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WT Sharpe · 11-13-2010, 04:50 PM

I just finished reading The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, (the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation). It's the second translation of the book I've read this year; the first was the H.F. Cary translation (the Harvard Classics edition). In addition, I downloaded a course on the poem, read the syllabus, and listened to all 24 lectures (12 hours), and I'm still not sure what's going on. It would surely help is my knowledge of Medieval Italian history wasn't so sparse. Next year, I'm going to run through the course again and read yet another translation; this one by A.S. Kline. Unlike the others, it is written in prose style, and from what I've looked at appears much easier to get a handle on than the others.

Also this week I finished Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by the Bible scholar Elaine Pagels. It is a wonderful and well-researched book that puts forth the author's reasons why she believes the Gospel of John won out over the Gospel of Thomas for a position in the canon. Pagels has a lot to say about some very interesting early Church history.

11-13-2010, 04:50 PM	#7104
WT Sharpe Bah, humbug! Posts: 39,072 Karma: 157049943 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Chesapeake, VA, USA Device: Kindle Oasis, iPad Pro, & a Samsung Galaxy S9.	I just finished reading The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, (the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation). It's the second translation of the book I've read this year; the first was the H.F. Cary translation (the Harvard Classics edition). In addition, I downloaded a course on the poem, read the syllabus, and listened to all 24 lectures (12 hours), and I'm still not sure what's going on. It would surely help is my knowledge of Medieval Italian history wasn't so sparse. Next year, I'm going to run through the course again and read yet another translation; this one by A.S. Kline. Unlike the others, it is written in prose style, and from what I've looked at appears much easier to get a handle on than the others. Also this week I finished *Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas* by the Bible scholar Elaine Pagels. It is a wonderful and well-researched book that puts forth the author's reasons why she believes the Gospel of John won out over the Gospel of Thomas for a position in the canon. Pagels has a lot to say about some very interesting early Church history.