As a boy, I first learned the story of the Maccabees, Antiochus Epiphanes, and the desolation and rededication of the Temple from my dad while studying the prophecy of Daniel. The clash of the classical world of the Greek empire, its rich mythology, and plethora of deities with the ancient Jewish monotheism and Hebraic values that I'd been raised to reverence made for a colorful period of history that piqued my interest from the start. My dad literally has bookshelves stacked on bookshelves in his study. When I was young, I would sometimes take down books at random and flip through them. One of those books was the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus. There was one image in that particular book that fascinated me, a neoclassical depiction of Eleazar Maccabee toppling the elephants of the Seleucids. It was just a simple black and white illustration, but the dynamic quality of the scene was thrilling. I can't help but wonder if as a boy, Jesus found a sense of excitement in the Chanukah story as well. Chronologically, he would have been about as far from the events of the first Chanukah as we in the U.S. today are from the events of the Civil War. It's clear from scripture that he shared the Maccabees' intense passion for the sanctity of the Temple Mount. All four of the gospels record how he cleansed the Temple grounds by driving out all who were buying and selling goods and exchanging money, even aggressively crafting a weapon, a whip of cords, for the purpose. And with his actions came his words:

"Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade." (John 2:16)

"Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers." (Matthew 21:13, Mark 11:17, Luke 19:46)

"Zeal for your house will consume me." (John 2:17, Psalm 69:9)

As heir to a fraction of the territory conquered by Alexander, Antiochus IV became the first ruler in the history of the Greek empire to explicitly claim divine titles for himself. "Theos Epiphanes", "God Manifest," was attached to his name wherever it occurred. He was Zeus incarnate, and every coin and scrap of paper issued in the Seleucid realm proclaimed it. It's clear from any study of the history of the wider world that this was nothing new. Men have consistently laid claim to godhood as far back as the records go. The Egyptian pharaohs claimed to be various incarnations of Horus, Osiris, and Ra. The sovereigns of the Xia (夏) and Shang (商) dynasties in China were called sons of Heaven (天子) and in the Qin (秦) assumed the additional title of divine emperor (皇帝), intended to hearken back to the god-kings of prehistoric legend. The rulers of Mesopotamia had often declared themselves deities; Nebuchadnezzar II is known for raising a massive statue of his own image for worship. In every case, the pointed words of the Shema echoed through history in stark contrast, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." (Deuteronomy 6:4) Not two. Not three. Not fifty. Not millions. When Antiochus Epiphanes profaned the Temple with idolatrous monuments to his own divinity, it was blasphemy against the unity of the LORD, and for three years the sons and daughters of Israel fought to regain Jerusalem with the same zealous conviction that led Jesus, when asked which of the commandments is most important, to begin his answer with the Shema. "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." (Mark 12:29)

With those thoughts, I can move on from those first two sentences in John 10. Jesus had already claimed to be the Messiah (John 4:26). Apparently the word about him had spread and there was public debate about the matter (John 7:25-44), so people at the Temple in Jerusalem for Chanukah ask him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” (John 10:24) Traditionally, the Messiah was expected to be a great man of royal descent but not God. For Jesus, his identity as Messiah and as the Son of God always went hand in hand:

But he said to them, "How can they say that the Messiah is David's son? For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.' David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?" (Luke 20:41-44)

"If you are the Messiah," they said, "tell us." Jesus answered, "If I tell you, you will not believe me, and if I asked you, you would not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God." They all asked, "Are you then the Son of God?" He replied, "You are right in saying I am." (Luke 22:67-70)

In John 10, it’s the same; when they ask if he is the Messiah, he responds by explaining his relationship to the Father, which implies he is the Son of God. The people prepare to stone him “for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” (John 10:33) The charge given against Jesus before he was killed was exactly the same, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.” (John 19:7)

Given that they were gathered in Jerusalem to remember Chanukah, their incredulity is somewhat understandable. Not only does this man make himself God like Antiochus Epiphanes, but this time around the one making the claim is a son of Israel. It raises questions. Why would one with clear reverence for the holiness of God, his Temple, and the values of Chanukah make such a claim? What difference if any is there between the claims of Antiochus Epiphanes and Jesus?

