From christianpost.com
… Bradford [Author of Out of the Dark Woods – Dylan, Depression and Faith] said that as a Jewish Christian he can identify with the writing of other Jewish Christians. "I believe that Bob Dylan is a Jewish Christian. In other words he is a Jew who has faith in Jesus as the Messiah,” he said.
In 2009, unhindered by any restrictions from a record company contract, Dylan released an album called “Christmas in the Heart.” The album includes Christmas classics such as “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”
Bradford related a story about Dylan’s interview with journalist Bill Flanagan in regards to the Christmas album. The account is also available on the singer’s website, BobDylan.com.
Flanagan told Dylan: “There’s something almost defiant in the way you sing ‘The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.’ I don’t want to put you on the spot, but you sure deliver that song like a true believer.”
“Well, I am a true believer,” Dylan replied.
[As the years pass, more comes to light about one of my early folk heroes and his faith. Most don’t know that Dylan recorded three Christian albums, was known to be a member of a Christian church, and married his backup gospel singer. Like all of us, Dylan has at time struggled with his faith but now, relatively late in his life, we have the above reaffirmation. My favorite Christian song is his “You Gotta Serve Somebody” off of “Slow Train Coming”. – JS]
This book does 2 things:
ReplyDeleteFirstly the author (a medical doctor) looks at the reasons for the 7 year gap to 'Time out of Mind', the reasons in Dylan's personal life for the gap, and looks at the album's lyrics and title and arrives at a medical diagnosis - reactive depression. To my knowledge, no one has said this before.
Secondly it looks at Dylan's lyrics from 'Infidels' on and pulls out all the sources for the lyrics (Bogart films etc), but especially the biblical ones. Most of these are new information, because serious biblical analysis mainly stopped after Dylan's so-called 'Christian phase'. The author (a bible scholar) shows (too many examples to mention) that the bible's influence continued.
I guess we have seen that with the new stage version of 'Gonna Change my Way of Thinking'. This is new information too - one example that comes to mind is exactly who the 'Jokerman' is and why.
Finally it is worth mentioning that the publisher (Templehouse.com) is following Dylan's example and giving all the proceeds to a homeless charity. Well worth reading for the medical stuff alone.