Well...I've been waiting to get to this one for some time now, but it's size...and weight!...intimidated me, so I tucked in to some other things. But I'm ready now. I was talking to a friend yesterday and I said, "I love reading fiction, and I love reading history and philosophy, but at this point (with not so many years to go), I really want to bear down on religion and spirituality.
So this.
Volume I: xxvii + 877 = 904 pages
Day 1 (DDRD 3,111) May 8, 2026
Read to 18.
I have to admit that when I turned the page and saw the eleven pages of abbreviations, I stopped short and caught my breath. Was I really man enough for this? I don't know. But I'm going to find out.
And?
Raymond E. Brown is a very good writer, and I think I can hang in there with his book. He even injects a little bit of humor into his commentary now and then. So...we're off, you know.
BTW:
So it hasn't been sitting around TOO long.
Day 2 (DDRD 3,112) May 9, 2026
Read to page 40. Long day: movie with Joe, visits from Joe and Jacqueline, and an Indiana Fever 🏀 game. Plus I'm pooped--not sleeping well at all.
"It is not tautological to insist that the Gospels are primarily evangelistic; to make them dominantly reportorial is a distortion." (24)
Get this: the parts of the New Testament covered by this book (and Volume 2 as well) are Mark 14:26 - 15:47, Matthew 26: 30 - 27:66, Luke 22:39 - 23:56, and John 18:1 - 19:42. That's like eight pages! * Talk about a deep dive. (And that's the way I like it.)
* Maybe a tad more. I did a word count (I know, I know) and turns out the four Passion Narratives ** = 21 pages (8,179 words). Still....
** For your reading pleasure, you can find these four HERE.
Day 3 (DDRD 3,113) May 10, 2026
Read to page 70.
I'm still in the preliminary stages of this book (wherein Fr. Brown is setting up his premises / assumptions), But there is some fascinating stuff here. For instance, apparently Luke tried to clean up the disciples' reputations by omitting certain events from his narrative; he also avoids Aramaic place names and terminology...presumably because his audience wouldn't be into that.
I'm anxious to read more. It's no walk in the park, though. This is a pretty dense, scholarly work, and I'm not sure that I can maintain a 30 pages per day pace...but I am going to try. 😤
Day 4 (DDRD 3,114) May 11, 2026
Read to page 90. Confession: I am really enjoying this book, but today I put a lot of reading time into finishing Jack Vance's pulpy science fiction novel The Dragon Masters. Sometimes you just needa bag of potato chips, man.
Day 5 (DDRD 3,115) May 12, 2026
Read to 130.
Day 6 (DDRD 3,116) May 13, 2026
Read to page 160. So to generalize Luke's Jesus is imperturbable; even in the Garden of Gethsemane, he has only a minor brush with a sense of futility. The Matthew/Mark Jesus, on the other hand, is feeling a sickness unto death in Gethsemane. He seems much more human.
Day 7 (DDRD 3,117) May 14, 2026
Read to page 192.
Cheat sheet:
John = sovereign Jesus
Luke = composed & masterful Jesus
Mark / Matthew = human, vulnerable* Jesus
* Brown does not use the word "vulnerable." That's my conclusion from what he has written. This Jesus suffers more obviously than the others, though.
Day 8 (DDRD 3,118) May 15, 2026
Read to page 208. Yeah: x-ray, cardio rehab, nephrologist, Zoom meeting, Rocky, Indiana Fever vs. Washington Mystics. Sorry, just ran outta time.
Sample sentence:
So...how do you like your 👁 👁 👦 now, Mr. Death?
Day 9 (DDRD 3,119) May 16, 2026
Read to page 215. No good excuse today. Just tired.
Day 10 (DDRD 3,120) May 17, 2026
Read to page 245. Back in the saddle again.
Day 11 (DDRD 3,121) May 18, 2026
Read to 255. 😶
Day 12 (DDRD 3,122) May 19, 2026
Read to page 285.
So...in Luke 22:38 the disciples say to Jesus, "Lord, look, here are two swords." He responds to them by saying, "It is enough." Which could be taken to mean, "That's all the sword power we need." But doesn't that sound a bit contradictory to the whole message of Jesus? Brown has a better idea. Instead of acknowledgement/ tacit approval, we have, "That's enough!" Y'know? Just fed up with these bumbling frat boys.