The simple answer and the one Jesus gave them is that his claim is justified because he is who he says he is. It’s late here (I’ll have to edit later) and I’m not about to tack on an apology for the deity of Christ. ”Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” (John 10:36-38) Antiochus Epiphanes came in his own name. Jesus came in the name of the Father. Antiochus Epiphanes exalted himself in the pursuit of his own glory. Jesus’ claims to divinity always made mention of his relation to the Father. One came in defiance against the God of Israel. One came according to the order woven into the very fabric of the universe by its Creator.

Three of the gospels record that the curtain of the Temple was torn in two when Jesus died (Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38, Luke 23:45). By any other hand, it would have been an act of desolation, but he alone who was completely holy was capable of fulfilling the law for all eternity. Through his sacrifice, the Holy of Holies was opened for us to enter, not on terms of our own choosing but only by the righteousness we have through Messiah. (Hebrews 6:19, Hebrews 10:20) He is our great high priest who intercedes for us in the very presence of the LORD. God with us. Rejoice, rejoice, Immanuel has come to thee, O Israel.

I am reminded of Matisyahu's lyrics in his song "Jerusalem":

Them come overseas, yeah they're trying to be free.
Erase the demons out of your memory,
Change your name and your identity.
Afraid of the past and our dark history.
Why is everybody always chasing we?
Cut off the roots from your family tree.
Don't you see that's not the way to be?

"How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!" – Psalm 137:4-6

Utsunomiya Shigeharu (宇都宮茂春) was born around 1916 in Kure, Hiroshima, Japan. His father was Japanese and his mother was German. In the Meiji (明治) and Taishō (大正) periods, national modernization efforts brought a massive influx of European experts in various fields, predominantly from the German Empire, and she may have been the daughter of a foreign advisor. Shigeharu's parents eloped, and soon after birth he was left to the care of relatives in Hiroshima. His parents moved to Tokyo and were never heard from again. They were presumed to have been killed in the magnitude 8.3 earthquake that ravaged Kantō in 1923. Shigeharu was raised by family in Hiroshima and then conscripted into the army at age 19 and sent to Manchuria. The Japanese military had entered Manchuria in 1931 and established the state of Manchukuo (満州国) under the puppet leadership of Puyi (溥儀), the last emperor of the Qing (清) dynasty of China who had been deposed when the Republic of China was established in 1911. The pacification of the region required continued military action through the following decade. The colonial setting of Manchukuo produced some fascinating cultural hybrids, such as Li Xianglan (李香蘭), a Japanese singer born and raised in Manchuria who everyone believed to be Chinese until the end of the War. Her songs mixed Chinese and Japanese language to promote the peaceful coexistence of colonizer and colonized. To this day, her music is iconic of that era. After returning to Japan, Shigeharu married. He liked the wide open spaces of Manchuria though and the priorities of the Empire played a role, so he moved back there with his wife soon after. Their first son was born there and they continued to reside in Manchuria through the end of the War. When Hiroshima was destroyed by the nuclear bombing of 6 August 1945, many of their relatives were affected by the blast. Shigeharu, his wife, and son survived the explosion by the simple chance they lived overseas at the time. On 9 August 1945, the Russian Soviets began their invasion of Manchuria from the north, and his family was forced to flee back to Japan. After the War ended, he taught kendo in the mountains outside of Hiroshima.

