by Stephen Beebe ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2008
A helpful, informative explanation of the common ground between Judaism and Christianity.
An engaging reference explores the link between Judaism and the early Christian church.
Plant geneticist Beebe viewed faith as a crutch for those too weak to face the realities of life, until he rediscovered God through Bahá'í, a faith encompassing numerous religions. Finding his distaste for Christianity to be adverse to the Bahá'í belief that God works through all faiths, the author reexamined the Bible and the life of Jesus. After learning more about Christianity's Jewish roots, he finally came to terms with Jesus by placing Him within a historical context. This book, aimed at Christians eager to learn more about the roots of their faith, focuses on Jewish culture before and during Jesus' time. Unlike other Christian books exploring these traditions, Between the Menorah and the Cross does not cast Judaism unfavorably but instead attempts to create an accurate and unbiased depiction of Jesus by peering through a Jewish lens. For the most part, the book places a positive spin on the historical evolution of Christianity, regarding the transition from polytheism to monotheism, the new emphasis placed on ethics and the recent emphasis on individual spirituality as all parts of God's unique plan. Interspersed with short dramatizations of traditional stories from the Bible, the book explores topics such as the history of the Christian scriptures, the initial Jewish-Christian church that existed before Christianity further branched out, the emphasis placed on life after death and on the immortal soul, and the view of Jesus as an apocalyptical prophet instead of a transcendent son of God. The narrative tone is occasionally too conversational–even apologetic–which can be distracting from the provoking information contained within. Still, Beebe successfully supplies readers with a unique blend of historical information on Judaism and the early Christian church, placing familiar Christian stories such as the Good Samaritan within an insightful Jewish context.
A helpful, informative explanation of the common ground between Judaism and Christianity.Pub Date: May 27, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4257-8939-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
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 Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith
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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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