Day 13 (DDRD 3,123) May 20, 2026
Read to page 315. I have to confess that I've fallen into the 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series, so it's been a little harder to push myself to do my 30 pages of reading every day. But I am interested in this book and have found many small revelations in the past two weeks. So onward.
According to Brown (ATB), Luke seeks to present the disciples in the best possible light, even to the extent of leaving out details which make them look bad. Mark and Matthew, on the other hand, seek the raw truth-- with Mark the rawer of the two. John seems to be on another plane entirely...what I think my dear Father Zoeller, would have referred to as high Christology. So high, in fact, that he seems to border on gnosticism at times.* I guess that's why John appeals to me so much.
* Thus does John begin his gospel with a dissertation on the logos. More pertinent to this book, when Jesus is met in the garden of Gethsemane, he announces himself and his would be captors fall to the ground as if hit by an explosion.
Day 14 (DDRD 3,124) May 21, 2026
Read to page 345.
Day 14 (DDRD 3,124) May 21, 2026
Read to page 355.
Day 15 (DDRD 3,125) May 23, 2026
Read to page 362.
Day 16 (DDRD 3,126) May 24, 2026
Read to page 384.
There was a footnote reference to A Rabbi Talks with Jesus by J. Neusner. Of course I had to order that. And then I saw that Brown's The Birth of the Messiah was sitting in my cart, so what the heck, I ordered that, too. This is the way.
Day 17 (DDRD 3,127) May 25, 2026
Read to page 399.
Day 18 (DDRD 3,128) May 26, 2026
Read to page 430.
Day 19 (DDRD 3,129) May 27, 2026
Read to page 460. Jesus was put to death at least in part because he wrecked the tables in the temple and "threatened" to destroy it and build it back up in three days. Interesting.
Day 20 (DDRD 3,130) May 28, 2026
Read to page 476.
When Joe was younger, he was talking about the Holy Family and he began to name them: "There's Jesus Christ, Mary Christ, and Joseph Christ." Which is pretty logical, isn't it? Ever since then I've had this picture in my mind:
Day 21 (DDRD 3,131) May 29, 2026
Read to page 490.
Day 22 (DDRD 3,132) May 30, 2026
Read to page 500. Yeah. But I did see a 3 hour opera movie.
Day 23 (DDRD 3,133) May 31, 2026
Read to page 510.
So...according to Luke (and no other Gospel), Jesus tells the repentant thief, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Well. That raises a couple of questions for me. For one thing, what did this thief do that makes him worthy of heaven? All he did was to tell the other thief not to mock Jesus, and ask Jesus to remember him when He gets to heaven. That's not a much of a profession ofliterally. It's not even a request for forgiveness for his sins. Talk about arriving at the vineyard at the last minute. Also, how can Jesus tell this thief that he will be in paradise "today"? I thought the whole deal was that you die and then wait around for the Day of Judgment. Apparently that's not the case with this fellow. Which also complicates the whole Lazarus story for me. Did Lazarus die and go to heaven? If so, did Jesus yank him out of heaven to bring him back to his earthly existence? That doesn't sound like a win to me.
And that is why you can't take Bible stories literally.
Day 24 (DDRD 3,134) June 1, 2026
Read to page 540.
Day 25 (DDRD 3,135) June 2, 2026
Read to page 550.
Day 26 (DDRD 3,136) June 3, 2026
Read to page 580.
Day 27 (DDRD 3,137) June 4, 2026
Read to page 610. This is not an easy read...and I'm still 267 pages from finishing...Volume I! I think it's worth tje struggi, but I am kind of longing for some fiction.
Just in case you need to know:
hendiadys/henˈdīədəs/Hendiadys is a figure of speech where a single, complex idea is expressed using two independent words connected by a conjunction (like "and"), rather than the typical combination of a modifier and a noun. The term comes from the Greek hen dia dyoin, meaning "one through two". E.g. " safe and sound."
Day 28 (DDRD 3,138) June 5, 2026
Read to page 624.
Day 29 (DDRD 3,139) June 6, 2026
Read to page 630. I actually read more than that, but unfortunately I was confused and reread quite a few pages before I realized what I had done. ☹️
Day 30 (DDRD 3,140) June 7, 2026
Read tonight. 650.
