The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/656716
The Press-Dispatch Local Wednesday, March 23, 2016 A- 5 1050 WERNSING RD., JASPER 812-482-5141 OR 1-800-686-1444 Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-8pm; Sat 8am-4pm See our entire inventory at BobLuegers.com *Pricing includes rebates before taxes and fees, dealer retains rebates, see dealer for details. A NICE PLACE TO DO BUSINESS! Great deals on new 2016 Yukons and remaining NEW 2015 MODELS 2014 Chevy Camaro #18294A, GM Certified, 5,049 Miles Was $34,597 Now $28,490 2012 VW Eos #P18353B, Luegers Certified, 56,871 Miles Was $18,984 Now $15,990 2015 Buick Verano #G18537, GM Certified, 23,576 Miles Was $19,677 Now $17,990 2016 Chevy Equinox #18367A, Factory Warranty, 1,500 Miles Was $31,986 Now $28,990 2012 GMC Terrain #P18545, As-Is, 27,604 Miles Was $25,995 Now $23,995 2013 Nissan Maxima #P18558, Luegers Certified, 61,303 Miles Was $19,888 Now $17,990 2015 Ford F-150 #P18569, Factory Warranty, 26,093 Miles Was $34,900 Now $32,490 2013 Chevy Volt #P18585, GM Certified, 44,639 Miles Was $16,993 Now $14,490 2014 GMC Terrain #18593A, GM Certified, 49,825 Miles Was $20,556 Now $18,990 2008 GMC Sierra 1500 #P18616, Luegers Certified, 89,867 Miles Was $23,994 Now $21,490 2010 Honda Accord Sedan #P18650, Luegers Certified, 75,362 Miles Was $15,566 Now $13,990 2015 Ford Escape #P18664 Factory Warranty 19,100 Miles Was $22,994 Now $20,990 2013 GMC Sierra 1500 #18063B GM Certified 36,281 Miles Was $22,994 Now $20,590 2014 GMC Sierra 1500 #18584A GM Certified 11,848 Miles Was $31,986 Now $30,990 2012 Toyota Camry #P18679, Luegers Certified, 49,313 Miles Sale Price $16,589 2008 Chevy Silverado 1500 #18655A, Luegers Certified, 82,915 Miles Was $11,986 Now $10,990 GM Certified Pre-Owned Benefits • 2-Year / 24,000-Mile Standard Maintenance Plan • 12-Month / 12,000-Mile Bumper-to-Bumper Warranty • 6 Year / 100,000-Mile Powertrain Warranty • 3-Months of Free OnStar and SiriusXM Radio Bob Luegers Certified Benefits • 3-Month / 3,000-Mile Limited Warranty • 24/7 Roadside Assistance • 172-Point Vehicle Inspection • 3-Day / 150-Mile Guarantee • Vehicle History Report PRE-OWNED B U I C K WE ARE PROFESSIONAL GRADE. NEW 2015 BUICK VERANO $ 19,995 * SALE PRICE FWD, Quicksilver, #18457 MSRP $24,605 - Total Savings $4,610 = NEW 2015 GMC SIERRA 1500 $ 28,845 * SALE PRICE Double Cab 2WD, Iridium Metallic, #18418 MSRP $34,610 - Total Savings $5,765 = NEW 2015 GMC SIERRA 1500 $ 34,986 * SALE PRICE Double Cab SLE 4X4, Summit White, #18377 MSRP $44,915 - Total Savings $9,929 = NEW 2015 GMC SIERRA 1500 $ 35,230 * SALE PRICE Double Cab SLE 4X4, Quicksilver, #18515 MSRP $45,185 - Total Savings $9,955 = NEW 2016 GMC YUKON SLT $ 64,735 * SALE PRICE 4X4, Crimson Red, #18783 MSRP $69,290 - Total Savings $4,555 = NEW 2016 GMC YUKON XL DENALI $ 71,995 * SALE PRICE 4X4, Onyx Black, #18719 MSRP $77,500 - Total Savings $5,505 = yeah, it's that fast! net edition Z M www.PressDispatch.net/Subscribe The Press-Dispatch. No matter where you live. Pregnant... or think you are? Call:1-877-257-1084 or Locally Call: 1-812-354-2814 • Free pregnancy testing • Free counseling and info. on pregnancy options. • Confi dential counseling for women & men who are suff ering from post-abortion syndrome. • Residential Care • Health and assistance referrals. • Training and education. • Assistance in getting baby and maternity clothes washpcc@sbcglobal.net www.washingtonpregnancycenter.com If it's Easter season, it must be time for yet another mass media attempt to undermine New Testament Chris- tianity. As archaeological evidence mounts in favor of the historicity of New Tes- tament and Old Testament alike, the mass media have averted their eyes from that, and changed the subject to newer, fresher "gospels," whether of Mary or Thomas or any of approxi- mately 40 Gnostic alternatives. Judas is in vogue with Liberals and their theologians in the 21st Century, and with their marketers, apparently. Was it just a coincidence when the Na- tional Geographic Society put Judas on its cover during Easter month and scheduled its national Judas telecast on a Palm Sunday, about a month shy of The Da Vinci Code's theatrical release? I suspect, rather, that it was an inspired piece of cross-marketing. National Geographic, the History Channel and CNN have joined TIME magazine as patrons, anointers and marketers of Biblical revisionists who dominate secular university faculties. Their favor ensures robust sales and popularity for otherwise obscure aca- demics who undermine Biblical Chris- tianity. Two of the most ambitious revision- ists, Elaine Pagels, of Princeton Uni- versity, and Karen