Book Description
A brilliant synthesis of the Apostle Paul's thought and influence, written by a “foremost Catholic intellectual” (Chicago Tribune)
All through history, Christians have debated Paul's influence on the church. Though revered, Paul has also been a stone on which many stumble. Apocryphal writings by Peter and James charge Paul, in the second century, with being a tool of Satan. In later centuries Paul became a target of ridicule for writers such as Thomas Jefferson (“the first corruptor ”), George Bernard Shaw (“a monstrous imposition”), and Nietzsche (“the Dysangelist”). However, as Garry Wills argues eloquently in this masterly analysis, what Paul meant was not something contrary to what Jesus meant. Rather, the best way to know Jesus is to discover Paul. Unlike the Gospel writers, who carefully shaped their narratives many decades after Jesus' life, Paul wrote in the heat of the moment, managing controversy, and sometimes contradicting himself, but at the same time offering the best reflection of those early times.
What Paul Meant is a stellar interpretation of Paul's writing, examining his tremendous influence on the first explosion of Christian belief and chronicling the controversy surrounding Paul through the centuries. Wills's many readers and those interested in the Christian tradition will warmly welcome this penetrating discussion of perhaps the most fascinating church father.
Customer Reviews:
What Paul Meant.......2007-09-08
Garry Wills is a scholar who does not hesitate to cut against the grain. I have enjoyed each of his books.
An excellent companion volume to Wills's WHAT JESUS MEANT.......2007-07-24
I have long loved Garry Wills's books, whether he was writing on Nixon or the Constitution or Reagan or John Wayne or Henry Adams or the Federalist Papers or Jefferson or Lincoln or the papacy or any other subject he has chosen to take up. Wills's perspective is definitely not a narrow one, but informed by a broad acquaintance with a very large body of knowledge. He is a generalist rather than a specialist. I previously was a big fan of his book WHAT JESUS MEANT. In that book he managed to summarize in popular but extremely intelligent fashion the message of Jesus. Here he does the same for Paul.
Paul rarely gets the respect he deserves from educated Christians. His words are often used as bludgeons for enforcing some exceedingly repressive or even evil practices. Or just plain dumb. A number of more conservative evangelical denominations have used Paul to ban the wearing of make up by women or the cutting of women's hair. (I still remember the astonishing beehives of some Nazarene women I went to high school with in Little Rock, Arkansas.) He has been used to justify the persecution of Jews and to insist that women should not be allowed to preach. Wills seeks to defend Paul from such nonsense while also providing keys to correctly understanding his letters.
Before Wills became one of the leading constitutional and presidential historians in America he was a teacher of Greek and it is clear that he has spent a great deal of time reading the New Testament in the original. He is not a Biblical scholar, but he is clearly a serious student at a very high level. He is willing to use contemporary scholarship, but not being a scholar he is able to use the body of literature concerning Paul in a practical way to illumine his subject, while at the same time avoid getting bogged down in somewhat arcane academic debates.
Many have been fans of Jesus but critics of Paul. Wills will have none of this and correctly gives Paul his due as the person from whom we have by far the earliest glimpses not only of the earliest days of the spreading of the revelation concerning Jesus but the earliest accounts of the message of Jesus. Many treat the Gospels as primary and Paul's epistles as secondary, but in fact Paul wrote several decades than the earliest of the Gospels. Given that Jesus knew and sought out hundreds of people who knew Jesus personally, his account is unusually rich and informed.
Much of the book is devoted to various topics in Paul's writings. Wills correctly points out that the heart of Paul's message is the teaching of Jesus as resurrected from the death who is the Messiah who fulfills the law of the Old Testament. I've had little patience in recent decades with writers on Jesus or Christianity who somehow imagine that the resurrection is a detachable part of Christian belief. Wills correctly points out that it is at the heart of the Pauline message and later of the Gospels. It isn't just a minor point to be argued about Jesus. It is if anything the main point. Wills does a great job also of providing the context for Paul's other teachings, most importantly perhaps that Paul never saw himself as leaving Judaism or as anything other than a Jew. For Paul the Church did not exist and he was unfamiliar with anything called Christianity. Wills stresses that "Christ" was not for Paul a proper name as it is for us, but a descriptive title that identifies Jesus as anointed, as the Messiah. Wills therefore chooses to translate all passages about "Jesus Christ" or "Christ" as "Jesus Messiah" or "Messiah." He strives to break us out of our normal complaisance in hearing the word "Christ."
