Still, though Marcus may not always bring history to life, she offers a compelling glimpse into an undeniably fascinating...
Wall Street Journal Foreign correspondent Marcus offers a dry but ultimately fascinating look at how modern archaeologists and their recent discoveries at key biblical sites are reshaping traditional views of the Bible, as well as the entire map of the Middle East.
Over the years archaeologists have studied biblical texts, historical finds, and ancient records recovered at sites throughout the Middle East, and on this basis they have created an accepted structure of Israel’s history. But recently, exciting new discoveries at sites such as Meggido, Jerusalem, and Hazor have led scholars to question the very foundations of these long-held beliefs. Scientific advances in the past 50 years have refocused archaeological surveys away from biblical historicity to a more general investigation of the culture of the entire Middle East, and have brought astonishing new theories to light. For example, the origin of food prohibitions through the study of pig remains has now led to the belief that the Jewish dietary laws were not unique within the cultures of the Middle East: in fact, virtually no one in the region was eating pork during the biblical period. Another theory currently contested is that Israelite slaves built the pyramids—rather than skilled craftsmen and seasonal laborers, as many archaeologists now believe. Marcus’s careful research and extensive interviews provide an excellent base for the exploration of these theories, but she often assumes the reader’s familiarity with biblical narrative and history. And, although a historical timeline is provided at the beginning of the book, those who may have forgotten who begat whom will find moments when the text becomes confusing, dense, and lifeless.
Still, though Marcus may not always bring history to life, she offers a compelling glimpse into an undeniably fascinating topic. (Map of ancient Israel and its environs, not seen) (Reader’s Subscription Book Club/Natural Science Book Club alternate selection)Pub Date: April 14, 2000
ISBN: 0-316-56167-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A short, obscure poem very relevant to the chaotic 21st century.
A historian of the ancient Mediterranean world exhumes a controversial poem from the story of Job to help reconcile God’s existence with global calamity.
A retired professor emboldened with age and stirred to action by recent natural disasters, Fisher translated and wrote this work to underscore the importance of dealing with suffering without resorting to fantasy. Because suffer Job did. Recall that the pious man had it all–seven sons, three daughters, a loving wife and his health, not to mention tens of thousands of livestock. Egged on by Satan, who questioned Job’s piety, God took it all away. Framed by Job’s debate with three God-fearing friends, The Rebel Job finds Job in the nadir of his despair, ranting against his very birth, the injustice of his situation and the notion of a just God. This is the second of what Fisher refers to as the two books of Job–Job I and Job II. Embraced by orthodox religious leaders and conservative politicians, the author argues, Job I advances the idea of a just God who rewards good and punishes evil. The latter rages against the concept of divine justice. Unlike the Old Testament Book of Job, this poem does not conclude with God overcompensating Job for his losses and granting him a 140-year lifespan. On the contrary–Fisher’s Job ends on a suitably agnostic note with the protagonist asking, “Who can know the thunder of his might?” The author points out that while we may not fully understand the nature of God, we must love and help the powerless. Thankfully, Fisher pads the 30-page poem with relevant philosophical references–to Nietzsche’s death of God concept, 20th-century works of Joseph Roth and Archibald MacLeish and a keen anecdote of how famous Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel decried God’s incapacity to stop Nazi death camps. It’s these keen references that make the book much more relevant and contemporary than it would have been on its own.
A short, obscure poem very relevant to the chaotic 21st century.Pub Date: June 5, 2006
ISBN: 978-1-4257-1496-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Bawer wants to rouse liberal America from its lazy indifference to the rising tide of Christian fundamentalism. A literary and cultural critic, Bawer has written on spirituality in modern fiction (The Aspect of Eternity, 1993) and normality in the lives of gay men and lesbians (A Place at the Table, 1993). Now he turns his critical sights on the history, reigning personalities, and ominous future prospects of Christian fundamentalism in America. Bawer traces fundamentalism back to the 19th-century English theologian John Nelson Darby, who first articulated the doctrine of dispensational premillennialism—a periodization of sacred history that will culminate in a thousand-year reign of Christ—and to C.I. Scofield, who incorporated Darby's ideas as commentary in his Scofield Reference Bible. Bawer goes on to critique Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Hal Lindsey, James Dobson, and Bill McCartney (head of the much- publicized Promise Keepers). He subsumes these men under the larger rubric of a wrathful ``Church of Law,'' which he contrasts with the more truly Christian ``Church of Love,'' best represented by the late Harry Emerson Fosdick, famed liberal preacher at Riverside Church in New York City. That the most distinguished American representative of the Church of Love is dead is just Bawer's point: Nonlegalistic Christians must find their voice again before the legalistic ones steal Jesus away. But with his love/law dichotomy, Bawer succumbs to the very type of black-and-white thinking he decries in fundamentalists. The dichotomy is especially unfortunate in that it both perpetuates an ancient Christian prejudice against law that has often spent itself on Judaism and Hebrew scripture, and distorts religious experience, which some scholars have understood to include both loving and wrathful dimensions. Bawer lightens his critique with stretches of autobiographical narration, but the overriding (and unrepentant) tone of fulmination lends his book the feel of a sermon that has gone on too long.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-517-70682-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997
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