by Jeff Jinnett illustrated by Sandra Bowden ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 13, 2015
A brief, impressionistic, and richly erudite look at the commonalities of Judaic and Christian scholarship and tradition,...
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A Scripture-based effort seeks to fuse the textual analysis techniques of Judaism with Christianity.
The key organizing concept of this short book from Jinnett (The Seven Days of Creation, 2015) is the great Second Temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed by the Romans in C.E. 70. That act ended the long period of Temple-based Judaism characterized by such features as chief priests and ritual animal sacrifices. The obliteration of the Temple signaled a shift in Jewish religious culture that coincided with the rise of apostolic Christianity, underscoring the “olive branch” metaphor favored by Jinnett (and St. Paul). The author envisions Christianity as a wild olive branch grafted onto the older olive tree of Judaism. This underlying unity of two faiths that merge to tell “a combined story of God’s will for the world which is understandable and believable” runs throughout the volume. Exploring various connections, Jinnett explains that the study of Torah commentary can “provide insight into the deeper symbolic or allegorical explanation” of a biblical text “and the sometimes hidden, mystical interpretation of a passage.” The author states his hope at the outset that his readers “will be inspired to read the Holy Scriptures so that new souls will be awakened to God’s Glory.” Jinnett furthers this view by deftly reading key elements of the New Testament through the interpretive lens of Second Temple Rabbinic Judaism. “I firmly believe,” he writes, “that Christians can gain a better understanding of the Bible as Jesus knew it by understanding how devout Jews may have interpreted the Bible in the first century C.E.” For example, the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper can be better comprehended “in the mold of the Priests of the Temple,” who each week ate 12 loaves (Challah) of Shewbread consecrated in the Sanctuary of the Temple. Or take the story of the old man Simeon, who watched in the Temple for the coming of the Messiah—a tale wonderfully fleshed out here with copious references to modern Talmudic studies. Jinnett’s work, illustrated throughout by Bowden, is typified by this kind of invigorating and challenging interfaith exploration. Christian and Jewish readers alike should find plenty of interest and provocation in these pages, as well as a good deal of instruction. The author has done a prodigious amount of research while preparing for this volume. (Some of that investigation could be stricter in future editions—New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan’s name, for instance, is often misspelled “Crosson.”) Jinnett writes that he accepts that the Gospels “evolved from earlier oral traditions and source material”—a remarkable concession from an author who elsewhere tells his readers about the magnificence of God’s word—and this balanced intellectual approach extends to the extensive endnotes, in which a terrific, detailed textual discussion continues.
A brief, impressionistic, and richly erudite look at the commonalities of Judaic and Christian scholarship and tradition, illustrating the ways the two branches connect.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5307-4490-9
Page Count: 114
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Jeff Jinnett illustrated by Sandra Bowden
by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
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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by Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy & Justin O'Brien
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by Albert Camus translated by Arthur Goldhammer edited by Alice Kaplan
by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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