A sometimes-difficult though rewarding journey through the possibilities and impossibilities of forecasting the future.
Nahum, a physician, offers his first book, an ambitious tome that exhaustively explores the human capacity to make predictions.
As vice president and head of global clinical development for primary care and women’s health care at Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals in Berkeley, California, Stanford-educated Nahum researched models to predict birth weight. This scientific curiosity about our ability to forecast and Nahum’s deep and broad-reaching intellectual interests inform this book that draws from phenomenology, speculative theology, information theory, physics, cosmology, and other areas in an attempt to synthesize a complete theory of knowledge focused on the question: can we predict the future? This dense volume deals in minute detail, but it’s not a book for people who want to outplay the stock market or win at the racetrack. “…despite our best efforts, everything doesn’t always go according to plan,” Nahum says. “The question is why?” His exploration more often focuses not on the capacity to predict the future, but on the constraints, the knowledge holes, and gaps that frustrate attempts to accurately predict what the future holds. The book explores some fairly arcane and intellectually rich turf in excruciating detail. Yet Nahum doesn’t seem too invested in making the material as fascinating as possible. In fact, much of the writing is more focused on textbook explanation than on trying to provide access points that might make his argument more compelling to those unfamiliar with the diverse perspectives and disciplines that inform his exploration. There’s also not much in the way of citations, and a dearth of quotes makes the going somewhat ponderous. Still, Nahum reveals a mind of incredible reach as well as a great capacity for exceptionally detailed thinking about an intriguing problem.
A sometimes-difficult though rewarding journey through the possibilities and impossibilities of forecasting the future.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2014
ISBN: 978-1480811065
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This second volume of Meier's magisterial attempt to create a ``consensus document'' about the historical Jesus on which scholars of all faiths could agree makes some tantalizing assertions about Jesus' public ministry. Meier (New Testament Studies/Catholic Univ.) divides this successor to Volume One (subtitled The Roots of the Problem and the Person, 1991) into three parts: an examination of the pervasive effect on Jesus of the life and career of John the Baptist, whom Meier calls Jesus' ``mentor''; an analysis of the centrality to Jesus' message of the concept of the ``kingdom of God''; and an extended discussion of the historicity of Gospel accounts of Jesus' miracles, healings, and exorcisms. Meier uses John the Baptist's career as his starting point, asserting that Jesus not only accepted baptism from the charismatic preacher at the outset of his public ministry, but he also adopted John's themes of the imminent judgment of sinners and the need for reform and repentance as integral parts of his own message. Unlike John, however, Jesus emphasized the coming of the kingdom of God, which he represented as both an approaching eschatological event and, in a mystical way, as being present in the actions, beliefs, and fellowship of the community of believers: ``The kingdom of God is in your midst'' (Luke 17:21). Meier argues that Jesus' preaching of the heavenly kingdom was most manifest in his miraculous works, which Meier inventories in painstaking detail, dividing them into exorcisms, healings, raising of the dead, and ``nature'' miracles, such as walking on water and cursing the fruitless fig tree and causing it to wither. The author concludes that the power of Jesus' message arose from his actual historical fame as a miracle worker as well as from his moral teachings. Scholarly, carefully reasoned, and lucidly written, Meier's portrait of Jesus as a fiery, wonder-working prophet rather than the gentle teacher of Christian tradition may continue the controversy (with believers and nonbelievers alike) initiated in Volume One.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-46992-6
Page Count: 1055
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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
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