{"id":1199,"date":"2010-09-19T11:41:12","date_gmt":"2010-09-19T11:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/09\/nemesis--the-latest-lindsey-davis-novel.html"},"modified":"2010-09-19T11:41:12","modified_gmt":"2010-09-19T11:41:12","slug":"nemesis-the-latest-lindsey-davis-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/09\/nemesis-the-latest-lindsey-davis-novel.html","title":{"rendered":"Nemesis— the Latest Lindsey Davis Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"nemesis.jpg\"<\/a><\/form>\n

<\/p>\n

Nemesis, from which we get the transliterated
\nEnglish word, was the Greek god of vengeance, especially exercised about taking
\naction when human beings had been arrogant or hubristic or rude towards the
\ngods.  <\/span>In fact the name comes from the
\nGreek verb nemein <\/b>which means to
\ngive what is due someone— in other words, Nemesis is the god of divine
\npayback.  <\/span>The Romans called this same god
\nInvidia (as in invidious).  <\/span>Lindsey Davis’s
\nlatest novel, entitled Nemesis <\/i>is the
\n20 in the Marcus Falco ancient detective series, and it is a good one.  <\/span>It’s immediate predecessor Alexandria<\/i> <\/i> <\/span>is more fun (about a vacation in Alexandria that also
\ninvolves solving a crime), and in fact this novel is dark, sinister, and
\ninvolves long periods in the stinky Pontine swamps.  <\/span>It is in many ways a sad novel because it
\nbegins with the death of both Falco’s infant son and his ne’er do well father
\nGeminus.  <\/span>Thus the novel is, among other
\nthings, about dealing with grief, but it is also about payback, not by some
\ndivine intervention, but in fact by Falco himself, against his own human
\nnemesis— the Chief Spy–Anacrites.  <\/span><\/p>\n

I love the character of Falco. He
\nis clever, humorous, occasionally courageous, a man who loves his family, and a
\nperson who has a rather strong sense of right and wrong, and basic honesty—-
\nthat is, most of the time.  <\/span>This novel Nemesis <\/i>(to which one could compare the
\nStephen Saylor novel In the Arms of
\nNemesis<\/i>) however shows us a Falco who in some respects acts out of
\ncharacter, and thus becomes less appealing. 
\n<\/span>But then, which one of us has not acted out of character at various
\npoints in our lives.   <\/span>Indeed, this whole
\nnotion of acting ‘out of character’ is an interesting concept in itself.  <\/span>When an actor is ‘in character’  <\/span>he or she is playing a role that is other
\nthan who they actually are.  <\/span>But when a
\nhuman being acts ‘out of character’  <\/span>they
\nare not being true to their best self, their real self, or at least the self
\nthey want and try to be when they are at their best. <\/p>\n

I also loves the character of
\nHelena Justina, the patrician wife of plebian Falco.  <\/span>She is a testimony to how wise men marry
\nabove themselves, and are constantly improved and schooled by their wives.  <\/span>But Helena
\nas well in this novel is not herself. She is grief stricken and at one juncture
\nchooses to leave their house and move across town with the children when Falco
\nand his buddy Petronius decide to torture an informant in the basement of Falco’s
\nhouse!   <\/span>I think I’d leave too. <\/p>\n

One of things one learns about by
\nreading these novels is how very different pagans would think about ethics than
\nancient Christians in some respects, and how in other respects, they would
\nthink much the same— for instance about things like justice and honesty and
\ntruth.  <\/span>A good point of entry into that whole subject is the classic study by Robert Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them.<\/i><\/p>\n

Lindsey Davis is by far the most
\nwitty of all the ancient Roman novelists currently on offer in our era (cf.
\nSaylor, Harris, Doherty), and so she has you laughing even in a more somber
\nnovel like Nemesis. <\/i>  <\/span>And her knowledge of the first century
\nGreco-Roman world and Rome and Italy in
\nparticular is first rate.  <\/span>You learn a
\nlot about the world St. Paul
\nand many other early Christians lived in, in these novels.  <\/span>As one writer said ‘the past is like a foreign
\ncountry, they do things differently there’. 
\n<\/span>Indeed they do, and the more one learns about the context of early
\nChristianity, the better one understands the content of the earliest Christian
\ndocuments—- the New Testament.  <\/span>And if
\nnothing else, this is a very good reason for modern Christians to read novels
\nabout ancient Rome.
\n <\/span> <\/span> <\/span> <\/span> <\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/b> <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nemesis, from which we get the transliterated English word, was the Greek god of vengeance, especially exercised about taking action when human beings had been arrogant or hubristic or rude towards the gods.  In fact the name comes from the Greek verb nemein which means to give what is due someone— in other words, Nemesis…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nNemesis- the Latest Lindsey Davis Novel - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/09\/nemesis-the-latest-lindsey-davis-novel.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nemesis- the Latest Lindsey Davis Novel - 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}