Carl Boyd Powell was born on 25 November 1921 in West Decatur, Pennsylvania, the second boy in a family of six sons and two daughters. Raised on a farm, he also worked out West as a teenager with the Civilian Conservation Corp during the Great Depression. His older brother Eldon joined the U.S. Army Air Corps (predecessor of the U.S. Air Force) as a pilot before World War II. Eldon was based in Panama for a time and would write home about his experiences. When the U.S. entered the War, Eldon was a second lieutenant (ASN: O-428763), but on 4 April 1942, he was killed when his plane malfunctioned on a flight out of Romulus Army Airfield (Wayne County Airport) near Detroit, Michigan. Eldon's death was hard on the family, but on 3 September 1942, Carl enlisted in the Army (ASN: 13084174). He was sent first to England and then served as an anti-aircraft searchlight operator with the 505th Coast Artillery on the campaigns through North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. The unit provided artillery cover for the landings at Salerno in September 1943 and at Anzio in January 1944. The journals from his tour of duty record a lot of volleyball games, ice cream, movies, letters, lectures he gave on job-related topics, and church services as well. After returning to the U.S. briefly in 1944, he was shipped out again to the Philippines with the 429th Field Artillery and continued to serve in Luzon through the surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945. He was discharged with the rank of sergeant on 10 January 1946 in Fort Knox, Kentucky. For his service, he received the exceptional honor of the Presidential Unit Citation as well as the European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal, Philippine Liberation Medal, World War II Victory Medal, and American Campaign Medal. After the War, he completed a degree at Columbia Bible School in Columbia, South Carolina. He married and had three kids. He worked as a teacher in schools, a leader at church, and on and off for the Bureau of Printing and Engraving in Washington, D.C. In the aftermath of the War, a group of men and women who had served in the military came together to form the Far Eastern Gospel Crusade (FEGC), a Christian mission organization focused on church development in Japan and the Philippines. In 1960, the vision expanded to include Taiwan and gradually other areas of the world as well. After his experience in the Philippines during the War, Carl wanted to return there in a reconstructive role, and he and my grandmother applied to work with FEGC. Their application did not work out due to health reasons, but their home was one that placed great importance on fulfilling the call of the Great Commission. As a result, my own father is one of very few people I have ever met who knew from the beginning what he wanted to do and followed through on it every step of the way in his education, his marriage, and his career. In 1981, FEGC changed the organization name to SEND International, and my parents began discussions with SEND about going to the Philippines. In the end, the decision was made that they would go to Taiwan.

I never met Carl Powell. Tomohiro never met Utsunomiya Shigeharu. Both men passed away before we were born, but were it not for the unique courses of events that both their lives followed during the War years, Tomo would not be around today and I never would have ever set a foot in Taiwan let alone spent most of my life there. This Memorial Day, I'm telling my story here. Tomo is telling his in his history paper, while defending the view that the atomic bomb was a necessary evil required to expedite the end of the War and spare Japan and the U.S. the further cost in human lives that a land invasion would have entailed. Together we honor the memory of our grandfathers we never met.

In Leviticus 23:23-25, sandwiched between the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot or Pentecost) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), we find:

"And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the people of Israel, saying, "In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the LORD."'"

There is a Christian tradition that looks for the fulfillment of each of the seven holy days listed in Leviticus 23 in Christ. According to the tradition, four of them have already been fulfilled. Passover (Pesach) always looked back to the first sacrifice of Passover lambs in Egypt and the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery. The day was fulfilled when Christ, the Lamb of God, breathed his last at the time of sacrifice (the ninth hour or 3pm) on that Passover Friday, and the curtain in the Temple was torn in two. The New Testament records that there was something of a rush to bury the body because sundown on Friday evening marked the beginning of not only the Sabbath but "that Sabbath was a high day" (John 19:31 ESV). This means that in that year the Sabbath (Saturday) coincided with the first day of the weeklong Feast of Unleavened Bread, which follows Passover. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Christ breaking the unleavened bread at the last supper and saying of it, "This is my body." The Sunday following that Sabbath was the Feast of Firstfruits when the first grain of the harvest was offered to God in the Temple (Leviticus 23:9-14). At dawn on that day, Christ rose from the dead, "the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep," as Paul describes him in 1 Corinthians 15, the first of a new creation. Fifty days after the Firstfruits was the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot or Pentecost). Just as Passover looked back to deliverance from Egypt, the Feast of Weeks was traditionally a time to commemorate the giving of the Torah and the establishment of the covenant between God and Israel. Acts begins by recounting how at Pentecost the first believers were anointed by the Holy Spirit, the Counselor Christ had promised, by whom we are "sealed for the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30).

Apart from whatever shallow romantic appeal the tradition may hold, there does seem to be an intelligence to the coinciding of the holy days and the Sabbath in the year of Christ's death and an ordered correspondence between the meaning of each day and the events that occurred that year. As the author of Colossians writes, "These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ."

What then of the remaining three holy days? Without venturing into the speculative realm of eschatological detail (as some are eager to do), the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) are often associated with Christ's Second Coming, the Judgment Day, and the creation of the New Heaven and New Earth respectively. I prefer to leave the details of how things play out to God, but there is little doubt that the three remaining days will also find their fulfillment in the work of Christ.

