A well-argued interpretation of the chronology of events outlined in the Christian end-times prophecies.
A precise schematic of the Christian end times.
Pfeil (The Fifth Seal in Sharp Focus, 2010) begins his latest intensely researched and detailed scriptural study with a plainly stated reassurance that couldn’t be more welcome in the 21st-century climate of cross-denominational religious intolerance: “Different doctrinal positions on the end-time events do not have any effect on our salvation,” he writes. “They also should not have any effect on our Christian walk.” Having thus firmly placed his book’s contents in the realm of spiritual and intellectual food for thought, he then proceeds to lay out an extremely involved exegesis of Christian end-times prophecy attempting to detail the exact chronology of events that are destined to take place in the 70th-week end-of-history period alluded to in the book of Daniel. Pfeil has scoured the Old Testament and New Testament for any relevant scraps of revelation, laying out quotations and annotations from Isaiah, Joel and the Synoptic Gospels in an appendix. The crucial doctrinal distinction Pfeil wants to impress upon his readers is the difference between his own “Pre-Wrath” eschatology, in which most of Daniel’s 70th week will pass before God commences judgment on the wicked of the world, and the rival “pre-tribulation” interpretation, in which those judgments take place during the whole of the 70th week. The clearly written and superbly construed textual analysis that follows is a fine example of Christian scholarship. But its appeal is necessarily limited; even Scripture-literate Christians may need their Bible concordances handy to keep pace with Pfeil’s inquiries. The faithful who are passionate about end-times prophecies will want to make the effort, however, since Pfeil’s book is a thoughtful, satisfying master seminar on the subject (the book is also exceptionally well-designed). And the inclusive sentiments of the book’s opening lines govern its discussions throughout: Regardless of the exact sequence of end-time events, Christians are all ultimately united in their salvation.
A well-argued interpretation of the chronology of events outlined in the Christian end-times prophecies.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1449799823
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2015
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
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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