Variations on a theme...

In case you were tired of rock-paper-scissors, there's a new version. Read. Learn. Challenge your friends.

Secondly(albeit unrelated), I finished watching Passion of the Christ last night. It was a powerful movie- I can see why christians found it so moving. But, as a scientifically thinking person raised without religion, I spent the entire movie wondering about the plausibility of the movie, as well as the historical accuracy of it. I mean, I'm not a doctor or anything, but it seemed to me that a lot of the wounds received by Christ would have been fatal long before nails were put through hands and feet(which I felt was unnecessary to show all three- I got the idea long before). The movie is shot wonderfully, too- no complaints on the cinematography. What I really enjoyed was the linguistic slant- the constant codeswitching from Aramaic to Hebrew to Latin- I got a kick out of that(I'm also such a nerd that I knew each time it happened).

On the whole, the movie did inspire me to learn more of the history of that time. Having been raised without religion, I know nothing about the story(90% of my christian knowledge comes from movies like this and Dogma), nor did I know who any of the characters were, but would like it if anyone has any reference books they could recommend so I could accomplish this goal. I, for one, do not believe in the bible as a historical book, but am open to other suggestions. Drop a line in comments and I'll check it out.