A worthy broadside aimed at revisionist Christian historians that provides a sorely needed counterpoint to the prevailing...
Jenkins (History, Institute for the Studies of Religion/Baylor Univ.; The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade, 2014, etc.) attacks the current mainstream view of church history, which posits the disappearance of competing Christian literature due to early repression by the established orthodoxy.
Many of these documents—such as the Gnostic gospels—have seen a recent resurgence in popularity, having been “hidden” or “lost” for centuries. The author pointedly argues that this view of competing documents is entirely mythic. Quite the contrary, many circulated well into the Middle Ages and beyond, often influencing otherwise thoroughly orthodox Christians. Among other issues Jenkins identifies with current historical analysis, he notes a tendency toward ethnocentrism in viewing Christian history: “When we tell the Christian story in any era on only a European scale—rather, with a West European, Catholic focus—we miss a very large part of the story.” Indeed, the author looks at a wide geographical range in his exploration of alternative Christian texts, especially Slavonic texts from Bulgaria and beyond and texts from Muslim-dominated regions. Jenkins introduces readers to texts preserved across the entirety of Christendom, from Ireland to Armenia. In the case of Gnosticism, Jenkins demonstrates that this heresy was not snuffed out or chased into hiding by the early church, but instead, it survived and flourished for centuries in Eastern Europe, culminating in the Albigensians in the 1200s. He also points out that some noncanonical texts went on to influence what we may see as traditional Western European Christianity—namely, those connected to Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of Jesus. Jenkins discusses the full spectrum of early, noncanonical literature, which, though heretical by official church standards, circulated and influenced believers for centuries. More than a well-argued rebuttal against prevailing academic viewpoints, the author also presents a worthwhile companion reference for lay students of Christian history.
A worthy broadside aimed at revisionist Christian historians that provides a sorely needed counterpoint to the prevailing and largely unquestioned conventional wisdom regarding early Christian history.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-465-06692-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
