in their hearts for each other a translation that holds up pretty well when compared with the earliest Greek versions And scholars agree that Romans is a real letter written by Paul 700 Club cohost Pat Robertson speaks at a press conference Feb 3 1998 at the CBN studio in Virginia Beach Va about the impending execution of Karla Faye Tucker who was put to death later that night in Texas Bill TiernamThe VirginianPilotAP In other words Romans is real Gospel and what it has to say cant be questioned by those who call themselves biblical literalists Which means televangelist Pat Robertson should prepare himself for an eternity in hell On his television show The 700 Club Robertson recently went on a tirade about Barack Obama and as he is wont to do prayed for help God we need the angels We need your help Robertson said We need to do something to pray to be delivered from this president And with that Pat Robertson sinned Because in Romans so often used to condemn homosexualitythere is a much longer series of verses about how the righteous are supposed to behave toward people in government authority It shows up in Romans 1312 which in the International Standard Bible says The existing authorities have been established by God so that whoever resists the authorities opposes what God has established and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves So yes there is one verse in Romans about homosexualityand there are eight verses condemning those who criticize the government In other words all fundamentalist Christians who decry Obama have sinned as much as they believe gay people have It doesnt end there In the same section of Romans that is arguably addressing homosexuality Paul also condemns debating all of Congress is damned being prideful disobeying parents and deceiving people yes all of Congress is damned There is no bold print or underlining for the section dealing with homosexuality Paul treats it as something as sinful as pride or debate The story is the same in the last New Testament verse cited by fundamentalists who scorn homosexuals Again it is a letter from Paul called 1 Corinthians The translation is good and the experts believe it was written by him But fundamentalists who rely on this better stay out of court Paul condemns bringing lawsuits at least against other Christians Adultery being greedy lyingall of these are declared as sins on par with homosexuality Of course there are plenty of fundamentalist Christians who have no idea where references to homosexuality are in the New Testament much less what the surrounding verses say And so they always fall back on Leviticus the Old Testament book loaded with dos and donts They seem to have the words memorized about it being an abomination for a man to lie with a man as he does with a woman And every time they make that argument they demonstrate that they know next to nothing about the New Testament A fundamental conflict in the New Testament arguably the most important one in the Biblecenters on whether the Laws of Moses were supplanted by the crucifixion of Christ The basic tension there was that Paul led a church in Antioch where he attempted to bring gentiles into Christianity by espousing a liberal interpretation of the requirements to follow the Laws of Mosescircumcision eating kosher food and other rules spelled out in the Old Testament Hundreds of miles away disciples of Jesus and his brother James headed a church in Jerusalem When they heard about the goingson in Antioch a debate ensued Did gentiles have to become Jews Some of the original disciples said yes an opinion that seems to find support in words attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets The author of Matthew made it clear that Christians must keep Mosaic Law like the most religious Jews in order to achieve salvation But Paul particularly in Galatians and Romans says a persons salvation is won by his or her faith in Christs death and resurrection nothing more Those who try to follow Mosaic Law Paul believed risked losing salvation In other words Orthodox Jews who follow Mosaic Law can use Leviticus to condemn homosexuality without being hypocrites But fundamentalist Christians must choose They can either follow Mosaic Law by keeping kosher being circumcised never wearing clothes made of two types of thread and the like Or they can accept that finding salvation in the Resurrection of Christ means that Leviticus is off the table Which raises one final problem for fundamentalists eager to condemn homosexuals or anyone else If they accept the writings of Paul and believe all people are sinners then salvation is found in belief in Christ and the Resurrection For everyone There are no exceptions in the Bible for sins that evangelicals really dont like So apparently God doesnt need the help of fundamentalists in determining what should be done in the afterlife with the prideful the greedy the debaters or even those homosexuals Which could well be why Jesus cautioned his followers against judging others while ignoring their own sins In fact he had a specific word for people obsessed with the sins of others He called them hypocrites Members of the Pentecostal Church of God a faith healing sect surround a woman who has Got the Spirit as a man holds a snake above her head in Evarts Ky on Aug 22 1944 AP They Havent a Prayer In August 2011 Texas Governor Rick Perry hosted a massive prayer rally in Houston at what was then known as Reliant Stadium where the citys profootball team plays Joined by 30000 fellow Christians Perry stepped to a podium his face projected on a giant screen behind him He closed his eyes bowed his head and boomed out a long prayer asking God to make America a better place His fellow believers stood kneeled cried and