A wonderfully illuminating, prodigious tour de force of ecclesiastical anthropology.
A seminal epoch explored in terms of statecraft and religion, sociology and belief.
The first century B.C. was largely dominated by imperial Rome and its regional client kings. Octavian defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra and became Augustus, master and overlord of the Roman world. In its German campaign, Rome suffered disastrous defeat. It was a time when conquest by trade was preferable to war, when mystery cults held sway, and pagan gods could be human enough to do business with mortal men. Charity was an unknown notion to the Romans, but clearly, religion held empires together. In Alexandria, still under Hellenic influence, compassionate Isis was the divinity of choice. The Arabian exporters of frankincense and unguents had their own gods, as did Palmyra. China, under Confucianism, was the world’s oldest empire. There, the crafty usurper Wang Mang displaced the Han Dynasty for a few unhappy years. Despite Roman hegemony in Jerusalem and most of the known world, though, the Jews would not or could not be assimilated. In her fine synthesis, journalist O’Grady (co-editor: A Deep but Dazzling Darkness: An Anthology of Personal Experiences of God, 2003, etc.) brings antiquity to vivid life, relying on myriad sources, including Horace, Josephus and Saul of Tarsus, Suetonius, Cicero, Plutarch, Schama and Gibbon. There are tunics, togas, coins, carvings, slaves and struggles, all vibrantly presented in an admirably accessible text. O’Grady demonstrates the universal symbiosis of state and faith before and during the formative years of Christianity, and she offers a secular gloss of the remarkable success of Pauline Christianity in a tumultuous world.
A wonderfully illuminating, prodigious tour de force of ecclesiastical anthropology.Pub Date: April 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-01681-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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