I read that more relevant chapters, discussing the similarities among ancient faiths but also their differences; for example, non-Jews there saw man’s creation by the gods as motivated by a desire to save the latter from work via the food sacrifices offered to them by the former. These people, it should be borne in mind, … [Read more…]
“According to Mesopotamian religion, human beings were created to serve the gods. Each city had a patron god, and these gods lived in images in the temples dedicated to them. The priests and other people who worked at the temples were their servants. Kings were thought to be appointed by the will of … [Read more…]
(All three of these are labeled by the library as juvenile literature.) Some notes: Assyria also relocated troublesome people it had conquered (51). The Sumerians had clocks that used 60-second minutes and 60-minute hours. Babylon was very much an on-again, off-again empire during the time it was (sporadically) ascendant, from 1792-539 B.C. Note: Babylon is … [Read more…]
Kant is a theist, but it is unclear to me what (if anything) he says about Christianity — which, however, is more a matter of history and, thus, might have been beyond the scope of his writing (cf. the bifurcated approach taken in my essay, elsewhere on this site, “Why I Am a Christian (and … [Read more…]
I reread this in 2013 as a Lenten study. Two thoughts: First, I’ve thought more about what Heaven will be like than what Hell would be like; I wonder if that’s true of most people. Second, if the raised body is, in some sense, solid, then Heaven must be, in some sense, an actual place … [Read more…]
This is a straightforward and valuable book: He just takes the four Gospels and makes them into a straightforward, chronological narrative of all that Jesus said and did. I did not notice any editorializing or omissions/additions. The book is 183 pages. (The author is a retired Catholic priest. I note that one website says he … [Read more…]
This is Chesterton’s first and supposedly best collection of the Father Brown stories, and they are indeed enjoyable — but there’s not really a lot of Christianity in them (except maybe implicitly), and alas he is rabidly anti-“Puritan.”
This is a very good and recent (2013) biography. One annotation I made (139): The fact that Lewis’s conversion was bifurcated — that is, first he became a theist, then a Christian — is “Interesting/reassurring” re my short essay (elsewhere on this site), “Why Am I Christian (and You Should Be, Too), in 600 Words.”
I read this because of a review by Joseph Bottom in The Weekly Standard, which makes some good points. The book is solid but doesn’t really offer a lot of insight into Christianity. One point I liked (irrelevant to Christianity) is that Rome was unique in that its leaders/elite wrote poetry (297). This point (286-87) … [Read more…]
This is very good, especially in the facts and history it provides. Some of the analysis toward the end is confused and too speculative, and I think he is too harsh on Joel Osteen and too insistent that Christianity cannot be upbeat (he’s Catholic, FYI and FWIW).