yelled Amen Recently Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced he would be holding his massive prayer rally at a sports arena in Baton Rouge More than 100000 evangelical pastors have been invited Jesus would have been horrified At least thats what the Bible says It is one of the most incomprehensible contradictions between the behavior of evangelicals and the explicit words of the Bible Prayer shows and there is really no other word for theseare held every week If they are not at sports arenas with Republican presidential hopefuls they are on Sunday morning television shows at megachurches holding tens of thousands of the faithful They raise their arms and sway crying and pleading in prayer But Jesus specifically preached against this at the Sermon on the Mount the longest piece of teaching by him in the New Testament Specifically as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus spoke of those who made large public displays of their own religiosity In fact performance prayer events closely mimic the depictions in early Christian texts of prayer services held by the Pharisees and Sadducees two of the largest religious movements in Judea during Jesuss life And throughout the Gospels Jesus condemns these groups using heated language with part of his anger targeted at their public prayer While the words in the King James Bible might be a bit confusing because it is not written in modern English the New Revised Standard Version is a good substitute here In it Jesus is quoted as saying Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven But Jesus says much more specifically cautioning against the kind of public performance prayer that has become all the rage among evangelicals of late The verse in Matthew continues quoting Jesus who says Whenever you pray do not be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners so that they may be seen by others Truly I tell you they have received their reward Instead Jesus says the truly righteous should pray alone and in secret in a room with the door shut Your Father who sees in secret will reward you Jesus is quoted as saying Indeed in the dozens of discussions in the Bible about prayer the vast majority focus on Gods ability to know what a person wants In the New Testament it is often portrayed as a deeply personal affair with prayers uttered in prison cells to a God who stays alongside the oppressed Moreover babbling on as Rick Perry and so many like him have about faith and country and the blessings of America runs counter to everything that Jesus says about prayer in the Bible When you are praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do for they think that they will be heard because of their many words Jesus is quoted as saying in Matthew Do not be like them for your Father knows what you need before you ask him Because God knows what someone needs without being asked there is no reason for long convoluted prayers Therefore Jesus says in both Matthew and Luke people who wish to pray should only say the Lords Prayer Of course there is the problem that the Lords Prayer cited in those two Gospels comes in two versions so Christians have to choose one or the other It seems almost a miracle that those who effortlessly transform Pauls statement about them that defile themselves with mankind into homosexual can ignore the clear simple words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew Whats most amazing is that unlike so many questions about the Bible the instructions on how and where to pray are not only not contradicted they are reinforced time and again The closest Jesus came to public prayer in the Bible was when he was feeding thousands with five loaves of bread and two fish This story is recounted in each of the Gospels and each time Jesus is depicted as either giving thanks to God or looking to heaven and blessing the food But he is also depicted as praying in all four Gospels and each time Jesus does so after heading off to be alone Some evangelicals have attempted to explain away this contradiction between the words of the Bible in Matthew and modern public prayer performances by saying Jesus condemned only mass prayer when the people doing it had made that choice just to be seen But with governors projected on giant highdefinition televisions with thousands packed into sports stadiums weeping and waving with thousands more doing their prayers on TV at megachurches its hard to see what possible reason might exist other than to be seen God the Bible makes clear didnt need anyone to drive to a football stadium so he could Which leads to an obvious question Why dont more Christians oppose prayer in school If these people truly believe that the Bible is the Word of God then their children should be taught the Lords Prayer brought to their rooms and allowed to pray alone That answer doesnt lend itself to big protests or angry calls for impeaching judges But it does follow the instructions from the Gospels And isnt that supposed to be the point Triumph of Faith by Tiepolo Giambattista 18th Century Photoservice ElectaUniversal Images GroupRex Judge Not So why study the Bible at all Since its loaded with contradictions and translation errors and wasnt written by witnesses and includes words added by unknown scribes to inject Church orthodoxy should it just be abandoned No This examination is not an attack on the Bible or Christianity Instead Christians seeking greater understanding of their religion should view it as an attempt to save the Bible from the ignorance hatred and bias that has been heaped upon it If Christians truly want to treat the New Testament as the foundation of the religion they have to know it Too many of them seem to read John Grisham novels with greater care than they