A useful religious history that is critical in approach and wide in scope.
A sweeping examination of the development of the Bible.
Barton (Emeritus, Interpretation of Holy Scripture/Univ. of Oxford; The Theology of the Book of Amos, 2012, etc.), an ordained and serving priest in the Church of England for more than 40 years, provides an exhaustive look at the creation of today’s Bible. He takes a largely thematic approach to his work; rather than a linear history of the Scriptures, he offers a collection of essays exploring facets of the book’s story. The author always looks at the Bible with a critical eye, and he questions larger concepts that are too often taken for granted. For instance, he dismisses the well-worn belief that the New Testament canon was formed slowly and deliberately through church councils that took the time to exclude numerous other texts. Instead, he argues that the Christian Bible books coalesced organically and there was little conscious debate over what was or was not “official” Scripture. Though the author respects the role of the Bible in the Jewish and Christian faiths, he examines the texts more as cultural literature than as works strictly tied to the holy or supernatural. For instance, he bluntly concludes, “the prophets were not helpful people, and their books are not helpful texts.” One benefit of Barton’s aloofness from the Scriptures is his ability to thoroughly delineate the different ways in which the Hebrew Bible is viewed and valued by Jews and Christians. In fact, he carefully notes throughout that there is an inherent difficulty in viewing the Bible as a “book” with a single history or theme, given that it is instead a compendium of works representing different eras, languages, cultures, genres, and faiths. Barton’s work is accessible to lay readers, but many readers of faith may not receive it enthusiastically, as the author’s tone about the Bible, though not hostile, skews toward the secular and is occasionally skeptical.
A useful religious history that is critical in approach and wide in scope.Pub Date: June 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-42877-0
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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