According to Wikipedia, "Rosh Hashanah is characterized by the blowing of the shofar, a trumpet made from a ram's horn, intended to awaken the listener from his or her 'slumber' and alert them to the coming judgment." Rosh Hashanah begins the period of the High Holy Days, the Days of Awe (Yamim Noraim) or the Ten Days of Repentance (Asseret Yemei Teshuva), with a call to prepare for the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) through repentance of sin. The Day of Atonement concludes the High Holy Days and "is the most solemn and important of the Jewish holidays."

That is what began this evening and what is costing the nation billions of dollars this week by the delay it has caused. If anything, may we take these valuable days waiting for an economic bailout to focus on the far superior value of the atoning sacrifice for sin that we have in our Messiah. May we appreciate the profound significance of these next few days and look with expectant hope to their coming fulfillment in Christ.

// Function expression

var myFunction = function(...) {
    ...
};

// Function statement

function myFunction(...) {
    ...
}

The relevant portion of the ActionScript:

// Add an ExternalInterface callback for communication from JavaScript

function flashCallback(data:String):void {
    textBox.text = "JavaScript: You clicked " + data + ".";
}
ExternalInterface.addCallback("flashCallback", flashCallback);

// Add listeners to communicate to JavaScript via ExternalInterface

circle.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, function(event:MouseEvent):void {
    ExternalInterface.call("jsObject.callback", "Green Circle");
});
square.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, function(event:MouseEvent):void {
    ExternalInterface.call("jsObject.callback", "Red Square");
});

The relevant portion of the JavaScript:

// Create a JavaScript object containing the callback for communication from Flash and triggers to communicate to Flash

var jsObject = (function() {
    var triggers = document.getElementsByTagName('a');
    var init = (function() {
        YAHOO.util.Event.addListener(triggers, 'click', function(e) {
            YAHOO.util.Event.stopEvent(e);
            YAHOO.util.Dom.get('mySWF').flashCallback(this.innerHTML);
        });
    })();
    return {
        callback: function(data) {
            YAHOO.util.Dom.get('flash_response').innerHTML = 'Flash: You clicked the ' + data + '.';
        }
    }
})();

View source on the example for more details.

• Example
• Download the FLA

• Adobe Reader – PDF document viewer
• Audacity – Audio recording
• AVG Free Edition – Antivirus software (think free Norton/Symantec/McAfee)
• CDBurnerXP – CD/DVD burning (think free Nero)
• Daemon Tools – CD/DVD emulation for mounting ISO images
• DVD Fab HD Decrypter – Rip any DVD directly to an ISO image
• Microsoft Virtual PC – Virtualization for Windows virtual machines
• Microsoft Visual Studio Express – Microsoft SQL Server Express and other tools
• Microsoft Windows Defender – Antispyware software
• Mozilla Firefox – Web browser
• MySQL – Database server
• OpenOffice.org – Office suite (think free Microsoft Office)
• PHP – Server-side scripting support
• PrimoPDF – PDF document generator (think free Adobe Acrobat)
• PSPad Editor – Lightweight IDE (what I work in at Yahoo!)
• QuickTime and iTunes – Movie trailers, music, etc.
• Shareaza – File sharing
• SmartCVS – CVS client
• Ubuntu – Easy-to-use and good-looking version of the Linux operating system (think Mac OS X for PC…sort of)
• VMWare Server – Virtualization for Linux virtual machines
• WinRAR – Handler for RAR, ISO, etc. packages
• WinSCP – FTP/SCP client

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=BRK-A

Making HTML/CSS/JavaScript content appear above the Flash portion is tricky in some Mac/Linux browsers. Today I fired up Firefox in my Ubuntu Linux virtual machine and went to Adobe's homepage. It seems that even the people who make Flash don't know how to fix all the browser layering issues because the dropdown menus there fall behind the Flash in the Linux/Firefox combination rendering them unusable:

http://adobe.com/

http://www.teslamotors.com/

(1) Chinese language input
(2) Sharing network resources with other PCs running Microsoft Windows
(3) Apache web server with PHP and MySQL

Ubuntu is built on Debian, and Debian makes it easy to add packages. Here is a list of packages I installed (along with their dependencies):

• scim
• samba
• winbind
• apache2
• mysql-server
• mysql-query-browser
• mysql-admin
• php5
• php5-mysql
• phpmyadmin

The following resources also came in handy:

• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SCIM
• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpSamba
• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ApacheMySQLPHP

(1) SCIM is the multiple language input tool for Ubuntu. I was able to install the package, add the necessary Chinese input methods, and then follow some steps in the documentation above to make SCIM the default input method for all applications.

