An ambitious but unsatisfying intellectual history of the quest for the historical Jesus by a contributing editor to Lingua Franca. Despite the subtitle, Allen’s point is actually that this quest reveals far more about those who engage in it than it does about a distant man from Galilee. Rejecting, for instance, theories that Jesus was black or a feminist, she writes, —the search for the ‘historical— Jesus in the end has yielded a figure who is not historical at all, and to whom historical reality is irrelevant.— She attempts to document the —historical quest— impulse in nearly all its incarnations in Western culture in the past 2,000 years, skipping from Roman emperors to German Romantics to contemporary iconoclasts like John Dominic Crossan. Along the way, we make some interesting incidental discoveries but get lost in the sheer weight of this undertaking. The author also neglects the larger question of why different philosophers, from wildly divergent cultural contexts, have resorted to the same demythologizing impulse again and again. There is surely a significant parallel, for example, in Thomas Jefferson’s careful trimming of all miracles out of his New Testament and the contemporary Jesus Seminar’s relentless pursuit of his authentic sayings. That said, some of her jagged chapters contain fruitful insights. Particularly intriguing is her discussion of Joseph Ernest Renan’s —cinematic Jesus,— a feminized, sensual creature whose portrayal benefited from Renan’s friendship with the lascivious Gustave Flaubert. Throughout, though, Allen’s tone is too harsh for her subjects, especially those still living. Elisabeth SchÅssler Fiorenza is ridiculed for presenting Jesus as —an androgynous personage of feminist leanings,— while other feminists —have re-constructed a re-imagined historical Jesus on the cross as a woman suffering from menstrual cramps.— There are some perceptive moments here, but the vast scope of the project and its occasional biases overshadow Allen’s obvious erudition.
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-684-82725-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 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
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