bookshelf

VERITAS

Name: VERITAS
Author: Ariel Sabar
ISBN: 978-0-385-54258-6

A HARVARD PROFESSOR, A CON MAN AND THE GOSPEL OF JESUS'S WIFE

by Ariel Sabar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 11, 2020

A lengthy yet fascinating tale of how one scholar was duped, both by a con man and by herself.

bookshelf

Intriguing religious/true-crime story involving a possible wife of Jesus. News outlets came alive in 2012 when Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King announced the discovery of a papyrus fragment suggesting that Jesus may have had a wife. The fragment, soon dubbed “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” stirred interest as well as controversy, as scholars across the world warned it may be a fraud. King, who had obtained the fragment from a mysterious and anonymous collector, doggedly defended the ancient piece of papyrus even as the evidence of its authenticity grew weaker. Journalist Sabar—whose book My Father’s Paradise (2009) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography—happened to be following the story from the beginning, and he shares a sometimes-riveting, occasionally odd tale of academia gone awry. Though the author goes to great pains to portray King in a positive, compassionate light, a central reality emerges: The professor’s excitement over the social impact of the fragment blurred her sense of what was historically accurate. After introducing King biographically as a brilliant and respected scholar, “a dazzling interpreter of condemned scripture,” Sabar moves on to the story of how King came across the fragment and decided it was most likely legitimate. Her debut of the fragment at a conference in Rome led to a storm of media attention. Over time, however, other scholars began to see signs of forgery in the way the document had been created, and the media tide turned against King. The sordid source of the fragment—a former student of ancient languages–turned-pornographer—overshadowed King’s hopes that what it represented for women in the church was worth believing in, above the papyrus’ actual authenticity. “Her ideological commitments,” Sabar concludes, “were choreographing her practice of history. The story came first; the dates managed after.” A lengthy yet fascinating tale of how one scholar was duped, both by a con man and by herself.

Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-385-54258-6

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: April 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020

Categories:

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | TRUE CRIME | HISTORICAL & MILITARY

- BOOK REVIEW
HEART OF THE CITY
by Ariel Sabar

- BOOK REVIEW
MY FATHER’S PARADISE
by Ariel Sabar

bookshelf

Awards & Accolades

Likes

62

Our Verdict

GET IT

Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2017

New York Times Bestseller

IndieBound Bestseller

National Book Award Finalist

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

bookshelf

Awards & Accolades

Likes

62

Our Verdict

GET IT

Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2017

New York Times Bestseller

IndieBound Bestseller

National Book Award Finalist

Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

Categories:

GENERAL HISTORY | TRUE CRIME | UNITED STATES | FIRST/NATIVE NATIONS | HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE <i>WAGER</i>
by David Grann

- BOOK REVIEW
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
by David Grann

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LOST CITY OF Z
by David Grann

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Brendan Fraser Joins Cast of ‘Flower Moon’ Film

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Oct. 20 Release For 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

- BOOK TO SCREEN
‘Killers of the Flower Moon’: Out of Focus

bookshelf

ON FREEDOM

by Timothy Snyder ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 17, 2024

An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.

bookshelf

An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.

In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.

An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.