L. King, of Harvard, have re-interpreted early Christianity through the prism of a Gospel of Judas. Although it was originally written in Greek, its only surviving manuscript is in Coptic, an ancient language still spoken by Christians in Egypt, where the manuscript was discovered in the 1970s. King translated it from Coptic to English. Pagels offers "context" in her book Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity. Pagels doesn't claim that Judas ac- tually authored the Gnostic "gospel" that took his name. It was written more than a century after his death. But she uses it as a Rosetta Stone to decode the early church, and accords it as much credibility as the canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) for that purpose. According to the revisionists, the early Christian landscape was char- acterized by contentious factions and snarling disputes until Emperor Con- stantine reinforced powerful bishops and imposed an orthodoxy to their lik- ing, formalized by the First Council of Nicaea in 325. What we now regard as the historic Christian faith was, until 325, merely one of numerous candidates for the ti- tle "Christianity," according to Pagels and fellow revisionists. It's not more ancient, not more authentic than the rivals it vanquished; just more suc- cessful. The Pike County Public Library has Reading Judas in audiobook form, five compact discs you can play in five and a half hours in your vehicle. We've shelved it at Petersburg, but we'll send it to any library branch in Pike County if you'd like to check it out. It's a bit of a stretch to call the Gos- pel of Judas a "gospel." Translated in- to English, it only runs seven pages. There's little actual history in it, no narrative account of the life of Jesus from birth to death to Resurrec- tion. (I read that we can download both the origi- nal Coptic and the 7-page English translation in their entirety from National Geo- graphic's website, but I haven't tried it.) One scholar who got a close-up look at the papyrus in 1983 es- timates that it would have run 60 type- written pages if preserved and trans- lated at that time. We'll probably never know what was on the pages that dis- integrated in more than two decades of mishandling by dumb-and-dumber antiquity hustlers. The fragment we're left with today is more a polemic than a gospel account. It purports that Judas received a special revelation from Jesus, with- held even from the other 11 disciples. Perhaps that revelation is implicit in the document's claim that Judas be- trayed Jesus for arrest and execution at Jesus' own request, in order to fulfill prophecy. That would imply that Judas knew Christ's mission better than Pe- ter, but it is contradicted by the "woe to him" verses in Matthew 26:24 and Mark 14:21. Even though the manuscript's dis- covery was unexpected, the work was not unknown. A Gospel of Judas is mentioned – unfavorably – by ear- ly Church Fathers, including Bishop Irenaeus. He called it a "fictitious his- tory" around AD 180, and attributed it to a group of Gnostic heretics he called "Cainites." I doubt that the Cainites accept- ed this name for themselves. Irenae- us was a fierce opponent of Gnosti- cism, and also of the Gnostics them- selves. The alternate title of his classic "Against Heresies" was "On the Detec- tion and Overthrow of So-Called Gno- sis." There wasn't a lot of gentle admo- nition in his work; he was a warrior. Yet Irenaeus' Christian pedigree was golden. He studied under Poly- carp, who studied under John and, well, you know who mentored him. According to Steven Tsichlis, a Greek Orthodox priest and writer, Cainites were busily vindicating Cain, Esau, Korah, the Sodomites and Judas – sort of a 2nd-Century American Civ- il Liberties Union – and turning them into spiritual heroes in the Gospel of Judas. The manuscript also proposed a hi- erarchy of angels, and claimed the Cre- ation was delegated to an inferior dei- ty, who botched the task. It denounced the apostles for their openness to mar- tyrdom, on the grounds that it consti- tuted human sacrifice and was an af- front to the sufficiency of Christ's own sacrifice. It had to seem awfully pro- vocative to a man like Irenaeus, a dis- ciple of the martyred Polycarp and des- tined, himself, for martyrdom. Pagels disclaims any ambition to "re-open the canon." She doesn't say that the Gospel of Judas belongs in the New Testament. But she doesn't appear to re- spect the canon in the first place. She celebrates the Judas document as a rev- elation of the diversity of pre-Nicaean Christiani- ty, in which she consid- ers the various gospels equally valid. She resists the descrip- tion of