A highly detailed, passionately persuasive account of the ways Christians can use Scripture to uncover their inner...
An in-depth examination of the Christian life of faith, centering on the Beatitudes.
Kamenos chooses to start her passionate, scripturally literate book with an error: “The life of the man called Jesus of Nazareth is well documented not only by Biblical sources, but also by Jewish and Roman historians and scholars.” Fortunately for her readers, she quickly shifts from making fanciful historical claims to delving deeply into the philosophical tenets of Christianity, which for her boil down to a journey toward God, a voyage of perfectibility through the example of God’s flesh-and-blood link with the human world, Jesus Christ. “To Christians, Jesus is the light to which we are all drawn,” Kamenos writes with simple clarity. “He is the light that gives us hope.” For Kamenos, the blueprint of that hope, the guidelines for coming closer to God, are embodied in the Beatitudes found in the Gospel of St. Matthew, familiar even to non-Christians: “Blessed are they who mourn,” “Blessed are the meek,” and so on. “Only through Christ can we receive the gift of God’s mercy,” Kamenos writes, and she ably takes each of Christ’s utterances in the Sermon on the Mount in turn, sifting through the sentiments and buttressing her observations with wide-ranging biblical quotations. The book wanders freely far afield of the Beatitudes, examining much of Christian belief, all done in the simple faith that “Christ is God’s message to us,” a living paradigm of the worthwhile Christian life. Kamenos’ central focus—that God is more intimately revealed to humans the more they live the life of Christ—is obviously suited to an audience of her fellow practicing Christians; it’s these readers who are being reminded by the author, throughout this otherwise somewhat diffuse narrative, that they are closer to their God than the distraction-filled world can often have them think.
A highly detailed, passionately persuasive account of the ways Christians can use Scripture to uncover their inner connection to God.Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4835-8473-7
Page Count: 346
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 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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