Why there is no Jewish Narnia. [more inside]
posted by valkyryn on Mar 3, 2010 - 136 comments

"Armageddon" is not a global conflagration gone totally out of control. It is, instead, the gathering of the armies of Satan in a place called Armageddon at the north end of Israel. Huh? Anyway, it's not like these guys are influencing American foreign policy. Heads up for April 8 when Tim La Haye, co-founder of the ultraconservative Council for National Policy, will release Armageddon, the latest installment in the Left Behind series of millennialist apocalyptic thrillers.
posted by jonp72 on Mar 26, 2003 - 21 comments

Barabbas was spared by the mob in lieu of Jesus on Good Friday. Pär Lagerkvist, a Swedish novelist, explored this incredible character in his 1950 novel:

The novel BARABBAS (1950) was immediately hailed as a masterwork...Barabbas, the criminal in the New Testament, is pardoned instead of Christ, and is sentenced to the silver mines. His is incapable of loving, but becomes gradually aware of greater forces guiding his life.

Now I am myself atheist/agnostic, but I think this is cool. It reminds me of Vonnegut's description of Kilgore Trout as a badly aging Christ, whose sentence of crucifixion had been commuted to life imprisonment.
posted by crunchburger on Mar 29, 2002 - 4 comments

Jesse's Mistress Writing A Tell-All. The mother of Jesse Jackson's love child is penning a tell-all book alleging she received a secret payoff of $450,000 from the civil-rights leader, that to prove Jackson was the father of her 22-month-old daughter, she froze a condom containing his sperm, that before giving birth to their child, Karin was pregnant by Jesse a previous time, but had an abortion at his request, and that after learning of the affair, Jackson's wife, Jackie, was so angry that she pointed a gun at him in their Chicago home and had to be restrained by a guest.
posted by frednorman on Mar 29, 2001 - 10 comments