September 09, 2019 Sunday
Bedtime Story
The Passion in the Four Canonical Gospels
Suffering inevitably brings with it pain
and disruption of normal life and yet the person that comes out of it
inevitably is a transformed to some extent which is the result of coping,
learning and adaptation.
The greater the suffering and pain involved
greater is its effect on the person’s psyche and word view generating new
‘meaning’ and perhaps even ‘purpose’.
This ‘meaning’ that is formed in turn acts as
a feedback loop which will determine how an individual ape or society
(following wars or revolutions or partitions wherein entire population are
affected) as a collective will experience and deal with its sufferings.
We as doctors were originally meant to,
through our knowledge of medicine and sciences, alleviate suffering of the
masses.
It is doubtful if in today’s curriculum of
any medical school suffering alleviation is taught and emphasized as the
primary goal directly or consciously.
It may be implied and suggested at some of
the times but there isn’t enough emphasis given to it.
A wise physician will surely pick it up along
his long and endless journey someplace or the other often after encountering
some personal failures.
It might not be too far-fetched to assume
that a consensus could be built even among physicians that as health care
providers they might be curing illnesses and yet at the same time failing to
alleviate suffering.
Since suffering is such an intimate part of
our biology and psychology and to the religions that bible has devoted
considerable chapters on it through the episode of the Passion.
The entire event of Passion has been
described in the four canonical gospels of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John.
The word ‘gospel’ is derived from a Greek
word evangelion which simply means ‘good news’ even though these four canonical
gospels carry anything but good news.
Surprisingly enough, these four gospels (and
for that matter the entire New Testament) were written originally not in Latin
as one would expect in the heydays of the Roman Empire but in Greek.
This is in stark contrast to the canons or
the books that comprise the Old Testament that were all written originally in
Hebrew by the Israelites some of them going back to the Yehud Medinata of the
Persian Empire.
Yehud Medinata is an Aramaic or Hebrew term
for ‘the province of Judah’ sometimes simply known as Yehud and that is why
Jews in some languages are also known as Yehudis.
The other interesting thing is that even
though these four gospels convey the impression that they have been named
eponymously on some disciple or saint the truth is that they are all anonymous
as far as the authors go; there is complete lack of eyewitness as to the
writing of these four gospels.
We shall continue with the story of these
four canonical gospels in the nights to come.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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