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Combined with his book on Jesus, Wills has provided a wonderful two-volume introduction to Christian belief. I will add that although Wills is a Catholic, I suspect that Protestants will find more value in the books. My own experience has been that the vast majority of Catholics have little or no direct knowledge of the Bible. The reading of the Bible simply does not play the central role that it does for Protestants. In this regard, Wills, whose knowledge of the Bible is remarkable, more closely resembles a Protestant. He also refuses to be hemmed in by Catholic doctrine in reading the New Testament. I've been exasperated in talking to some Catholics who are shocked to hear that Peter had a wife and are unaware that it is explicitly referred to in the NT. Wills clearly has an understanding of Peter and his early role much closer to a Baptist than most Catholics. I haven't read his book WHY I AM A CATHOLIC but would very much like to do so. I frankly cannot see why he is. Regardless of denominational affiliation, this is a wonderful book. Along with the book on Jesus, I strongly recommend it to anyone who would better understand the Christian message.
What I Think as Opposed to What God Said.......2007-07-11
Very readable book containing current thought on Paul.
I have to admit that Paul was my hero since I was 10.
He seemed to be a great advernturer.
When I was in my 20s, Paul kept me out of seminary with the image of a minister who worked at a trade, studied and ministered to others without the limitations of being a priest.
Now, I am in my late middle years and I sat down over coffee with my minister friend and went off on a rant on why Paul is the most important part of the church that holds me to the Christian faith (as reflected in my title for this review).
My minister of mid-middle years said this was the first time a parshioner wanted to discuss Paul or any other biblical author with him. Most of his contact was organizational or counseling people who wanted to know if Jesus would mind if they cheated on their diet or spouse just a little bit.
Point being that we have so little opportunity to discuss "What Paul Meant". Even those of us who are churched and I would think less so of those who do not hear the weekly readings via awful church sound systems.
Thanks so much to Mr. Wills
But, now I must read his other books to find out why he remains a Catholic.
An Early Witness Who Was Fully In-Sync With Jesus.......2007-07-02
Garry Wills, Professor of History Emeritus, Northwestern University, and former seminarian, has written several provocative books covering the Catholic Church ("The Papal Sin," "Why I am Catholic), Jesus ("What Jesus Meant"), and now Apostle Paul with "What Paul Meant." "What Paul Meant" is no less provocative and is a great add to Will's legacy.
Paul has been accused of substituting his own "high-flown but also dark theology for the simple teachings of the itinerant preacher from Galilee. Accusers believe he was bound to as he never knew or understood Jesus, a figure he never met. Wills shows us that this misunderstanding derives from a massive misreading of Paul and of a misleading of minds of people down through centuries. He argues that the heart of the problem is that Paul entered the bloodstream of Western civilization mainly through "one artery, the vein carrying the consciousness of sin, of guilt, of the tortured conscience." Thus, religion was able to take over the legacy of Paul as it did that of Jesus - "because they both opposed it."
"What Paul Meant" highlights, through Paul's thirteen epistles, that the worship of God is a matter of interior love, not based on external observances, on temples or churches, on hierarchies or priesthoods. He, as Jesus, saw only two basic moral duties, love of God and love of neighbor. Both were liberators, not imprisoners. Both were aligned theologically.
We are reminded that Paul's writings are the first to reach us from a follower of Jesus. He takes us closer in time to Jesus than does any other person or group or body of writings. So the best way to find out what Jesus meant to his early followers is to see what Paul meant to his fellow believers. He was not an underminer of Jesus. He was not a counterforce but one of the early believers who bore witness to him and wrote about it.
Wills, using excerpts from Paul's writings and from Luke's Acts of the Apostles, examines Paul and the Risen Jesus (Paul is our expert on this); Paul and the Pre-Resurrection Jesus (Paul's accounts of how to address problems are probably closer to what Jesus said than are later records in the Gospels); Paul on the Road (monotheism, high moral principles, full religious equality); Paul and Peter (both were on the same side in the end); Paul and Women (women and men were equal); Paul and the Troubled Gatherings (how he managed damage control); Paul and Jews (he was not the father of Christian anti-Semitism); Paul and Jerusalem (the struggle to keep mindful of the needy); and, Paul and Rome (a "fishy" likelihood).
"What Paul Meant" is an excellent read. Wills is good at making his point - Paul was instep, not out-of-step, with Jesus and what Jesus meant.
Parsing Paul..........2007-06-23
What Paul Meant, a companion volume to Wills' What Jesus Meant, is an attempt to reach through Luke to get to Paul. Circumventing alleged contradictions and anachronisms in the Book of Acts, Wills proceeds to the genuine Pauline epistles to find the man. What results is a thin biography/apologetic which, despite it's diminutive size, provides interesting reading. Lacking any real theology, the book is more a confirmation of Paul's travels, testimony, and political maneuvering from his first apostolic journey to his execution in Rome. It is Acts vs. the epistles which provides the motive power throughout.
Wills reviews Paul's relationships with each Diaspora community and his rather prickly association with Peter and James. If there is one regret, it is that the author didn't elaborate further the destruction of Paul at the hands of Nero. It would no doubt prove compelling.
Better than What Jesus Meant, for there are fewer radical departures and revisionist decrees, I consider this latest Wills effort a worthwhile read. It is quick, concise, though confrontational to Lukan chronology. 4 stars.