apply to the book they consider to be the most important document in the world But the history complexities and actual words of the Bible cant be ignored just to line it up with what people want to believe based simply on what friends and family and ministers tell them Nowhere in the Gospels or Acts of Epistles or Apocalypses does the New Testament say it is the inerrant word of God It couldntthe people who authored each section had no idea they were composing the Christian Bible and they were long dead before what they wrote was voted by members of political and theological committees to be the New Testament The Bible is a very human book It was written assembled copied and translated by people That explains the flaws the contradictions and the theological disagreements in its pages Once that is understood it is possible to find out which parts of the Bible were not in the earliest Greek manuscripts which are the bad translations and what one book says in comparison to another and then try to discern the message for yourself And embrace what modern Bible experts know to be the true sections of the New Testament Jesus said Dont judge He condemned those who pointed out the faults of others while ignoring their own And he proclaimed Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself There is none other commandment greater than these Thats a good place to start Request Reprint or Submit Correction

B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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US Florida Red Tide Update Toxic Tide Moves in on Tampa Bay Killing Fish Masses By David Magee On 9918 at 231 PM Floridas toxic red tide has now reached the Tampa Bay area killing hundreds of thousands of fish Pinellas County workers are cleaning up the massive fish kill this weekend Pinellas County US Floridas toxic red tide has now reached the Tampa Bay area killing hundreds of thousands of fish in recent days and disturbing visitors to the beach Massive fish kills were reported in Pinellas County from Clearwater to St Petersburg a swatch covering 20 miles Pinellas County employees have worked this weekend to clear the dead fish The toxic red tide has plagued areas along the southwest Gulf Coast side of Floridas beaches for months killing sea life and sickening residents and tourists but Tampa Bay area had been largely spared That changed this weekend however when toxic red tide moved in killing hundreds of thousands of fish Popular beaches in the Tampa Bay area including Madeira Beach Redington Beach and Treasure Island have been impacted according to reports Pinellas County employees have been out working to clear the fish this weekend including on Sunday along Redington Beach The dead fish will be taken to the landfill and the cleanup is expected to last through next week due to the dead fish volume Also many dead fish are still floating offshore On Saturday evening a boat was circling the Intercoastal near Clearwater Pass scooping hundreds of dead fish off the waters surface to prevent them from reaching the beach tampabaycom reported More boats were scheduled to arrive Sunday Its a huge community effort of all of us working together said Kelli Levy Pinellas director of environmental management according to tampabaycom We did a lot today getting logistics in place tomorrow well have a lot more done and on Monday and Tuesday we will be in full operational mode Tampa Bays toxic red tide fish kill comes days after some in the community were celebrating the news that recent Tropical Storm Gordon may have broken up the red tide along the southwest Florida coast Persistent surface currents prior to during and after the passage of Tropical Storm Gordon likely played a role in pushing parts of the bloom northwest a report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Friday said Red tide was reportedly in high concentrations off Sarasota Charlotte and Lee counties and in lower concentrations off of Pinellas Manatee and Collier counties according to the report Yet this weekend Tampa Bay got its first major experience with the toxic red tide when red tide that had lingered for weeks near Sarasota reached waters off Pinellas County A family visiting popular St Pete beach this weekend arrived thinking they wouldnt find any red tide but instead their sixyearold was completely upset and having a meltdown over red tide in the water according to tampabaycom Red tide algae occur in the region naturally every year some years its much worse than others This problemcausing bloom began in 2017 Scientists say it isnt expected to ease until the water temperature cools late this fall or winter or a tropical storm or hurricane clears it out That means months more of the red tide and algae bloom could plague southwest Florida killing fish and sea turtles that wash ashore The FWC said in its report that fish kills and breathing issues in humans can occur when levels reach 10000 cells per liter Initially the bloom that began in October 2017 was mostly offshore but it has moved closer to beaches in recent months The toxic red tide has experienced a bigger bloom than normal this year even though it is an annual occurrence Compounding the issue is that inland Florida has also suffered from an outbreak of cyanobacteria in Lake Okeechobee that spilled into rivers and canals carried the toxic green sludge east to the Atlantic Ocean and west to the Gulf of Mexico Request Reprint or Submit Correction

O O O O O B I O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


