A lively, invaluable, and evaluative Bible reference work, for both believers and nonbelievers.
A debut book offers a comprehensive historical analysis of the events of the Old Testament.
In this long work, Sulman’s goal is to subject the Old Testament to a claim-by-claim, virtually line-by-line verification test, to determine which if any of the assertions of the Hebrew Bible are historically accurate. He sifts through these contentions in careful, direct, and fast-paced chapters that are grounded in considerable scholarship and yet immediately accessible to the nonspecialist, all of it guided by an appealingly straightforward spirit of inquiry. “To find out when the Exodus took place looks so simple,” Sulman writes in a typical passage, “just take an incident in Egypt’s history that is also described in the Bible, and then use this as an anchor point.” This may seem like an impossible task for the Old Testament’s far more fanciful stories, but Sulman tackles them all, from Noah’s Flood to David and Goliath to the Tower of Babel to the career of Moses to the Mystery of the Lost Ark (“Nobody has found it yet, and nobody ever will,” the author writes, concluding that King Josiah destroyed the venerated object). All of this is rendered in clear, calm prose that only occasionally descends to snark. (“They killed about three thousand people that day,” readers are told about Moses ordering his people to slaughter their neighbors. “Apparently, that was not enough punishment, because the LORD now struck the people with a plague.”) The prose sometimes shows signs of haste uncorrected by a patient editor (“the worship of the golden calf worship is portrayed as an act by which the people broke the covenant,” for example), but the scrupulous revisionist passion at the heart of the extremely impressive volume more than compensates for such easily ignored (and readily fixed) little gaffes. That ardor extends to reminding readers that the original Hebrew religion was exuberantly polytheistic for most of its history, and that female and male prostitution occurred in the Temple of Jerusalem. Throughout the engrossing book, Sulman is respectful but not reverential, blunt yet not insulting, and, in the end, tremendously informative.
A lively, invaluable, and evaluative Bible reference work, for both believers and nonbelievers.Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5043-0113-8
Page Count: 670
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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