Gripping but partisan conjectures from Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Eisenman (Middle East Religions/ California State Univ.), arguing that St. James is the missing link between Judaism and a supposed pre-Pauline Christianity. Although James is called the brother of Jesus and surnamed ``the Just'' (or ``the Righteous''), he has a relatively minor role in the New Testament. For Eisenman, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls opens up the background of events preceding the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, revealing a world of highly nationalistic and apocalyptic Jewish sects that were bitterly opposed to Gentile influence and in which James was prominent. Eisenman argues that Christianity was originally one of these groups, closely linked with the Essenes. James was, Eisenman suggests, a leader of the Jerusalem Christians and represented the authentic succession to Jesus, a continuity that was obliterated by the Roman destruction of the city in 72 a.d. Eisenman hypothesizes an aboriginal Christianity marked by scrupulous adherence to the Torah and standing in complete contrast to St. Paul's universalism, grace, and freedom from Jewish law. In this scenario, Paul is James's bitter antagonist: It was Paul who transformed a zealot movement into a Hellenistic mystery religion acceptable to the Roman imperium. That Christianity, albeit ``Pauline,'' was tailored to first-century Roman tastes will strike many readers as a paradox. Eisenman reaches his conclusions by exploring literary parallels and lacunae in the New Testament, the Scrolls, and contemporary literature, a methodology colored by the author's historical approach to Jesus and the New Testament, which denies the supernatural and can shed a negative light on Christianity and its founders. Eisenman's historical reconstruction makes for fascinating reading, but it never takes us beyond the realm of the merely plausible.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-86932-5
Page Count: 992
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1996
Diminutive sex therapist ``Dr. Ruth'' presents a sex guide for Orthodox and traditional Conservative Jews. ``People pick up the Bible for many different reasons but rarely, if ever, as a sex manual. That is their mistake,'' writes Westheimer. Here, with Jewish Week associate editor Mark, she sets out to correct this error. Westheimer begins by explaining Judaism's attitude toward sex, one which she considers particularly healthy. Judaism doesn't exalt celibacy; in fact, it frowns upon it. Women's satisfaction in marriage is not only discussed among the Talmudic sages, it is absolutely required of the husband. Lust and sexual impropriety are acknowledged and treated within Jewish law. In addition to the commandment against coveting thy neighbor's wife, Westheimer finds many explicit and implicit references to sex in the Hebrew Bible and rabbinical literature, focusing in particular on Genesis, Ruth, Song of Songs, and Talmudic and Kabbalistic sources. This last especially provides much fodder for the author. Westheimer also covers the commandments, the ritual bath, or mikvah, weddings, and the Sabbath, a day on which it is a special mitzvah (commandment) to have sex. Here the author offers a lovely metaphor for the relationship between husband and wife on the Sabbath: At the beginning of the day, the woman lights and blesses two candles, which according to Westheimer may represent the man and woman. At the end of the Sabbath, another blessing is made by candlelight, only this time the two wicks are joined together, often intertwined, representing the married couple, who have been brought closer through their sexual union. But this small gem is a rarity in a basically didactic and monotonous little book.
Pub Date: Nov. 6, 1995
ISBN: 0-8147-9268-5
Page Count: 188
Publisher: New York Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
Fellow philosopher Michel Foucault once opined that ``maybe one day we'll see the century as Deleuzian.'' This awkward collection of interviews, letters, and the occasional essay does its best to prove him wrong. Like many modern French intellectuals, Deleuze (Masochism, 1971, etc.) formed his ideas and ideology largely in the crucible of France's May '68 protests. But more than a quarter century later, he has yet to move on; even his most recent work has a tattered, time-capsule quality to it. His Marxist concern with modes and means of production, for example, seems hopelessly quaint. And while his emphasis on power and control might currently enjoy a fading vogue on American campuses, in Parisian intellectual circles such ideas fell from favor long ago. Deleuze is habitually difficult, and though this volume is presented by his publisher as a ``point of entry'' into his work, those not familiar with his substantial oeuvre will find it barely comprehensible here. Book- length arguments are alluded to in a sentence, vital concepts and terms go unexplained except for the occasional footnote. Deleuze himself seems to know everything and understand nothing. His style is high French academician—pompous and full of hair-splitting categorizations and incessant abstractions: ``All processes take place on the plane of immanence, and within a given multiplicity: unifications, subjectifications, rationalizations, centralizations have no special status.'' In many of his recent interviews, Deleuze has expressed worries about modern life—the decline of the academy, the ubiquity of media culture and its possibilities for social control. It never occurs to him that his own convoluted, gnomic pensÇes might be part of the problem. After all, it is so much easier to turn on a television set than to wade through outdated, obscure, and unexceptional philosophy from a B-side thinker.
Pub Date: Nov. 16, 1995
ISBN: 0-231-07580-4
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
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