An exciting, thought-provoking new reading of a famously complex biblical text.
A revelatory new examination of the book of Ezekiel.
In this rather stunning debut of biblical scholarship, Kevas and Walker take up the famously problematic book of Ezekiel and rigorously examine it using several energetic new methods. Their book is essentially a heavily annotated, ground-clearing new translation of Ezekiel in which the authors painstakingly lay out their exegetical methods. They assert that the notorious difficulty of the text, which most readers are familiar with via the King James translation, is mostly the result of mistranslation and linguistic inaccuracy. To correct these factors, they attempt to pinpoint the exact meaning of each word in the text as it’s found in such ancient versions as the Dead Sea Scrolls (in their translation, virtually every word is underscored and given a reference number, aka a concordance number, to verify the translation from Hebrew or Greek). Kevas and Walker do this for the sake of transparency, and they buttress their translation with exhaustive annotation that draws on a formidable range of documentary material—not only the available Jewish sources, but also such material as the Quran and the Sibylline Oracles. Their goals are twofold: first, to demonstrate that Ezekiel has been drastically mistranslated over the centuries; and second, that as a result, Ezekiel has been fundamentally misunderstood for the last 2,600 years. In the course of their new translation, Kevas and Walker claim to have uncovered not only new nuances in the text, but something far more ambitious: an entire shadow-book hidden in plain sight, a series of detailed prophecies that predict such things as airplanes, modern technology and developments in Middle Eastern history as well as a carefully imagined set of predictions involving Jesus Christ returning to Earth as the Messiah in our own times. “It seemed apparent to us,” they write, “that God would have wanted the generation that these prophecies describe to understand the warnings.” Readers may balk at the book’s conclusions about those hidden prophecies, but along the way, they’ll be thrilled by the thinking on display.
An exciting, thought-provoking new reading of a famously complex biblical text.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1483949710
Page Count: 254
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
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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