Book Description
For more than a decade, Chris Johanson has been transforming day-to-day subject matter into simple stories in paintings that make bright, flat reference to illustration or folk art: The New York Times called their look "a down-on-its-luck, cheerfully abject cartoon style reminiscent of artists like William Wegman, Raymond Pettibon and Sue Williams." The same primary palette and angular compositions make Johanson's abstract works, which often take the form of geometric patterns or starbursts, into gleeful but sophisticated takes on Modernism. This, the artist's first major monograph, is also only the second title from Alleged Press, created by Aaron Rose of the influential Alleged gallery (1992-2002) and organizer of the groundbreaking traveling exhibition and accompanying catalogue, Beautiful Losers, in which Johanson featured prominently alongside artists such as Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Phil Frost, Spike Jonze and Harmony Korine. Please listen I have something to tell you about what is assembles Johanson's complete works to date, as well as several new pieces that have appeared nowhere else. Each spins a world from small, diffuse details: these are scenes where nude dancers, distracted pedestrians, forests, abstract rainbows and "good vibes" exist next to one another, on a sinister, comic edge that, even in its apparent brightness, can reflect the darkest places of human experience.
Customer Reviews:
everyone has a pile.......2007-03-07
this is a long-awaited retrospective look at Chris Johanson's work. pieces date from like 1992 to the present, and all are incredible inspirational brilliiant things yes! jack hanley's essay is awesome- who knew? chris is the best- he changed what everyone expects from an art experience
Book Description
Why do we have such extraordinarily powerful responses toward the images and pictures we see in everyday life? Why do we behave as if pictures were alive, possessing the power to influence us, to demand things from us, to persuade us, seduce us, or even lead us astray?
According to W. J. T. Mitchell, we need to reckon with images not just as inert objects that convey meaning but as animated beings with desires, needs, appetites, demands, and drives of their own. What Do Pictures Want? explores this idea and highlights Mitchell's innovative and profoundly influential thinking on picture theory and the lives and loves of images. Ranging across the visual arts, literature, and mass media, Mitchell applies characteristically brilliant and wry analyses to Byzantine icons and cyberpunk films, racial stereotypes and public monuments, ancient idols and modern clones, offensive images and found objects, American photography and aboriginal painting. Opening new vistas in iconology and the emergent field of visual culture, he also considers the importance of Dolly the Sheep—who, as a clone, fulfills the ancient dream of creating a living image—and the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, which, among other things, signifies a new and virulent form of iconoclasm.
What Do Pictures Want? offers an immensely rich and suggestive account of the interplay between the visible and the readable. A work by one of our leading theorists of visual representation, it will be a touchstone for art historians, literary critics, anthropologists, and philosophers alike.
“A treasury of episodes—generally overlooked by art history and visual studies—that turn on images that ‘walk by themselves’ and exert their own power over the living.”—Norman Bryson, Artforum
Customer Reviews:
innovative critique of how visual material finds its place in the culture.......2007-09-10
In the chapter titled the same as the book title, in laying out the grounds for his innovative exposition on images and culture, Mitchell explains, "[Images] present not just a surface but a face [italicized] that faces the beholder." Elsewhere in this chapter, he remarks that images may not have the power attributed to them; which supposed power is seen as absolute and all-encompassing in postmodern culture. Not suggesting that images ave no power, Mitchell takes the position that "the problem is to refine and complicate and refine our estimate of their power and the way it works." The author allows that his perspective based on what pictures "want" rather than what they "do" can at first blush seem to anthropomorphize pictures or give them an aboriginal animistic nature. But Mitchell explains that he means this as metaphorical, conceptual, and theoretical; not literal as in animism or even symbolic as with icons. Mitchell's provisional approach thus corresponds to the provisional quality of postmodern culture to bring extraordinary illumination to this contemporary culture.
Fantasy, multiple selves, and virtual reality are other terms used to express this provisional quality of postmodernism. Playfulness is another--and Mitchell's book, while sound literarily and with extensive learning and cogent though, exercises the principle that playfulness can take one farther in some cases. Whereas in postmodernism, play with its provisional, usually somewhat artificial attributes is a manner of avoiding commitment and engagement with fundamentals, with Mitchell it is a technique for coming to grips as much as possible with the elusive, ethereal nature of postmodernism. It is impossible to encompass or define postmodernism; whose primary attributes are contingency, continually changing imagery, and pseudo-events and provisional personas to play to the media. But Mitchell has managed to relate postmodernism's sprawling nature and what accounts for this.