Black Body Rereading James Baldwins Stranger in the Village Photograph by Ted ThaiThe LIFE Picture CollectionGetty Then the bus began driving into clouds and between one cloud and the next we caught glimpses of the town below It was suppertime and the town was a constellation of yellow points We arrived thirty minutes after leaving that town which was called Leuk The train to Leuk had come in from Visp the train from Visp had come from Bern and the train before that was from Zurich from which I had started out in the afternoon Three trains a bus and a short stroll all of it through beautiful country and then we reached Leukerbad in darkness James Baldwin left Paris and came to Leukerbad for the first time in 1951 His lover Lucien Happersbergers family had a chalet in a village up in the mountains And so Baldwin who was depressed and distracted at the time went and the village which is also called LoèchelesBains proved to be a refuge for him His first trip was in the summer and lasted two weeks Then he returned to his own surprise for two more winters His first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain found its final form here He had struggled with the book for eight Stranger in the Village first appeared in Harpers Magazine in 1953 and then in the essay collection Notes of a Native Son in 1955 It recounts the experience of being black in an allwhite village It begins with a sense of an extreme journey like Charles Darwins in the Galápagos or TétéMichel Kpomassies in Greenland But then it opens out into other concerns and into a different voice swivelling to look at the American racial situation in the nineteenfifties The part of the essay that focusses on the Swiss village is both bemused and sorrowful Baldwin is alert to the absurdity of being a writer from New York who I took a room at the Hotel Mercure Bristol the night I arrived I opened the windows to a dark view but I knew that in the darkness loomed the Daubenhorn mountain I ran a hot bath and lay neckdeep in the water with my old paperback copy of Notes of a Native Son The tinny sound from my laptop was Bessie Smith singing Im Wild About That Thing a filthy blues number and a masterpiece of plausible deniability Dont hold it baby when I cry Give me every bit of it else Id die Im wild about that thing From all available evidence no black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village before I came Baldwin wrote But the village has grown considerably since his visits more than sixty years ago Theyve seen blacks now I wasnt a remarkable sight There were a few glances at the hotel when I was checking in and in the fine restaurant just up the road but there are always glances There are glances in Zurich where I am spending the summer and there are glances in New York City which has been my home for fourteen years There are glances all over Europe and in India and anywhere I go outside Africa The test is how long the glances last whether they become stares with what intent they occur whether they contain any degree of hostility or mockery and to what extent connections money or mode of dress shield me in these situations To be a stranger is to be looked at but to be black is to be looked at especially The children shout Neger Neger as I walk along the streets Leukerbad has changed but in which way There were in fact no bands of children on the street and few children anywhere at all Presumably the children of Leukerbad like children the world over were indoors frowning over computer games checking Facebook or watching music videos Perhaps some of the older folks I saw in the streets were once the very children who had been so surprised by the sight of Baldwin and about whom in the essay he struggles to take a reasonable tone In all of this in which it must be Baldwin had to bring his records with him in the fifties like a secret stash of medicine and he had to haul his phonograph up to Leukerbad so that the sound of the American blues could keep him connected to a Harlem of the spirit I listened to some of the same music while I was there as a way of being with him Bessie Smith singing I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl I need a little sugar in my bowl I need a little hot dog on my roll Fats Waller singing Your Feets Too Big I Photograph by Teju Cole At dinner at a pizzeria there were glances A table of British tourists stared at me But the waitress was part black and at the hotel one of the staff members at the spa was an older black man People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them Baldwin wrote But it is also true that the little pieces of history move around at a tremendous speed settling with a notalwaysclear logic and rarely settling for long And perhaps more interesting than my not being the only black person in the village is the plain fact that many The better hotels have their own thermal pools At the Hotel Mercure Bristol I took an elevator down to the spa and sat in the dry sauna A few minutes later I slipped into the pool and floated outside in the warm water Others were there but not many A light rain fell We were ringed by mountains and held in the immortal blue In her brilliant Harlem Is Nowhere Sharifa RhodesPitts writes In almost every essay James Baldwin wrote about Harlem there is a moment when he commits a literary sleightofhand so particular that if hed been an athlete sportscasters would have codified the maneuver and named it the Jimmy I think of it in cinematic terms because its effect reminds me of a technique wherein camera operators pan out by starting with a tight shot and then zoom out to a wide view while the lens remains focused on a point in the distance This move this sudden widening of focus is These people can not be from the point of view of power strangers anywhere in the world they have made the modern world in effect even if they do not know it The most illiterate among them is related in a way I am not to Dante Shakespeare Michelangelo