A systematic breakdown of apocalyptic prophecies in the Bible.
A concise, comprehensive study of the Christian doctrine of the Second Coming.
Baker (In Search of Truth, 2017) offers her readers a detailed overview of New Testament and Old Testament writings about the End Times and the Advent. She grounds the first part of her study with an examination of the various covenants made between God and others in the Hebrew Bible (including Abraham, Noah, Moses, among others) and the nature of concepts that have arisen from those covenants. Her clarifications of covenant theology and dispensation theologies, for example, are uniformly clear and well-done. She lays out key Old Testament sections, particularly the prophecies in the Book of Daniel, in an accessible manner, and how they relate to the End Times. She follows this thread through the New Testament and the writings of the early Church Fathers; along the way, she not only discusses relevant quotations in approachable terms, she also ends chapters with discussion and study questions to make the material more applicable to readers’ lives. The book also doesn’t avoid central problems with Christian eschatology, such as the fact that many Christians have been wrong about the imminence of the Messiah’s return throughout history. Jesus’ statements in the Gospels are often interpreted to mean that he thought that the Kingdom of Heaven would manifest itself in the world rather quickly. As Baker notes, “The apostles believed in Jesus’s imminent return in their lifetime,” and Christian writers and others have predicted specific dates for the End Times ever since—always erroneously, obviously. Baker circumvents the obvious conclusion—that the End Times aren’t going to happen, full stop—with a faith-oriented conception of Christians as being perpetually watchful and ready, as they were warned that the final days would come as “a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2). Overall, her work makes for some bracing reading.
A systematic breakdown of apocalyptic prophecies in the Bible.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973605-95-9
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