Understanding how we really relate to images.......2005-11-02
Professor Mitchell has put together an intriguing collection of essays that are distinctly devoid of the presumptuous art talk so often seen in the top periodicals and art blogs of our time - thank you sir! Since these essays are the work of an exceptional scholar, some of us mere mortals may have difficulty in following the abstract constructs and thoroughly academic ponderings. That said, I believe Professor Mitchell poses an interesting fundamental question as to whether the experience of viewing images has evolved within our minds to the point where we actually wonder if they have a life or consciousness of their own. If this is the case, the next question one may ponder is, what do they want? Professor Mitchell is quick to point out that in taking on the exercise of this thought experiment, we are not to proceed as though we are engaged in finding a cure for cancer here - my words, not his - but to proceed on a path of open-ended exploration. In attempting to answer this question, the author guides us along an extensive path that deals with numerous invocations, comparisons, analogies, postulates, arguments and other worldly considerations. Not only are the considerations of the world, but they contain a sampling of nearly everything in the world as well, from biblical chapter and verse to Marx, Blake, Nietzsche, Chaucer, Freud, Dante, et al. In the first half of this book, Professor Mitchell has indeed composed a concerto of tribute to much of Western Civilization. There are worse things one could do. That said, I would encourage the good Professor, in his ninth book (this is his eighth) to forsake his colleagues in academe just enough (heaven forbid!) to leave the huddled masses with fewer more distinct concepts and a more consistent theme. A reduction in the scope of considerations may help the reader to come away with a perception that there is a more differentiated hierarchy of importance amongst the contents of the book. In all fairness, each chapter of this very worthwhile book deserves its own review. I would also submit that the educational potential of this subject matter would not suffer in the least if the Professor were to delete his political inclinations, which, as interesting as they may be, do not enhance the subject matter of this book in any way. Anyone who wants to understand how we really relate to images should read this comprehensive book.
Average customer rating:
- Excellent
- For painters who like to paint
- Painter's perspective on painting
- Excellent read
- abstractionist in disguise
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What Painting Is
James Elkins
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ASIN: 0415926629 |
Book Description
What is painting really? Daubs of sticky oils and crushed rock, blobs that form and reform, colors that look one way on a palette, another way on canvas, a different way still in relation to other bits of color beside them. Books on painting usually talk about Art, or about painters. But in this compelling and original work, art historian James Elkins turns to alchemy, for like the alchemist, the painter seeks to transform and be transformed by the medium.
In What Painting Is, James Elkins communicates the experience of painting beyond the traditional vocabulary of art history. Alchemy provides a magical language to explore what it is a painter really does in her or his studio--the smells, the mess, the struggle to control the uncontrollable, the special knowledge only painters hold of how colors will mix, and how they will look. Written from the perspective of a painter-turned-art historian, What Painting Is is like nothing you have ever read about art.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2007-05-10
I am not a painter, nor an artist. I am interested in the creative processes in life. I found this book entertaining and enlightning on many levels.
For painters who like to paint.......2007-04-23
This book reminded me what I love about painting. After reading it I felt completely rejuvenated and excited to be in the studio. As I was painting, the language in the book kept flashing into my mind, increasing my mark-making vocabulary and providing me with creative juice.
Painter's perspective on painting.......2006-08-14
I have been painting for nearly 20 years and this is the first book that I have encountered that has accurately described the material act of painting itself from a painter's perspective. I agree to some extent with other reviewers who complained that the discussions of alchemy were too long and obscure. However, in an age of digital images this foray into obsolete and arcane mucking about is absolutely necessary to explain why paint remains a vital medium. Even without the metaphoric parallels between painting and alchemy, delving into the alchemists kitchen seems like an excellent introduction into the mind of a painter.
I have one serious reservation about this book: I do not think that it would be useful for inexperienced painters. It is all too easy to be utterly seduced by the descriptions of lush thickets of paint and exquisite glazes. These must remain a means to greater understanding rather than an end in themselves. Elkins is aware of the problem and devotes a later chapter to self-reference and narcissism.
I am keen to try this book out on non-painting friends to see what impression it makes on them...
Excellent read.......2004-09-20
Elkins uses alchemy to interpret and read paintings. It sounds strange, but the way he explains it using such an odd device helped me to expand the way I think about art and paintings. It also is a book about paint- not conceptual or computer art or even theory. It is more concerned with the physical act of pushing paint, the solid matter of pigment, and the artisan-like way a painter opperates in the studio. If youre a person who is interested in the hands-on experience in art, and like thinking about new ideas, this book will be a lot of fun. If you dont like getting your hands dirty, you may want to look elsewhere.
abstractionist in disguise.......2004-02-18
The book starts out captivating then it suddenly shifts to Elkinks views of painting, that are strongly bent to the favor of abstractionist. Elkinks thoughts on Jackson Pollocks creative energy is more than I wanted to know. He devots almost an entire chapter to this already to small book, to his idol. How Pollock flicks his wrist to get the effect of splated paint just right and Pollocks tourched stance over his works as the canvis is lying on the floor.To much! I Do not recommend this little book.
