Njal´s saga

Even though it first concentrates on Gunnars history and then ignores Njal during a long time, I think that the stories that are being told really deserve to have been named after the man who wrote them. It could have been possible to change the book’s title to something more extravagant and original but this title is very well deserved. Other than the fact that Njal is the one who tells the occurrences, he is also the wisest and therefore this deserves to be named after him. His way of thinking and his intelligence make him a very wise and witty man and it gives him a great advantage in terms of survival during his life. I also noticed how Njal doesn’t resolve to violence that much, and if he does, he does it in an indirectly form since he convinces others to do the dirty job of killing. I just think that it was really nice to know that this saga is named after such strong character instead having had some other important character or theme to represent it.

Choosing Death

The way in which Gunnar chooses his destiny is one that I really admire because he held his head high and even though he was warned the circumstances, he still got what he wanted, and that was to keep his honor. Njal gives Gunnar the two choices of what he can do with his life and Gunnar chooses to die by his decision and he does it fighting to the end and fighting for a good cause and that is his liberty. After he kills several men, his punishment is that he must be sent away to never return unless he stays and faces the consequences of being attacked without them needing a justification. It was also impressive how such a strong man was alble to deal with so many people trying to kill him. It is also important to notice how he was tried to be killed several times and nobody was able to accomplish it due to his great ability in battle. For example he and Kolskegg fight bravely against 30 men and are able to make them flee and they get to keep their lives. Also when he is being killed, Gunnar is able to kill 2 men before and wound life fifteen of the twenty five they had brought. It is really impressive to know what a great fighter Gunnar was since he was able to hold on so long against so many soldiers.

Geneolgy

Something that really disturbs me about this saga is the fact that they include so much geneology. It is really hard to follow and one does not know about the people that are being mentioned and they never become important. I really think that this would be interesting to know of one knew of all the people or lived during the time period because you would know who you are talking about. The geneology here is also as it was in the bible in the sense that it goes really back to old ancestors but these genealogies are much more complete than the ones on the bible, maybe not in life tracking, but in background information and description. Here they usually say where they come from and they describe a bit of the personality and physical appearance.

Honorable fights

When I look at the way fights are described throughout the book I really support my original ideas of saying how the way in which men used to fight in battles is a lot more honoring and respectable than the one we currently handle. Before you actually had to be a good fighter and be skilled at what you did because soldiers fought with weapons that would only hurt the other if he is really close and can attack back. The fights are also more personal since one can actually se and face his opponent and struggle to keep one’s life. Today, however, staying alive during combat is pure luck and even though I really appreciate the work of those who fight for me, I really consider that this way of fighting is for cowards because one can’t even see the opponent and when shooting one is lucky enough to find cover and actually shoot at the target. This fighting doesn’t depend on skill, since not many men have problems with pulling the trigger. This is why I preferred to have people fight in the old ways because a good fighter was really a good fighter that could protect himself and attack with technique, practice, and ability.

Loyalty

The relationship that Gunnar an Njal share is a friendship full of obstacles but it is nice to see how they overcome them just to stay being friends. It was very touching in my opinion when Njal tells Gunnar, “I’ll stand by you loyally as long as I live.” (p120) this shows that they really care for one another and no matter how many men Gunnar kills, Njal will always cover up for him and get out of trouble, and no matter how much their wives hate each other and begin a killing cycle, they will always manage things in a civilized way and that even if ones wife speaks wrongly of his friend and family, he will defend his friend even if it means sticking up to the wife. I think this loyalty is really good and we could even say convenient because it gets the two most powerful men of the area and unite them so they are now extraordinary in every aspect. It I s weird to think about the fact that one shares his life with people that will always be there for you and you don’t know right now who will support you and who wont and it’s just funny to know that your current best friend may later become an enemy and that a person with which not much contact is done, can actually turn out to be one of your most loyal friends of all.

Reading the future...