(2) Installed Samba to allow for resource sharing between Ubuntu and peers running Microsoft Windows. This required some use of the console to add Samba users. Also installed Winbind so that I can ping Windows machines by hostname from Ubuntu and vice versa.

(3) Installed the regular packages for Apache 2, PHP 5, and MySQL 5 along with the PHP-MySQL connector and the MySQL Administrator and Query Browser GUI tools and phpMyAdmin for managing MySQL. The only real change I had to make after installation was to set the root password for MySQL according to the steps in the documentation.

• Blue Diamond Aviation at Brackett Field Airport
• FAST Aviation at El Monte Airport

- Microsoft Virtual Server 2005
- Microsoft Virtual PC 2007
- VMware Server

with the following free Linux distributions:

- Debian
- Fedora
- Ubuntu

The Microsoft virtualization packages technically support only Microsoft operating systems, but supposedly they can run Linux too. I didn't have any success with booting a Linux installation on either product though and didn't feel like messing with it if it wasn't straightforward. VMware Server is free, straightforward, and ran all the Linux distributions I tried with no problems. It's a great product.

Once VMware Server was running, I tried installing Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu to compare a couple Linux distributions. Debian alone isn't easy enough to use for my taste. Fedora is pretty bulky and the setup disc alone was a 2.8GB download. Ubuntu was my favorite by far. It's built on Debian and defaults to the Gnome GUI. It looks great and was easy to install and configure. Ubuntu Linux is a great free alternative to anyone wanting to avoid the cost of Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS X.

Yahoo!
- Doctype? Yes. HTML 4.01 Strict.
- Encoding specified? Yes. UTF-8.

Yahoo! Taiwan
- Doctype? Yes. HTML 4.01 Strict (but mixes in some XHTML syntax).
- Encoding specified? Yes. BIG5 (legacy traditional Chinese encoding).

Yahoo! Japan
- Doctype? No.
- Encoding specified? Yes. EUC-JP (legacy Japanese encoding).

Yahoo! China
- Doctype? Yes. XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
- Encoding specified? Yes. GB2312 (legacy simplified Chinese encoding).

Google
- Doctype? No.
- Encoding specified? Yes. UTF-8.

Google Taiwan
- Doctype? No.
- Encoding specified? Yes. UTF-8.

Google Japan
- Doctype? Yes. HTML 4.01 Strict (but mixes in some XHTML syntax).
- Encoding specified? Yes. UTF-8.

Google China
- Doctype? No.
- Encoding specified? Yes. UTF-8.

• When saving a file in Notepad, if you save with "Encoding" set to "UTF-8" then you are including the BOM at the beginning of the file even though you cannot see it. Similarly, in Visual Web Developer, if you save the file with encoding and choose "Unicode (UTF-8 with signature) – Codepage 65001" then you are also including the BOM at the beginning of the file.
• Properly using multilingual text on the web requires using files saved with Unicode encoding. There are usually a number of options. Generally, best practice is to not include the UTF-8 BOM, and I recommend choosing a Unicode encoding that both excludes the BOM and maintains a small file size. For example, in Visual Web Developer, I save files with the "Unicode (UTF-8 without signature) – Codepage 65001" encoding.
• Having said that, I ran into the same case twice on my former blogging platform where I was forced to include the BOM at the beginning of an ASP file in order for it to properly recognize the script as Unicode and correctly process Unicode text. If all else seems to be failing, give it a shot and see if it fixes it. Still, my recommendation is to exclude the BOM unless it proves absolutely necessary.

