Easterbrook (A Moment on the Earth, 1995), a journalist, believes that the biblical God, interpreted as a deity in progress, provides sophisticated secularists with a reason to read the Bible—but his own highly selective and simplifying reading of that ancient text will engage few who know it more than passingly. At a time when biblical scholars such as John Dominic Crossan, Raymond Brown, and James Kugel are publishing major works of biblical interpretation for wide, nonspecialist audiences, it is the bold amateur indeed who claims, as Easterbrook does, to “propose a new understanding of Western scripture.” The author acknowledges a predecessor in Jack Miles, whose popular book, God: A Biography, takes the biblical God for an analyzable literary character. But Easterbrook aims at more: to rethink the Bible for the spiritual use of jaded secularists, whose Freudian, materialist, and scientist culture has all but blinded their religious senses. The first few chapters summarize the origins of modern doubt; the middle ones argue for a less than omnipotent God, whose slow progress from wrathfulness to love models the proper course of human growth; the final chapters crystallize the book’s central theme, that spiritual progress is always away from institutions and rites toward neighborly love. Easterbrook reads much into the Bible’s failure to declare God omnipotent; but that silence is less an oblique sanction to humanize the divine than a sign of how little interested the biblical writers were in abstract metaphysical concepts. The larger difficulty with a progressive view of the biblical God is that it must ignore too many countervailing passages: already mercy is stronger than wrath in the early Exodus version of the Ten Commandments, and wrath is rampant in the late New Testament book of Revelation. Literary interpretations of the Bible are always welcome; but the Bible as literature is too complex comfortably to sport the evolutionary straitjacket Easterbrook has prepared for it.
Pub Date: Sept. 2, 1998
ISBN: 0-688-16065-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