Aeschylus Da Vinci Rembrandt and Racine the cathedral at Chartres says something to them which it can not say to me as indeed would New Yorks Empire State Building should anyone here ever see it Out of their hymns and dances come Beethoven and Bach Go back a few centuries and they are in their full glorybut I am in Africa watching the conquerors arrive What is this list about Does it truly bother Baldwin that the people of Leukerbad are related through some faint familiarity to Chartres That some distant genetic thread links them to the Beethoven string quartets After all as he argues later in the essay no one can deny the impact the presence of the Negro has had on the American character He understands the truth and the art in Bessie Smiths work He does not and cannotI want to believerate the blues below Bach But there was a certain narrowness in received ideas of black culture in the nineteenfifties In Thinking further about the cathedral at Chartres about the greatness of that achievement and about how in his view it included blacks only in the negative as devils Baldwin writes that the American Negro has arrived at his identity by virtue of the absoluteness of his estrangement from his past But the distant African past has also become much more available than it was in 1953 It would not occur to me to think that centuries ago I was in Africa watching the conquerors arrive But I suspect that for Baldwin it is in part a rhetorical move a grim Theres no world in which I would surrender the intimidating beauty of Yorubalanguage poetry for say Shakespeares sonnets nor one in which Id prefer the chamber orchestras of Brandenburg to the koras of Mali Im happy to own all of it This carefree confidence is in part the gift of time It is a dividend of the struggle of people from earlier generations I feel no alienation in museums But this question of filiation tormented Baldwin considerably He was sensitive to what was great in world art and sensitive to his own sense of exclusion from it He made a This is where I part ways with Baldwin I disagree not with his particular sorrow but with the selfabnegation that pinned him to it Bach so profoundly human is my heritage I am not an interloper when I look at a Rembrandt portrait I care for them more than some white people do just as some white people care more for aspects of African art than I do I can oppose white supremacy and still rejoice in Gothic architecture In this I stand with Ralph Ellison The values of my own people are neither white nor black they are American Nor can I see how they could be anything else since we are people who are involved in the texture of the American experience And yet I born in the United States more than half a century after Baldwin continue to understand because I have experienced in my own body the undimmed fury he neger when he knows himself to be so much And this so much is neither a matter of ego about his writing nor an anxiety about his fame in New York or in Paris It is about the incontestable fundamentals of a person pleasure sorrow love humor and grief and the complexity of the interior landscape that sustains those feelings Baldwin was astonished that anyone anywhere should question these fundamentals thereby burdening him with the supreme waste of time that is racism let alone so many people in so many places This unflagging ability to be shocked rises like steam off Leukerbad gave Baldwin a way to think about white supremacy from its first principles It was as though he found it in its simplest form there The men who suggested that he learn to ski so that they might mock him the villagers who accused him behind his back of being a firewood thief the ones who wished to touch his hair and suggested that he grow it out and make himself a winter coat and the children who having been taught that the devil is a black man scream in genuine anguish as he approached Baldwin saw these as It is a beautiful village I liked the mountain air But when I returned to my room from the thermal baths or from strolling in the streets with my camera I read the news online There I found an unending sequence of crises in the Middle East in Africa in Russia and everywhere else really Pain was general But within that larger distress was a set of linked stories and thinking about Stranger in the Village thinking with its help was like injecting a contrast dye into my encounter with the news The American police continued shooting unarmed black men In all of this a smaller less significant story but one that nevertheless signified caught my attention The Mayor of New York and his police chief have a publicpolicy obsession with cleaning with cleansing and they decided that arresting members of the dance troupes that perform in moving subway cars is one of the ways to clean up the city I read the excuses for this becoming a priority some people fear being seriously injured by an errant kick it has not happened but they sure fear it some people consider it a nuisance some policymakers believe that going after misdemeanors is a way of preëmpting major crimes And so to combat this menace William Hazlitt in an 1821 essay entitled The Indian Jugglers wrote words that I think of when I see a great athlete or dancer Man thou art a wonderful animal and thy ways past finding out Thou canst do strange things but thou turnest them to little accountTo conceive of this effort of extraordinary dexterity distracts the imagination and makes admiration breathless In the presence of the admirable some are breathless not with admiration but with rage They object to the presence of the black body an unarmed boy in a street a man buying a toy a dancer in the subway a bystander as much as they object to the presence of the black mind And