on the first selection of this episode of this american life (it is about 18 minutes) jonathan goldstein, a regular contributor and author of lenny bruce is dead, who is not particularly religious, gives a pretty imaginative rendering of the cain and abel story (after clicking on to the attached page, you will have to select
"full episode" from the left side of the page
. it is at the very beginning of the recording.secondly, i was reminded as eric was preaching of a billy collins poem called flock. collins (former poet laureat) who i am not sure is particularly religious, seems to have his finger on the fact that sacrifice is intrinsic in the communion between god and man:
Flock
It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenburg Bible
required the skins of 300 sheep.
I can see them
squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed.
All of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike
it would be nearly impossible to count them.
And there is no telling which one of them
will carry the news
that the Lord is a Shepherd,
one of the few things
they already know.
- Billy Collins
cain and abel is a bible story with concepts that seem somewhat authoritative even to those who don't hold the bible itself as authoritative ...any thoughts?
