An admirably erudite but bewildering work of biblical interpretation.
A scholarly study examines the true conditions for Christian salvation.
The book of Revelation in general and the teaching regarding the tribulation in particular have always been divisive issues of contention among Christian theologians. Debut author Richards avers that the Bible, despite its simplicity and lack of contradiction, has been torturously misinterpreted on this score. More specifically, the author takes aim at “easy escape theology,” which holds that all Christians will be spared the tribulation by the return of Jesus and whisked away to their eternal home in heaven. But Richards argues that a close reading of Scripture yields a different doctrine, partially based on a prophecy reported in the book of Isaiah, which references the birthing of Jesus’ seed. The metaphor of birth is unfurled by the author as follows: Zion, understood as the church in its perfection, becomes the bride of Christ that produces this seed, “a man-child company which is a first-fruit unto God and unto the Lamb of God.” Zion is not to be confused with Jerusalem, which is inferior because of its disobedience. Jesus will not return until this has been achieved, and then man can find salvation on Earth, his true home, now remade in the image of God. The model for understanding all this is furnished by the Bible in five different sections, including the discussion in the book of Exodus regarding the Tabernacle of Moses. Richards’ exposition ambitiously bucks conventional analysis, articulating a biblical interpretation in the process. The author also fearlessly tackles the elements of Scripture most traditionally resistant to a secure elucidation. But the prose is prohibitively dense and entangled, making Richards’ microscopic exegesis exceedingly difficult to follow. Further, while the book can be repetitive, it also becomes unfocused, wending away from the chief thesis to discuss the theoretical infirmities of atheism and the limits of Darwinism, for example. Richards’ writing can also hit strident tones and sometimes approaches a hectoring of the reader: “Make the connection!”
An admirably erudite but bewildering work of biblical interpretation.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5049-7219-2
Page Count: 202
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2017
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
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