simultaneous with these erasures is the unending collection of profit from black labor Throughout the culture there are imitations of the gait bearing and dress of the black body a vampiric everything but the burden cooption of black life Leukerbad is ringed by mountains the Daubenhorn the Torrenthorn the Rinderhorn A high mountain pass called the Gemmi another twentyeight hundred feet above the village connects the canton of Valais with the Bernese Oberland Through this landscapecraggy bare in places and verdant elsewhere a textbook instance of the sublimeone moves as though through a dream The Gemmipass is famous for good reason and Goethe was there as were Byron Twain and Picasso The pass is mentioned in a Sherlock Holmes adventure when Holmes crosses it on his way to the fateful meeting with Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls There was If Leukerbad was his mountain pulpit the United States was his audience The remote village gave him a sharper view of what things looked like back home He was a stranger in Leukerbad Baldwin wrote but there was no possibility for blacks to be strangers in the United States nor for whites to achieve the fantasy of an allwhite America purged of blacks This fantasy about the disposability of black life is a constant in American history It takes a while to understand that this disposability continues It takes whites a while to understand it it takes nonblack people of People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster The news of the day old news but raw as a fresh wound is that black American life is disposable from the point of view of policing sentencing economic policy and countless terrifying forms of disregard There is a vivid performance of innocence but theres no actual innocence left The moral ledger remains so far in the negative that we cant even get started on the Teju Cole is the author of four books including the novel Open City and the essay collection Known and Strange Things His newest book is Blind Spot

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Reviews OffBroadway Reviews Review of Desperate Measures at New World Stages Review of Desperate Measures at New World Stages Our critics rating Date June 14 2018 Review by Kathleen Campion Desperate Measures relies on cliche and spoof to carry the evening That said this show has enough feelgood reserve that by the time it wraps up the audience is clapping to the bands hoedown rhythms as the cast takes curtain calls Everyone exits feeling good and wondering just where those great brokein cowboy boots are stored This production at New World Stages lifts its story line loosely from Shakespeares Measure for Measure and its look and language from Gunsmoke As with both of those forms you might expect stock characters here Neither the strongsilenttype sheriff nor the mustachetwirling villain disappoints There is the chaste ingenue teetering on the edge of sex and the baud whos been at it for some time Mix in the dim bad boy facing a noose and the drunken Irish priest facing a crisis of conscience and well you could almost write this yourself Peter Kellogg did write the book and lyrics himself folding in some genuinely funny moments relying on the audience to be in on the joke Combined with David Friedmans music its not an evening of Lerner and Loewe nor Sondheim to be sure But Desperate Measures is a sweet small show with two maybe three strong songs and some lively if conventional music My companion for the evening had played the villains role in a school production of Measure for Measure and he was able to resurrect some of the original Shakespearian verse as we chatted over drinks at the interval That helped underscore Kelloggs compelling audacity in iambicpentametering a Western takeover of an Elizabethan comedy Simply put just as the Bard did Kellogg makes the rhyming device fun without beating you over the head with it When you only have six voices to carry a musical they had better be strong and these are When Sarah Panicky first sings she offers up a crisp clear sound that while supported by wonderful musicians sounds almost a capella in its glassy fragility Conor Ryan playing Johnny Blood the guy to be hanged in the morning has a voice that mirrors his gymnastic movement He is pitch perfect while showing an athletic range both vocally and physically His duet with the engaging Lauren Molina as Bella the whore with a heart of fools gold is reminiscent of the mad Comden and Green boygirl songs of the 40s and 50s The sheriff is written funny and Peter Saide brings a great understated grace to the joke He also brings a big voice You just like him Oddly his bandaged nose and black eye were distracting though you can imagine the staff saying Hes a sheriff its dangerous work no one will notice Nick Wyman the villain singing Some Day They Will Thank Me made me think of the marvelous Jonathan Groff as King George in Hamilton Wymans rich sound aside he has no problem chewing the scenery with real distinction Gary Marachek s disillusioned priest seems to harmonize with everyone His Father Morse is one of Shakespeares requisite fools and Marachek plays him big and broad If these six players are miked they are perfectly miked because the singing voices and the harmonies sound pure In the market for a small sweet feelgood musical Desperate Measures should do the trick Photo by Carol Rose gg Star Ratings Excellent Very Good Good Below Average Poor WHATS ON IN NEW YORK CITY Broadway OffBroadway Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun OR VIEW BY MONTH Jan 2019 Feb 2019 Mar 2019 Apr 2019 May 2019 Jun 2019 Jul 2019 Aug 2019 Sep 2019 Oct 2019 Nov 2019 Dec 2019

O O O B O B I O O O O B O B I O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O