Day 31 (DDRD 3,141) June 8, 2026
Read to page 680. I was talking to a friend about this book last night She was in a pretty depressed state, but was interested in what I was telling her. By the time our conversation finished, she was laughing and feeling better. A few minutes after we hung up she texted me and said that I had inspired her to read the Gospels again.
Day 32 (DDRD 3,142) June 9, 2026
Read to page 700.
Day 33 (DDRD 3,143) June 10, 2026
Read to page 718. Something I never thought of before: How did Pontius Pilate speak to Jesus? Surely Pilate did not speak Aramaic...which means there must have been a translator present. Yet there's no mention of this anywhere in the New Testament. Why not? And what else wasn't mentioned?
P.S. AI overview says, "Pontius Pilate spoke Latin (his native language and the official language of the Roman Empire) and Koine Greek. As an educated Roman administrator stationed in Judea, he would have primarily used Greek to conduct daily administrative and legal business with the local Jewish population.While it is possible Pilate picked up a conversational understanding of local Aramaic, it is widely believed by historians that he would have communicated with locals through a translator or in Greek."
Day 34 (DDRD 3,144) June 11, 2026
Read to page 748.
Word of the day (courtesy of AI Overview)::
Day 35 (DDRD 3,145) June 12, 2026
Read to page 778. Hey...less than 100 pages to go! It's been a challenge, but I'm glad that I hung in there.
Day 36 (DDRD 3,146) June 13, 2026
Read to page 808.
I'd been thinking about Jesus Christ Superstar for some time, and last night I put it into the DVD player and fired it up. I don't know how many times I've seen this movie, but I would estimate at least 20. (The last time was at the now extinct Baxter Theater, where Ted Neeley and Kurt Yahjian were in attendance for a talk and Q & A after the movie.) But when it got to the scene where Judas chastised Jesus for letting Mary Magdalene wash his feet and hair, and then he and Jesus go in for the hand on shoulder sliding down to handshake scene, tears sprang into my eyes. And again during "I Don't Know How to Love Him." How's that for staying power?
I also picked up a $3.99 copy of The Passion of the Christ at Half-Price Books when I saw that it wasn't on any of the streaming platforms for free. I will probably watch that today. (But I know it's going to be rough.)
And if THAT'S not enough, even as we speak I'm listening to Maurice Duruflé's Requiem, Op. 9. I heard a piece of this on the radio and had to track it down. It's right up there with Monteverdi's Beatus Vir, and I've been listening to it incessantly for the past couple of days.
Getting immersed.
Got to the Barrabas story and thought there were several hints that this story was not historical...but we didn't get thete today. This bit from Wikipedia says we'll get there, though:
"Contrarian positions include Max Dimont, who argues against the believability of the Barabbas story by noting that the alleged custom of privilegium Paschale, "the privilege of Passover", where a criminal is set free, is only found in the Gospels. For Dimont, Barabbas' narrative lacks credibility from both the Roman and Jewish standpoint. Raymond E. Brown contends that the Gospel narratives about Barabbas cannot be considered historical, but that it is probable that a prisoner referred to as Barabbas (bar abba, "son of the father") was freed around the period Jesus was crucified, and this gave birth to the story."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabbas
Day 37 (DDRD 3,147) June 14, 2026
Read to page 838.
Day 38 (DDRD 3,148) June 15, 2026
Read to page 868. Which leaves me with only 9 pages in Volume 1. I can take care of that today, can't I?
And...the tire people were late, so I did indeed read to page 877, aka The End.
Day 39 (DDRD 3,149) June 16, 2026
Looks like Volume 2 continues the numbering from the first volume, so....
Read to page 888. (+ 19 pages of introductory stuff.)
Day 40 (DDRD 3,150) June 17, 2026
Read to page 918.
Day 41 (DDRD 3,151) June 18, 2026
If I can stick to reading 30 pages per day (unlikely), then it will take me 23 days to finish this volume. That would make a total of 64 days invested in this work. Pretty hefty.
Read to page 934. Yep, ironic.
Day 42 (DDRD 3,152) June 19, 2026
Read to page "964."
Add xix pages for introductory material.
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