“According to James” is an interesting and thoughtful book. Whether readers are Christians, Jews, Muslims, or something else, and even if they strongly disagree with the story Howard Rubenstein tells about James, an older brother of Jesus, they will find that the story prompts them to think about many aspects of religion. The story is [...]
Review by Israel Drazin Sin The Early History of an Idea By Paula Fredriksen Princeton University Press, 2012, 209 pages Paperback Cost: $14.28 Professor Paula Fredriksen of Boston University’s book on the development of the concept of sin begins with the view of Jesus and not with the prior Jewish [...]
Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection By Kris D. Komarnitsky Kris D. Komarnitsky does not attack Christianity, but like President Thomas Jefferson, Leo Tolstoy, Bart D. Ehrman, and a host of other rational thinkers, he questions and dismisses the miraculous elements of the Christian faith. His focus in this superbly composed and easy to read book is [...]
Jesus, Interrupted Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About them) By Bart D. Ehrman HarperOne, 2009, 292 pages Reviewed by Israel Drazin Can knowledgeable people who are convinced that what they read in the Bible is not totally true, who see that many of their coreligionists have [...]
Tolstoy A Russian Life By Rosamund Bartlett Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, 544 pages Rosamund Bartlett, an authority on Russian culture, describes Lev Tolstoy, as she calls him, the greatest Russian writer, probably a genius, but a failure as a man. When he was young, he drank too much, gambled, and was over amorous with [...]
By Israel Drazin I think that the messianic age is not a miraculous affair and the messiah is not a supernatural figure. There will be a gradual evolutionary and educative process that will improve people and encourage everyone, or nearly everyone, to live in harmony and work together to improve every individual and society. I [...]
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ By Jose Saramago The reviews of 1998 Noble Prize winner Jose Saramago’s brilliant book on Amazon and elsewhere have generally been quite comprehensive, very well written, and informative. Therefore I will not delve again into the aspects of the novel that they discussed, such as the book’s plot; [...]
