A well-written, intriguing account of the centuries that set the stage for modern Judaism, the Christianity taught by Paul,...
An exploration of an underrated era and its effect on religious history.
“The two or three centuries before Jesus’s time witnessed an extraordinary cultural and religious revolution,” writes Jenkins (History/Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor Univ.; The Many Faces of Christ: The Thousand-Year Story of the Survival and Influence of the Lost Gospels, 2015, etc.), “but that transformation is still barely acknowledged in historical writing, still less in popular perceptions.” The author dubs this time period the “Crucible era” and valiantly attempts to undo that lack of academic and popular acknowledgement. Without this important era in Jewish and Hellenic history, argues Jenkins, the Abrahamic religions as we know them today would not exist, and all of history for the past two millennia would have been vastly different. The two to three centuries before the birth of Jesus were drastically violent and unsettled for the people of Palestine and nearby areas, as Greek influences overwhelmed the region, meeting with local resistance and, eventually, subsiding due to Roman expansion. However, historical writings about this era have either been relegated to the Apocrypha or were in many cases lost for centuries, making for scant awareness of this era’s importance. Jenkins provides necessary historical context before examining both the political/military and the literary/scriptural legacies of the times. He recounts the power of the Greek Empire over the Jewish people and the subsequent rise in resentment at corrupt puppet leaders such as Jason, high priest from 175 to 172 B.C.E., who rose to power through pure corruption. Alongside histories of the crucible era’s politics, Jenkins discusses the literary monuments they spawned. Chief among these were 1 Enoch, a fascinating work, which, Jenkins suggests, invented the concept of a burning hell as we know it; and the better known book of Daniel, the archetype of apocalyptic literature.
A well-written, intriguing account of the centuries that set the stage for modern Judaism, the Christianity taught by Paul, and, eventually, Islam as an heir to both.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-465-09640-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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