by Ori Z. Soltes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 25, 2017
Deep and historically scrupulous, this book is an important contribution to the study of comparative religion.
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A scholarly account explores the development of Judaism and Christianity in response to a pagan world as well as the emergent distinction between religion and superstition.
The historical arc of Christianity—from a persecuted sect of radicals to the official faith of Rome—raises serious questions about what precisely distinguishes true religions from false ones, myth from reality, and a dominant spiritual metaphysic from the superstitious practice of magic. Soltes (Mysticism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 2008) attempts to answer these questions by looking at the ways in which Christianity and Judaism evolved out of a “Hebrew-Israelite-Judaean tradition” of which they both claimed to be the proper heirs. Their dual development was at least partially borne out of their confrontation with pagan competitors not only for disciples, but also for political legitimacy from the Roman authorities. The author provides a captivating and philosophically searching analysis that shows that a rigorous theoretical distinction between religion and magic—the feature all regnant religions refer to when trumpeting their superiority—is impossible to draw. In the absence of such demonstrable traits, triumph becomes a function of political power, of who gets to make pronouncements “addressing the divine aspect” of the sacred. Soltes furnishes a wide-ranging history—the display of erudition is breathtaking—that considers not only the nature of religion itself, but also the unfolding of the term “magic” as a mark of illegitimacy and part of a terminology strategy to discredit the spiritual other. The author brilliantly discusses the best of Judeo-Christianity’s “serious competition,” including traditions like Roman Mithraism, which likely influenced the nature of Christianity just as it was surpassed by it. Soltes also assesses the gradual movement toward monotheism and the central role of demonology in Christianity—part of the religion’s particular success stemmed from its articulation of a compelling adversary. Further, the author is careful to avoid overconfidently compartmentalizing historical causes—he candidly discusses the way in which a common theological amalgamation makes neat distinctions nearly impossible.
Deep and historically scrupulous, this book is an important contribution to the study of comparative religion.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5465-0315-6
Page Count: 396
Publisher: Academia-West Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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 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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