Check out these links for more information:

• http://www.unicode.org/faq/utf_bom.html#BOM
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_Order_Mark

Example 1

var myObject = function(myArgument) {
    this.myProperty = myArgument;
    this.myTrigger = document.getElementById('myLink');
    this.init();
};
myObject.prototype.init = function() {
    this.myProperty = 'New Value';
    YAHOO.util.Event.addListener(this.myTrigger, 'click', this.myMethod, this);
};
myObject.prototype.myMethod = function(e, obj) {
    var myFunction = function() {
        alert(obj.myProperty);
    };
    YAHOO.util.Event.preventDefault(e);
    setTimeout(myFunction, 2000);
};
new myObject('Initial Value');

Example 2

var myObject = function(myArgument) {
    this.myProperty = myArgument;
    this.myTrigger = document.getElementById('myLink');
    this.init();
};
myObject.prototype.init = function() {
    this.myProperty = 'New Value';
    YAHOO.util.Event.addListener(this.myTrigger, 'click', this.myMethod1, this);
};
myObject.prototype.myMethod1 = function(e, obj) {
    YAHOO.util.Event.preventDefault(e);
    setTimeout(function() { obj.myMethod2(); }, 2000);
};
myObject.prototype.myMethod2 = function() {
    alert(this.myProperty);
};
new myObject('Initial Value');

JSON for the Masses

Edit: Here are two sites that offer utilities to create constructor classes from an object in literal notation:

• Classier JSON
• A Base Class for JavaScript Inheritance

AJAX: Selecting the Framework that Fits

Reviews five JavaScript libraries (Dojo, Prototype/Scriptaculous, Direct Web Remoting, Google Web Toolkit, and the Yahoo! User Interface Library) and evaluates them on a couple categories. Article picks the YUI library. Glad I use and am a part of that one. It's one of Yahoo's strongest points in my opinion. Check it out if you are looking for a JavaScript library:

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/

What is the difference? To clarify this distinction with the example at hand, allegorical writing would examine the New Testament account of the salvation of our world and ask, "How can the historical facts of this story be retold in the land of Narnia?" or "What can we use to represent the characters of Christ, Satan, Judas, and Mary?" Myth, on the otherhand, perceives a reality and truth that transcends space and time and asks, "How would this truth that has entered into the history of our world in a particular way make itself manifest in the world of Narnia?" Allegory supposes Narnia to be a direct representation or copy of our own world. Incarnated myth supposes Narnia as a parallel world subject to the same higher order. In The Chronicles, it is made clear that Narnia's story is not meant to be a mere retelling of the story of our world. Both worlds exist side-by-side in the books and have independent histories that interact at times. Ultimately, this is most apparent at the close of The Last Battle where the two worlds are brought together into a common deeper reality.

In a letter to a fifth grade class in the United States, C.S. Lewis once wrote, "You are mistaken when you think that everything in the books 'represents' something in this world. Things do that in The Pilgrim's Progress but I'm not writing in that way. I did not say to myself 'Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia': I said 'Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as He became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen.' If you think about it, you will see that it is quite a different thing."

Why is the distinction important? As incarnated myth, The Chronicles allow Lewis more freedom and imagination with the story, instead of demanding that everything directly correlate with some part of the New Testament chronology. Besides allowing the author more freedom though, the use of incarnated myth as opposed to allegory is also one of the things that makes The Chronicles uniquely powerful. Instead of being a symbol that is only relevant within the borders of the story, Aslan is a character that is not intended to represent Christ but is supposed to actually be the person of the Son of God in Narnia. Aslan's sacrifice in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe may remind readers of the crucifixion and resurrection, his roles as creator and king in the other books may further reinforce the correlation, but ultimately it is at the end of The Last Battle that it becomes clear he is more than a symbol. "And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion." As the form of the lion fades, the focus is directed towards his person, and we discover that he has always been present and active in the histories of both Narnia and our world.

By suggesting that C.S. Lewis means for Aslan to be the second person of the Trinity made incarnate in the Narnian world and not an allegorical representation of the man Jesus Christ, I am not trying to advocate a dualism that tears transcendent spiritual reality from the gospel of history or favors one over the other. Elsewhere he writes, "As myth transcends thought, Incarnation transcends myth." The power of The Chronicles is amplified by the realization that the eternal Son of God we cannot help recognizing in the person of Aslan did become a man at a specific time in history. He was born into our world. He died bearing our sins and then rose again. He reigns forever as our King. The power of The Chronicles and the story of Christmas lie together there. The Myth become fact. The Word made flesh.