A provocative contribution, diminished by an overbearing approach.
Think you know who Jesus was? Well, think again.
Using archaeological evidence and textual analysis, Tabor (Religious Studies/Univ. of North Carolina, Charlotte) puts forth a very different history of the Jesus movement than is traditionally taught within Christian theology. Jesus, a descendant of David, was shaped by the events of his time. He became a disciple of the charismatic John the Baptizer and soon became John’s partner in ministry, taking over the movement upon John’s execution. He was convinced that Roman rule over Israel would soon end, allowing him to set up an earthly kingdom. His Council of Twelve acted as regional rulers over this kingdom. When Jesus was crucified, the Council set up a provisional government, led by James, the brother of Jesus and heir to the Davidic line. Beyond that, not only was Jesus made divine, but his teachings were corrupted, and the roles of John and James were dramatically diminished, says Tabor, who raises some good points and spurs meaningful thought for the reader. And his archaeological backup makes for exciting reading. However, his book has a number of flaws. While identified as a historian, Tabor often sounds like a conspiracy theorist, piecing together tiny shreds of evidence to create a revisionist history, while rarely pausing to address the counterarguments that arise at every turn. Tabor accepts his conclusions as truth without ever entertaining the notion that there are other arguments to be made. This arrogance can be an affront to the educated reader. The author writes for those with only a marginal knowledge of Christian history and theology, and for those already skeptical of Christianity. There are vast discrepancies between his own presumptions and the presumptions of the majority of Christians—a gulf he fails to address and for which some will make efforts to debunk his work. Tabor simply speaks past actual believers, who will be perplexed by his approach at best, insulted at worst.
A provocative contribution, diminished by an overbearing approach.Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 0-7432-8723-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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