A textually rigorous summary of the Bible undermined by philosophical vagueness and rhetorical condescension.
A comprehensive introduction to Scripture paired with reflections on its principal ideas.
On the basis of an informal survey, debut author Verduci determined that “well over 97 percent” of respondents had never read the Bible in its entirety and that few had an adequate understanding of its teachings. He decided to remedy this widespread ignorance with an introductory volume that summarizes the whole of the Bible and clarifies some of its central concepts. The book-by-book synopsis, “The Gist of the Bible Books,” is a comprehensive but brief sketch that gives each book about a paragraph of description. Then the author supplies surprisingly unconventional interpretations of hell, heaven, the soul, and the kingdom of God, as well as some philosophical reflections on God’s existence, the relationship between science and faith, and the ultimate meaning of life. In the interpretive passages, Verduci argues that technically everyone goes to hell, that there are three distinct heavens, and that there is no immortal soul that’s separable from the body. The philosophical sections are significantly less rigorous, though, and marred by awkward, cloudy prose: “If we cannot perceive or imagine nothingness and God is nothing, then God as defined as the notion of nothing infers a priori that God simply cannot not exist, hence noting the double negative.” The arguments for the existence of God provided are either well-known (such as the notion of intelligent design) or less than compelling, such as the idea that the continued influence of the Law of Moses over time in itself necessitates God’s reality. Still, the primary failing of the book as a whole is its dogmatic tenor; for instance, although Verduci concedes that the Bible is notoriously difficult to understand, he presents his own conclusions as self-evident. Also, he displays little patience for even a whiff of disagreement, calling atheistic scientists “fools.” Despite some memorable insights, the indefatigable peremptoriness of this book’s prose makes it a slog.
A textually rigorous summary of the Bible undermined by philosophical vagueness and rhetorical condescension.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2004
ISBN: 978-1-5320-1534-2
Page Count: 136
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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