the Gospel of Judas as Gnostic, which she considers a pe- jorative term used by the gospel win- ners to discredit the gospel losers. I found that unpersuasive. If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Modern New Testament revision- ists are a symbiotic group. They praise one another's work as "brilliant," and in turn find their own work described as "the best scholarship" on any disput- ed issue. Only rarely do they dispute one another, as when Rice University professor April DeConick claimed that King's translation got most of it wrong. Generally, however, the revisionists stick together, and they make the lay- man feel as if only a snake-handling hillbilly would question their strained inferences. Well, bring on the serpents and hand me my banjo, because I have some questions for the revisionists. How much light can a controver- sial polemic of the late Second Centu- ry shed on doctrines of the early First Century? The original Gospel of Judas was about as far removed from the Cruci- fixion and Resurrection, timewise, as we are now from the William McKin- ley presidency. If you wanted to under- stand why we went to war with Spain, would you read diaries and newspaper accounts from that period, or from our own? "There are a lot of Second, Third and Fourth Century gospels attrib- uted to various apostles," writes re- tired Claremont University professor James Robinson. "We don't really as- sume they give us any First Century information." Finally, if the doctrine of self-de- scribed Christians was relatively ho- mogeneous in Book of Acts times (shortly after the Resurrection) and then got more diverse and conten- tious as the decades passed, doesn't that contradict your premise? Wasn't and isn't some doctrine necessarily more original and authentic than oth- er doctrine? I found Prof. Pagels' work uncon- vincing, but it is interesting as a win- dow on the heretical tumult of the Sec- ond, Third and Fourth Centuries that prompted Constantine to call the First Council of Nicaea. I don't recommend Reading Judas, even in audiobook form, for a casual or recreational reader. However, I do recommend it for the mature Christian or even the mature unbeliever who has an interest in the first, formative centuries of Christen- dom. The Resurgent Library by Bart Stinson Easter season Ribbon cutting for Giesler Dental Dr. Nick Giesler recently cut the ribbon for his new practice, Giesler Dental, in Petersburg. Dr. Giesler opened his new practice in the former location of recently retired Dr. Jerry Babb, at 292 West Main Street. Giesler Dental is open Tuesday 9 to 6, Thursday 8 to 5, and by special appointment. Participating in the ceremony are, from left: Chamber of Commerce representatives Dana Wilson, Hugh Eskew, Brett Warner, office manager Becky Morton, Dr. Giesler's father Jeff, Dr. Giesler's grand- mother Geraldine Giesler, hygienist Jessica Welp, dental assistant Mandy Hopf, Dr. Giesler, patients Kathern Wilson and Lisa Wilson, Mayor R.C. Klipsch and Chamber Director Leslie Tegmeyer. Rotary Club of Jasper to present ATHENA Award ® The Rotary Club of Jas- per will host its fifth ATHE- NA International Award® presentation at the Hunt- ingburg Event Center on Thursday, August 18, be- ginning at 6 p.m. with Jill Ackerman Jones as the key- note speaker. Founded in 1982 by Martha Mayhood Mertz, ATHENA® Interna- tional is a non-profit organi- zation that seeks to support, develop and honor women leaders. The program in- spires women to reach their full potential and strives to create balance in leadership worldwide. Supporting, honoring and developing women leaders are the foundations of the ATHENA Leadership Mod- el®, developed through a grant from the W.K. Kel- logg Foundation, and iden- tifies eight distinct attri- butes that are reflective of women's contributions to leadership: Authentic Self, Relationships, Giving Back, Collaboration, Courageous Acts, Learning, Fierce Ad- vocacy, and Celebration and Joy. These personal traits combined with the stron- gest aspects of traditional leadership—taking risks, assertiveness, hard work— prepare women to be suc- cessful leaders in the 21st Century. Since the program's in- ception, more than 6,000 awards have been present- ed in over 500 communities in the United States, Cana- da, China, Russia, the Unit- ed Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. The Jas- per Rotary Club decided that honoring a local pro- fessional woman would be a perfect fit with the ATHE- NA® Mission of "support- ing, developing and honor- ing women leaders while in- spiring women to achieve their full potential while cre- ating balance in leadership See ATHENA on 7