Book Description
What the Bleep Do We Know!? is the biggest New Age movie phenomenon . . . EVER! Spreading by word of mouth and an obsessive grass-roots following in the vein of The Passion of the Christ, in which discussion groups spontaneously form and people who never go to the movies go over and over again, What the Bleep Do We Know!? is a wake-up call to the millions of people searching for a voice somewhere in this fragmented culture who have been awaiting a catalyst.
This outrageous film plunges you into a world where quantum uncertainty is demonstrated-where neurological processes and perceptual shifts are engaged and lived by its protagonist-where everything is alive, and reality is changed by every thought. What the Bleep Do We Know!? gives voice to the modern-day radical souls of science, bringing their genius to millions.
What the Bleep Do We Know!? says that science and spirituality are not different modes of thought, but are in fact describing the same thing. And it brings the power back to the individual man and woman as it demonstrates creation as the god-like capacity of every individual.
In Beyond the Bleep, Alexandra Bruce illuminates the personalities and teachings of the physicists, neurologists, anesthesiologists, physicians, spiritual teachers, mystics, and scholars in the film, as well as the filmmakers, helping the reader sort through their wilder and woollier theories with simple explanations of the cutting-edge science on which they are based. The phenomenon of the movie is only just beginning, spreading outwards from the yoga studios and health food stores of the Pacific Northwest across America and the world. There is a huge demand for more information on the topics presented in the film; Beyond the Bleep is the place to start.
Alexandra Bruce's articles on urban legends and metaphysical and quantum physics themes have been published in Paranoia magazine, Steamshovel Press, Borderland Sciences, and Disinfo.com. She recently translated the book Celestial Secrets, The Hidden History of the Mystery of Fatima with a foreword by Jim Marrs. She lives in Rio de Janeiro.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Content, and Good Value.......2007-06-04
The film "What the Bleep do We Know", left me a little disappointed. The claims were outlandish, and I was left somewhat skeptical. But while the film has its weak points, this little book by Alexandra Bruce shines brightly.
Bruce's "Beyond the Bleep" is like a miniature encyclopedia full for a rich content that sets the film right. And her full book is reasonably priced, considering what it contains.
Her first Chapter described the incredible phenomenon that surrounded the film. And she follows it with a highly readable account of quantum mechanics. These would be enough to please the reader, but she follow with additional chapters on each of 12 film personalities. She is very even handed with her accounts, and ends with a short conclusion.
Film personality, David Albert, was treated very fairly. Albert had some disagreements with the trendy claims made by the film (as I did), which is understandable. Bruce set the record straight for him. Fred Alan Wolf, author of many trendy books, is probably also delighted by Bruce's (page 26) presentation: "he is the Teflon physicist, who for over twenty years has managed to purvey his blend of quantum physics, anthropology and spiritualism without stirring up the bile of the orthodoxy". Wolf, no doubt welcomes the trends, and provides a balance to the more conservative Albert.
I really enjoyed reading about Stuart Hameroff with his deep intellect, and with his model of mind and quantum mechanics (the Orchestrated Objective Reduction). Bruce presented the monistic idealism of Amit Goswami in highly credible terms, despite what nay-sayers have said in the past.
Candace Pert's views on emotions and their connection to biochemical molecules was very interesting, hinting at a deep vitalism in nature that is contrary to our dualistic thinking. Bruce (page 174) writes: "What may end up being recognized as the most important aspect of Pert's work is her scientific mapping and understanding of what she calls the bodymind. Pert's revolutionary view is that the three classically separated areas of neuroscience, endocrinology, and immunology, with the various organs, the brain; the glands; and the spleen, bone marrow, and the lymph nodes are joined to each other in a multidirectional network of communication, linked by information carriers called neuropeptides." I refer to Pert's views in my book, "Trinity", which has to do with vitalism.
The chapters are followed by a section called "further reading/viewing" containing general resources, web sites, and references. Next comes a very detailed glossary. Then comes endnotes with important citations, and lastly an index. These, and the entire book, are very well organized, a real pleasure to read.
Trinity: The Scientific Basis of Vitalism and Transcendentalism
If you like the movie.......2007-05-07
Get this informative little book. This is much better than the "official" bleep books.
Beyond the Bleep........2007-01-10
The book went a little deeper into the subjects in the movie
"What the Bleep Do We Know" as I had hoped it would.
This book is not what it seems.......2006-11-13
I ordered this book along with Down the Rabbit Hole. All the promotions would lead one to believe that I would learn more about the movie and the information in it. The author is on a mission to discredit everything about the movie and the people and organizations associated with it, including me, the viewer.
This book is not worth the paper it is printed on. I am disappointed that someone would take the time to write it. The author says she is amazed that such a movie would be made. The movie has much more credibility than this book. She has used the Bleep's populatity to promote and sell her useless book. Any good review has to be planted.