Due to the fact that Njal can read the future, Gunnar has a great possibility of being successful at his expeditions and whenever they go on trial at the thing, Njal knows how to respond to the different situations and Gunnar is always saved. Reading the future is a quality that many would like to posses. Today there are many people who claim to have the gift of seeing the future and get paid lots of money, imagine then if there was a man who could really tell the future and all the benefits he would get out of it. I personally do not like to know how my life is supposed to be and I don’t want somebody reading my life, feelings, and thoughts, however there are many people who would really like to know how their life is going to be. Still, this gift could also be used in negative aspects, if it falls on the hands of a bad person, he/she could use it to harm others and benefit only himself. Governments would also take advantage of this and use it to benefit their countries. I still believe that this is a very dangerous weapon that, if it falls in the wrong hands, could end the little amount of peace we currently have going on in the world. Still if the gift falls in the hands of an appropriate person, then many good consequences would arise from the management of predicting the future. This stuff reminds me of the movie “next” and also makes me think how hard it would be for so one person to hold the future in his hands and be responsible for so many actions. All I know is that is one “supernatural” ability that I wouldn’t like to posses no matter how useful it is. I would much rather turn invisible, or fly, or, I don’t know, talk with animals.

authority in marriage

In this part of the book the wives ignore their husband’s requests and begin a “war” between them. Each summer while Gunnar and Njal are at the Thing, the women send their servant to kill the other woman’s servant. This becomes a cycle that goes on until finally Njal decides he won’t accept a new servant that year before the Thing. This shows how addictive cycles are and how hard they are to stop once someone begins it. At the same time I was impressed by the amount of patience their husbands have because each time their wives kill a servant they just pay one another depending on which servant it was. These two men solve the problem in a very peaceful way both of the times while they could have gotten infuriated and attacked one another. It is also impressive how the woman disobeys the man and receives no punishment for it. I guess that represents that in that time the families weren’t ruled by either the man or the woman which makes it an equal ruling relationship. Many families are ruled in such a way in the present but there are many others in which one of the two genders has greater authority.

thoughts in my mind while reading

When Gunnar was described in the book, I immediately created an image of him base on Hercules and Achilles. His great physical abilities and the fact that he is unbeatable remind me of Greeks and Romans.
Njal and Gunnar put together would get to be the perfect man. He would be extremely well rounded, and he would have both physical and mental strengths. Instead if you separate these two you get Njal being the mind and Gunnar being the body.
When I read about what occurs to Hrut because Gunnar does it as “revenge” in name of Mord the common saying of “what goes around, comes around” comes to mi mind because it shows that when you trick someone it is very possible that you are tricked back.
This story makes me think that there will always be someone better than you but there will also always be someone worse than you and that’s how balance is established in life.
The way in which Gunnar and Njal support each other shows a real relationship and the way friends stick up for one another.
One thing that confused me about the reading is that I’m not sure if it is in chronological order or not.

the New Testament

I liked reading the New Testament better than the Old Testament because I enjoyed reading the scripts more and it was easier to keep my attention in what I was reading and I guess that is because I was more interested and I enjoyed reading all the stories and teachings the books expressed and I learned many things that I didn’t know about my religion and even though I’m not a very religious person I still enjoyed reading all the stories that left behind a different moral for the readers to consider.

Heaven

In (revelations 22: 11) it is said that each person will receive a treatment in heaven as he acted in earth. This helps people want to be good and it also gives them hope because it means that whoever is good will receive good and that’s what all humans look for, happiness and goodness. This also is kind of comfort because it gives something to look forward to after the world ends as it is supposed so heaven is a wonderful place and one which we should look forward to reaching.

Sinners

“Let anyone among you who is without sin, be the first to throw a stone at her.” (8:7) I think that this is a very rich quote because it shows how we sometimes blame people for things we ourselves have previously done and for things we are also guilty of. The way in which we judge people is very similar because we don’t know people very well and assume some things because of their looks or a short comment and many times we have done the same things. It is also very impressive the human capacity of criticizing because it seems as that’s all we do we just look at peoples defects and sometimes forget about the good things about people and that is something that we should focus on.

Similarities

Through out my reading I have seen that these three gospels have a lot of common information. These restate many of the same evens but in different ways and each gospel has some unique characteristics and details. This lead me to believe that scholars could combine all three to make just one book but then I think again and realize that each has a different way of writing and that the way each person tells it gives it a different perspective and they each highlight different events and one gives more importance to some facts that the other might have not even considered worth writing about. It also came to me the probability that scholars did contemplate the possibility of uniting all the gospels but they probably found really good reasons to keep them as they are. I also realized that even if I’m not very interested in analyzing extensively these works, they are still very rich in context and have lots of unobvious information that some people discover study and interpret for personal gain and for the world’s literary gain.

