A likable tour of scripture, though a bit too faux-naïve.
An unpromising setup—the Bible is different from the Classics Illustrated version, mostly because God is so irritable—yields a lightweight but humorous, pleasing read.
“I believe in God,” writes Slate editor Plotz (The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, 2005), “but only in a please-please-please-desperation-prayer kind of way.” Going through the pages of the Old Testament while at a cousin’s bat mitzvah, he recalls, he discovered that he had an incomplete view of the Bible. Genesis 34, for instance, tells a story of rape, avarice, revenge and murder—and that’s just a few pages into the Good Book. Similarly, the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah “makes the Jerry Springer Show look like a Cabbage Patch picnic.” Plotz resolutely steers into pop-culture territory whenever possible, unafraid of the ephemeral. Mordecai Richler does a better job with Job in Joshua Then and Now, but Plotz hits on a solid observation. Job, he says, is exemplary of “the messy Bible,” that is, “a story that’s far more complicated, ambiguous, and confusing than its popular version.” Rabbis and preachers have found full-time employment cleaning up and explaining away those messes, for God does not always behave logically. For one thing, Plotz notes, He came up with creepy-crawly things on two successive days of creation, and he’s famously quick to smite, rain down plague and do other unpleasant things. Still, Plotz writes, “One of the revelations I’ve had in reading the Bible is that its most famous passages are almost always its most loving ones.” Amid the wisecracks, the author raises some good points, especially this one: “Jews endured because our book endured.”
A likable tour of scripture, though a bit too faux-naïve.Pub Date: March 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-137424-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
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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