The Bible in the News: Cool Hand Luke
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My students at Creighton University are great—smart, well prepared, fully engaged! If they do have a collective “Achilles’ heel,” it is a lack of knowledge about classic popular culture; that is, what I grew up with in the ’60s and ’70s.
When I ask them about Paul Newman, they know about his salad dressing and other nonprofit endeavors. But Paul Newman the actor (not to mention racecar driver)—they’ve never heard of him. No Paul Newman, no Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That’s sad—but far sadder, no Cool Hand Luke, that late ’60s anthem to, well, the late ’60s.
Perhaps references to Luke (as in the Gospel of) in today’s popular culture could remedy this situation. Admittedly, not likely, but well worth a try!
One of the first articles on the Gospel I located (from London’s Sunday Times) bore this intentionally provocative headline: “St. Luke ‘a Fraud’ says historian.” The first sentence carries an arresting, if troubling, image: “Gospel truth may not be anything of the sort. St. Luke, one of the four evangelists, stands accused by an eminent Biblical scholar as a plagiarist and fraud.” Not much of a link here to Paul Newman’s Luke. Say what you will, he was nothing if not authentic.
Another story, this one from Canada’s Globe and Mail, might prove more promising (or less promising, depending on your perspective). Its headline is in the form of a question: “Was Jesus a ‘Party Animal’?” According to the Mail’s resident expert, Jesus was not only a “party animal,” but also a “social gadfly.” Basing himself primarily on references in the Gospel of Luke, this scholar concludes, “Jesus had a lot in common with modern-day tramps and street people.” A modern-day Luke could apply such a characterization, with some minor refinements, to Paul Newman’s Cool Hand Luke!
In many ways, Cool Hand Luke was an original, the source for many “cool guys” who followed. Wouldn’t you know it? Against the combined wisdom of almost all New Testament scholars, a few now argue that “Luke was the earliest of the Gospel stories, and that Mark had used Luke in writing his account” (as reported in the Jerusalem Post). Ah, Luke the rebel trailblazer, in antiquity as in the modern world.
Cool Hand Luke, like the real-life Paul Newman, was in great shape, at least until he suffered under the sadistic warden who brutalized him. Not so the gospel writer, who, according to another Times of London story, “was a stocky man with a bad back who was arthritic and short of breath.” This rather full diagnosis comes from a study of Luke’s bones, which have long been on deposit at the Basilica of Santa Guistina in Padua. Skeptics (of whom I am one, at least in this instance) can doubt the authenticity of such a study, but for sure the remains of Cool Hand Luke (admittedly a fictional character) would yield a very different picture of the flesh-and-blood man behind them.
Oops! I almost forgot this “scientific” rejoinder to the previously mentioned skeptics: As reported in the Irish Times, “DNA Analysis Proves St. Luke [or specifically the bones deposited at Padua] Is Who They Say He Is.” The “proof”: “Genetic fingerprinting used mitochondrial DNA [to show that] the body was most likely [a] Syrian … who had died between 72 and 416 A.D., bracketing Luke’s supposed year of death nicely.” I opine that no such complex procedures would have been needed on Cool Hand Luke’s remains, if only he had actually lived!
We close with a reference from one of my favorite parts of any newspaper, the sports section. “Rugby Players Reveal Their Gospel Truth” is the headline (from Wellington, New Zealand’s Dominion Post). The story begins like this: “The Gospel according to [professional rugby player] Brad Thorn is now available, as part of a rugby-themed edition of a Bible chapter published to coincide with the Rugby World Cup. Godzone is a re-vamped version of the Gospel of Luke, featuring the entire text of the New Testament chapter interspersed with the life stories of 10 international players whose lives have been transformed by their Christian faith … Luke’s Gospel was chosen because it contained the popular nativity scene, and contained the story of a lost sheep—giving it a New Zealand flavour.”
Nothing objectionable about this, I guess. But I can also imagine a not necessarily revamped version of Cool Hand Luke with testimonials of how it changed people’s lives, non-rugby as well as rugby players. Clearly, the stories would differ substantially, but these tales might actually serve to bridge the gulf between Luke the gospel writer and Luke the Cool Hand guy. And that, after all, is what this column has been all about!
My students at Creighton University are great—smart, well prepared, fully engaged! If they do have a collective “Achilles’ heel,” it is a lack of knowledge about classic popular culture; that is, what I grew up with in the ’60s and ’70s.
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