Similar elements drawn from distinctly disparate sources, presented with a beguiling blend of good humor and serious intent.
With added input from some of his fifth-to seventh-grade students, a rabbi and private-school teacher reflects on values in the Harry Potter series and finds parallels in the Torah and Talmud.
Taking “life’s eternal questions” as his purview (“Sorry, not witchcraft and magic wands”), Rosenberg begins with personal behaviors (“Breaking the Rules,” “Manners”) and broadens the perspective as he goes to, ultimately, “Death,” “Good and Evil” and “Love.” He makes comparisons throughout—between Harry’s breaking rules for need, not fun and Elijah’s technically illegal “showdown” with the prophets of Ba’al on Mount Carmel; between the trios of Harry, Ron and Hermione and Moses, Aaron and Miriam; the bittersweet repentances of Snape and of David. They are only sometimes a little stretched and, except when he discounts the racist overtones some readers perceive in Rowling’s house elves (but does rebuke her for her treatment of the gnomes), clearly reasoned overall. Closing with 20 pages of generally engaging student essays (“Even though what Harry did was a little ‘braver,’ what Moses did was a little more sensible”) and a gathering of specific Bible references, the author gently eases even less contemplative readers into considering, as one chapter head puts it, “What Really Matters.”
Similar elements drawn from distinctly disparate sources, presented with a beguiling blend of good humor and serious intent. (Literary criticism/religion. 10-13, adult)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60280-183-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: KTAV
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
A meandering, uneven fire-and-brimstone sermon.
America’s post-war cohort should repent its godless ways before it’s too late, according to Winley’s jeremiad.
Writing in the persona of “Baby Boom Prophet” Jonah Ubiquitous, Winley, a minister at Harlem’s Soul Saving Station for Every Nation, subjects those born between 1946 and 1964 to a serious scolding. His demographic rationale is two-fold. First, the boomer generation authored the culture of sexual permissiveness, abortion, homosexuality, drug abuse, violence, welfare dependency, personal irresponsibility and unorthodox spirituality that he blames for America’s moral rot and the travails of the African-American community. Second, a recap of four decades’ worth of boomer-dominated history, from the 1960s assassinations to Monica-gate and the war in Iraq, serves as a framework for viewing modern times as a parade of depravity, war, natural disaster and apostasy, all of it leading inevitably to Armageddon. Winley’s manifesto interweaves disparate themes, stories and registers. There is a murky digression into a failed publishing venture, a confusing discourse on the structure of Heaven (the fourth heaven is the paradise where saved humans go, while hell itself is “a type of heaven”) and a dash of end-times numerology (“June 6, 2006, represents forty years from the symbolic birth of the Anti-Christ world ruler (6-6-66)”). There’s some religious-right politics—Winley denounces materialism and money-grubbing while defending George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and decides that the Christian injunction to turn the other cheek need not apply to Al Qaeda. And there is a persistent voice crying out in the wilderness, warning that “racial hatred, murder of innocents, political corruption, family disintegration, killer children, home-grown terrorism, violence, greed, lust, and every imaginable evil dwell within the borders of the United States.” Winley’s message is standard Christian Fundamentalist doctrine, but in some passages—especially during a long, affecting parable about a black man who, after an abusive upbringing, lands in prison, where Jonah tries to bring him to the Lord—he writes with real pathos about the moral chaos that ravages men’s souls.
A meandering, uneven fire-and-brimstone sermon.Pub Date: April 30, 2007
ISBN: 978-0595417636
Page Count: 175
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stimulating study of the career and ministry of the prophet Elisha in parallel to Jesus Christ.
A thorough, textually grounded study of the Old Testament prophet Elisha and the ways he foreshadowed Jesus Christ of the New Testament.
Arnold’s (Elijah Between Judgment and Grace, 2015, etc.) latest book—originally published in French as Elisée précurseur de Jésus-Christ. Commentaire de 2 Rois 2-9 (2002) and here translated by Ludwig—is a meticulously detailed study of the prophet Elisha in the second book of Kings, with the specific thesis that he was an identifiable precursor to Jesus Christ. At first glance, this seems like a tall order, since, among other things, Elisha is portrayed as not merely a prophet but also a publicly esteemed councilor to kings and armies—a worker of miracles, yes, but very much an accepted figure of the establishment rather than a renegade rabbi preaching in the hinterlands of Nazareth before being put to an ignominious death by the Roman authorities. Yet Arnold argues for their similarities. “To read the ministry of this prophet [Elisha] in the light of the gospel is a source of great blessing,” Arnold writes. “Once you have started, you can hardly stop.” True to his word, Arnold proceeds to enumerate the many affinities between the two men: both worked many miracles, both seemed in possession of supernatural amounts of knowledge, each was anointed in his ministry by a fellow charismatic prophet figure (Elijah in the case of Elisha; John the Baptist in the case of Jesus), each appeared to need no step-by-step instruction from God, etc. But the greatest strength of Arnold’s book is his lively and accessible verse-by-verse analysis of Elisha’s ministry itself. Arnold’s commentary on 2 Kings is superb, drawing on an array of exegetical writing and sparkling with his own insights. Students of biblical studies will find this utterly fascinating reading.
Stimulating study of the career and ministry of the prophet Elisha in parallel to Jesus Christ.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5084-2942-5
Page Count: 238
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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