Get this cold shower - and lose your last hope?.......2006-09-16
This book by Alexandra Bruce, a Brazilian/American author, who also co-authored the book `The Philadelphia Experiment Murder: Parallel Universes and the Physics of Insanity' is quite remarkable because it provides some astonishing background information on the fashionable movie and the scientists interviewed in the movie.
The tone of the book is matter-of-fact and sometimes provocative, and it does definitely not range among the many publications that cumulate laudations of the movie. It's rather the contrary, and some of the information provided is rather shocking.
The author has well researched and backed up her allegations with quotes from a number of publications. In a feedback mail to the author, I summarized my feelings after reading her book as follows:
- I must also say that even for somebody like me, being a bit older than most people of the target audience, the book has given me an enrichment, a surplus of information. But honestly, it has also robbed me of some precious illusions. And that was a good thing! To be frank, I had built a last hope on this film, a last hope for our times and all what is happening especially in the USA. I had thought that this film kind of builds on a new innocence, and that it was made by a different kind of people, and that it would represent a counter-weight to what's currently going on. But from what you write, summa summarum, this was a fundamental error of mine, and what this film then is, and perhaps all of quantum physics, is a cover-up, a nice fairy tale, a Peter Pan story, or a Harry Potter for adults."
On the other hand, I know that finding truth in such a complex matter, and regarding a project where many people were involved, is not easy. Most of the findings and judgments the author presents in her book (and that I cannot mention here for mere space reasons) concern the majority of the scientists featured in the film, and some more general statements regarding the film crew. Few were exempted from the author's rather sharp feather, such as, for example, Masaru Emoto.
On the other hand, it's perhaps good to take neither the `Bleep' nor `Beyond the Bleep' for the Bible and randomly consider the wisdom expressed in this quote by Charles Webster Leadbeater:
- A grumbling and fault-finding attitude towards others is unfortunately sadly common at the present day, and those who adopt it never seem to realise the harm that they are doing. If we study its result scientifically we shall see that the prevalent habit of malicious gossip is nothing short of wicked. It does not matter whether there is or is not any foundation for scandal; in either case it cannot but cause harm. Here we have a number of people fixing their minds upon some supposed evil quality in another, and drawing to it the attention of scores of others to whom such an idea would never otherwise have occurred."
Source: Charles Webster Leadbeater, The Inner Life, Theosophical Talks at Adyar, Vol. II, Chicago: The Rajput Press, 1911, reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, 1942, ISBN 0-7661-0557-1.
Book Description
Featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show. “This book is certainly blissful to look at...inspirational. It is full of lush, soft-focus photographs of women running businesses.”—The Wall Street Journal. “Entrepreneurs who daydream about converting a hobby into a career should consult The Business of Bliss.”—USA Today.
Customer Reviews:
Found Limoges Porcelain Expert Debby DuBay while reading this book!.......2007-08-02
An inspirational book! I found a hero - retired USAF Debby DuBay from this book and have become a Limoges collector and number one fan of Debby DuBay's. I highly recommend Debby DuBay's books specifically the Antique Trader Limoges Price Guide and Antique Limoges at Home. Thank you Ms. Allon for highlighting Debby DuBay's accomplishments!
Truly an inspirational book!.......2004-04-27
I was a very successful corporate business woman who recently retired and turned my passion into my current new business. I tracked down Ret, USAF Caption, Debby DuBay who is featured in The Business of Bliss and I was captivated and motivated by her inspirational true life story! She made me proud to be an American and proud of her accomplishments. In addition, she helped me with invaluable ideas and information that has helped make my business a success. I love Hearst Publications and the women they highlight. Recommend this book if you want to be inspired!
A inspirational book for all!.......2004-02-16
I had the opportunity to met one of the highlighted women in this book, Retired Air Force Officer, Debby DuBay who credits her sucess to her passion for porcelain. She is a dynamic speaker with a message for all. This book is an inspiration and if you are interested in turning a passion into a profession this book is a must!
Victoria Magazine...I miss you!.......2004-02-06
I loved Victoria Magazine and I was sad to see it go...but these wonderful books keep the spirit alive. Women doing what they love in true victoria magazine style...I love it! www.thereddragonfly.com
INSPIRATIONAL! A MUST FOR ALL!.......2004-01-27
I love this book! It is so inspirational! If you just want to enjoy a book with a cup of tea, I recommend the Business of Bliss. If you are serious about starting up a small business, I recommend the Business of Bliss. Hearst Publishing truly is the number one source for empowing the smallest of business women and bringing them to the reader. If they can do it, so can I. BUT, I couldn't have done it without being inspired by the women featured in the Business of Bliss such as Debby DuBay. (Who by the way, credits her huge success to Nancy Lindemeyer, Victoria Magazine and Hearst Pub.) The Business of Bliss is a Must.
