by Timothy Keller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 22, 2011
Captivating reading from a Christian perspective.
Exploring the life of Jesus through the Gospel of Mark.
Preacher and author Keller (Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just, 2010, etc.) provides a fresh biography of Jesus from an evangelical standpoint. Focusing on Mark, the earliest, shortest and most direct of the four gospels, the author paints a picture of a savior who was sure of his own identity and fate while most of those around him were not. Keller locates various themes from Mark’s narrative and discusses each in turn, grouped under two major headings: “The King,” regarding Jesus’ identity, and “The Cross,” regarding his purpose. In discussing the identity of Jesus, the author describes him as a man both deeply imbedded within his culture and times while also living counter to them in many ways. Jesus never doubted his identity or his ability and indeed made it clear from the beginning that he was not merely the messiah, but something more than what his culture had expected in the messiah—he was God’s son. Of course, writes Keller, few understood the magnitude of his identity and his message. Moving on to Jesus’ ultimate purpose—or from a broader standpoint, the purpose of his incarnation—the author describes a man aware of his upcoming sacrifice, and indeed, a man in continual sacrifice, as he had descended from heaven to live on earth. This sacrifice is the true model for human love: “All real, life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice.” Keller’s work is more than a description of Jesus; it is also peppered with pastoral advice. His goal is for the reader to better understand Jesus in order to better imitate his life. Unlike the many academic and sensational biographies of Jesus in recent years, this one takes faith in Jesus largely for granted. The narrative is well-researched, with numerous references to authors as diverse as C.S. Lewis and Franz Kafka, but Keller does not attempt to prove Jesus’ divinity or find the “historical Jesus.”
Captivating reading from a Christian perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-525-95210-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
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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 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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