The next messiah

Looking at the way Jesus was treated when he claimed to be gods son makes me wonder how it is that we would treat a person that al of a sudden said that he comes representing god. It would be interesting to discover who would be the groups that follow this person and who would become their enemies and who wouldn’t even care. I also wonder what would happen to him since violence is currently everywhere and if very powerful groups were against him maybe he would receive such a torturing treatment as the one Jesus received. It also makes me think how people would react because I think it was foretold in the bible that whenever the next messiah arrives on earth it is because he comes to saves us from the end of the world. This could make him get many followers that are with him because of fear and not loyalty and it would also cause fear throughout the world and chaos would occur. It is also possible that humans destroy the world even before the messiah is sent to save us. Maybe god will later decide we deserve to die and he might never send our savior… Too many things can happen in the future, knowing what will definitely occur is something yet impossible.

Miracles

Jesus has the “power” to make miracles happen; he can basically do whatever he wants and can make anything happen to anyone. Still since he is the son of god and was sent to earth do help people he only does good things and never wisher ill will to anybody. He went through many cities curing people from incurable diseases and returning the vision do blind and the hearing to death but he also did things as multiplying food and even walking on water. These things he did mostly for the benefit of others but at the same time he was getting attention and personal gain from them. I believe it is very unselfish of Jesus to accomplish the personal gain he needed and recruiting people through good actions and that way he wasn’t only helping himself but others as well. He could have instead used his powers in ways that would only benefit him. He could have also become ambitious in the middle of the way and betray god and use his followers for motives and actions of his own.

knowing what comes next

When Jesus does the last supper he already knows what comes next. Maybe not exactly and detailed but he knows Judas would betray him and Peter, one of his most loyal apostles, will deny him three times, and he will go through lots of suffering. Still, he does the dinner, he predicts his future and he completes his destiny without even trying to change his future. The only thing he does to try to prevent his horrible fate is that he prays to god for mercy and asks him to allow him to avoid all the suffering for which he was predestined. God either ignores him or denies his petition but either way Jesus does suffer a lot and is put to die in a very cruel way. The fact that Jesus faces all with his head held high makes him a very strong and honorable man who accepts Gods’ way of doing things even when it’s hard for him to understand it.
Knowing the future is something which is very hard and delicate to handle. Many people go to fortune tellers and even if they are inventing all the facts they say, they change the costumers’ life because he begins to try to accomplish the positive things that were told to him but tries to avoid the negative. Only few people have the nerve to confront even the negative aspects of life.

The Churchs´ wealth

“My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers” (21:13)

It is hard for me to understand how the church has such wealth while so many people suffer and they do so little to help. For example you can look at the popes’ wealth in the Vatican and how peters cathedral is covered in gold and how so many precious works of art are exposed and used to decorate the house of god. But then shouldn’t the church sell those goods and use the money to help the people who need it instead of having all the people related to the church abuse that wealth? To pray to god and communicate with him one can be anywhere not just at churches but if the “representatives of god” feel the need to read the different sections of the bible then let them do it but they can do it in a very simple place where people can reunite to really thank God and Jesus for what we currently have. Instead, there are wealthy churches in Italy and among the rest of the world that aren’t even used for praying but they are tourism and one has to pay to enter and admire undeserved wealth. This money could be used for many projects to support homeless people, or starving people or even orphanages and schools. The people of the churches should also be fine with this because they have studied Jesus actions and the way he represents god’s ideals so they shouldn’t mind living a simple and honorary life.

Resisting lifes temptations

“Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil” St. Matthews 4:1

I believe it is interesting how much Satan and God compete to see if God’s followers are truly loyal or not. It shows how even such great powers have disputes and doubts about themselves and the need to show one is greater than the other. It shows how humanly god and Satan are and how jealousy and competitiveness affect one life. This time Jesus was loyal to God and made Satan look weak because he presented Jesus with three temptations but he fell into none. It also makes me wonder how everything would be if I was the one being tested and if I would reject all temptations just to be loyal to God. It makes me wonder because even though right now I’m all “sure I would resist”, one usually acts differently to however one had previously predicted. It’s just one more reason to look at Jesus as a great person just as he did many other good things in his life.