Book Description
Paul Shepheard's previous book, What is Architecture?, was about making real, material things in the world -- landscapes, buildings, and machines. The Cultivated Wilderness is about those landscapes, and about the strategies that govern what we've done in shaping them.
In the author's words, this book is about "seeing things that are too big to see." His emphasis on strategy makes landscape fundamental -- he says that every architectural move is set in a landscape. Norman England, for example, was constructed as a network of strong points, in a strategy of occupation. The eighteenth-century grid cities of the New World reflect a strategy of reason. Our current strategy is the economic exploitation of the Earth, an intricately woven blanket of commerce that covers up a multitude of other possibilities, many other ways to treat the surface of the globe -- some of which are the landscapes revealed in this book.
In a series of first-person narratives, reminiscent of his last book, the author pairs six landscapes, in order of descending scale from global to local, from the seven wonders of the ancient world to the condensed destruction of World War I's Western Front. In an engaging style, Shepheard takes the reader on an odyssey through these landscapes, meeting people and seeing places. He states that now, at the end of a century in which the appropriate landscape was sought but never found, the strategy of turning the land to profit is under review -- and offers this book as his contribution to that review.
Customer Reviews:
among the most exciting books on the subject I have read.......1998-01-22
Shepheard's book is among the most exciting I have read in a very long time--even though I still don't quite know what it is. Is it what, as a university press publication, one might suppose it to be, a work of "scholarship"? is it instead, as, having read it, I now almost think, a very nearly poetic meditation on the interactions between human beings and their environment? I can say neither with certainty. What it is, "certainly," is a set of essays that consider, among other things, what "wilderness" might mean to the human beings who interact with, live in, or stamp their presence over it; the seven wonders of the ancient world; the human presence in Antactica; Scotland; Flevoland and the Dutch polders; the relationship between London and its surroundings; and--in its last chapter--the western front. Each essay is characterized first and foremost by the author's idiosyncratic and playful voice. He writes like a cranky and opinionated human being speaking to other human beings, not like an academic ghost-in-the-book-as-machine addressing some equally dessicated conception of an academic reader. The essays are shot through with conversations (invented? recorded?), little dramas, vignettes, and a basketful of other irrelevancies--although they never turn out to be as irrelevant as you suppose. Each is also characterized by flashes of insight that strike you like lightbulbs going off at unpredictable intervals, page after page. Many years ago, an English professor named Robert Stevick wrote an essay attempting to define the "form" of a genre called "the anatomy." It had, back then, recently been made "famous" all over again by a Canadian name of Frye. Stevick's examples, as I recall, included not only melancholick Burton, more or less obviously, but also Swift's Tale of a Tub, Tristram Shandy, Sartor Resartus, Moby Dick, A la recherche du temps perdus, and Ulysses. At an MLA meeting in the late 1970s, I proposed that Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time would be better understood in reference to this genre than if it were read (as it usually is) against the standards of realistic fiction; I still believe this argument is worth making in a more formal way than I did then, as an aside in a different argument, or here, as an assertion. Whatever else it may be, Shepheard's Cultivated Wilderness is the most recent major contribution to the anatomy genre I have come across. I also think it is simply brilliant. My pleasure in the book sent me looking, the day I finished it, for Shepheard's first book, What is Architecture? An Essay on Landscapes, Buildings, and Machines (MIT Press, 1994; paperback $9.95). I took me twenty-four hours to find a copy, which proved a bit frustrating. When I finally got my mitts on it, this earlier book also won me over. Art is everywhere [Shepheard writes]. As life has become detached from the wilderness, the human world is everywhere. I see music as a throbbing accompaniment to every moment of contemporary life, a sort of continuous current of emotion, that incorporates what poetry used to be. I see drama as a hugely expanded art that includes films and novels, which even has a new name, literature, and sucks in clothes and manners to itself as well. Architecture? Would we not all agree that architecture is much more than tombs and palaces and temples now? (p. 36) Do "we" all agree? Well, maybe yes . . . and maybe no. Page after page is filled with stuff that gets the ol' mental juices going, exciting agreement, provoking argument and disagreement, and inciting the reader to thought. If there is more to ask of a book, I am not sure what it is.
Book Description
From the late-fifteenth century onwards, scholars across Europe began to write books about how to read and evaluate histories. These pioneering works - which often take surprisingly modern-sounding positions - grew from complex early modern debates about law, religion, and classical scholarship. In this book, based on the Trevelyan Lectures of 2005, Anthony Grafton explains why so many of these works were written, why they attained so much insight - and why, in the centuries that followed, most scholars gradually forgot that they had existed. Elegant and accessible, What Was History? is a deliberate evocation of E. H. Carr’s celebrated and icononclastic Trevelyan Lectures on What Is History?, and will appeal to a broad readership of students, scholars and historical enthusiasts. Anthony Grafton is one of the most celebrated historians writing in English today, and What Was History? is a powerful and imaginative exploration of some central themes in the history of European ideas.
Average customer rating:
- Affable, well-informed and devastating
- Needs balance
- Debunking Da Vinci
- Expert demolition
- After all, it is a novel!
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Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine
Bart D. Ehrman
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Moleskine Pocket Ruled Notebook
ASIN: 0195181409 |
Book Description
A staggeringly popular work of fiction, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has stood atop The New York Times Bestseller List for well over a year, with millions of copies in print. But this fast-paced mystery is unusual in that the author states up front that the historical information in the book is all factually accurate. But is this claim true? As historian Bart D. Ehrman shows in this informative and witty book, The Da Vinci Code is filled with numerous historical mistakes. Did the ancient church engage in a cover-up to make the man Jesus into a divine figure? Did Emperor Constantine select for the New Testament--from some 80 contending Gospels--the only four Gospels that stressed that Jesus was divine? Was Jesus Christ married to Mary Magdalene? Did the Church suppress Gospels that told the secret of their marriage? Bart Ehrman thoroughly debunks all of these claims. But the book is not merely a laundry list of Brown's misreading of history. Throughout, Ehrman offers a wealth of fascinating background information--all historically accurate--on early Christianity. He describes, for instance, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (which are not Christian in content, contrary to The Da Vinci Code); outlines in simple terms how scholars of early Christianity determine which sources are most reliable; and explores the many other Gospels that have been found in the last half century. Ehrman separates fact from fiction, the historical realities from the flights of literary fancy. Readers of The Da Vinci Code who would like to know the truth about the beginnings of Christianity and the life of Jesus will find this book riveting.
Customer Reviews:
Affable, well-informed and devastating.......2007-09-10
Almost as amazing as the explosive phenomenon that was "The Da Vinci Code," is the explosion of books attacking its premises and conclusions. Bart Ehrman's book, "Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code" is an able addition to the list.
Ehrman is a historian, a Protestant, with a mainstream viewpoint. His book examines 6 "codes" that appear in TDVC. These touch on the persons of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the process of defining the canon or list of accepted books, the role of women in the early church and other topics germane to the discussion. Ehrman's examination and conclusions are logical, based on the evidence and (I thought) quite convincing. For instance, he discusses the supposed "fact" that since all rabbis had to be married, then Jesus (often called "Rabbi" by his disciples) must have been married as well. Ehrman demolishes this notion with easily-accessible facts. The apostle Paul himself was unmarried, as evidenced by his own letters. And the 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus speaks glowingly of the Essenes, noting that they do not marry. The term "rabbi" means "teacher," and can be applied to those who have undergone and official process as well as those (like Jesus) for whom the term is used as an honorific. And, unconvincingly to skeptics, the Gospels do not mention a married Jesus. Having made the case, Ehrman states that he has broken the code (that a married Jesus was probable) and moves on.
By far, Ehrman spends the most time with the so-called gnostic gospels, upon which the hopes of so many who attack the Church are based. These works of the early centuries of the current era were known mostly through the attacks upon them made by early Church Fathers like Irenaeus. Since the 1940s, with the discover of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library, historians have had a field day studying the primary texts of the first, second and third centuries. Ehrman examines the texts themselves as well as the cosmology and theology they espouse. This section is long, confusing and hard to follow, not least because the texts themselves are contradictory and plain weird. Ehrman pays special attention to details that moderns have given special importance. There is, for instance the section in the Gospel of Phillip in which Jesus is said to have kissed Mary Magdalene often on the mouth. Ehrman shows how this text is a reconstruction, with key words missing, and that it is embedded in sections that have purely spiritual and symbolic significance. Those who see it as an example of a flesh-and-blood relationship often neglect these key aspects of the work. Not to mention that the text post-dates the canonical gospels by many decades.
"Truth and Fiction" is a careful and dispassionate critique of the fuzzy thinking of TDVC partisans. It is also an good-natured attack on best-selling authors like Elaine Pagels ("The Gnostic Gospels") who have gained prominence by championing the vision of the gnostics. But the book's ultimate attack is on the "code behind the codes" -- the attempt to make the doctrine of the gnostics equivalent to the orthodox view taught in the gospels. Ehrman's great contribution is in making clear that two gospels -- one that preaches a suffering, crucified and risen Lord, and another that preaches a Lord who did not suffer and die -- can not merely be considered alternatives of one another. They preach different realities and have different consequences for believers. One is a gospel for all, the other a gospel for the elite. One opposes the world, the other revels in it. One was passed down by those close the Jesus, the other was invented decades or centuries after his life.
Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" was more than a work of fiction. It was an attack on the truth and on the hard-won and hard-kept beliefs of Christians over the last 2000 years. Ehrman's book is an educated, entertaining and accessible rebuttal that is well worth the read.
Needs balance.......2007-02-04
This is a good book with a lot of historical information and quotes, but it is the usual kind of scholarly approach that one finds to Christianity (like few other subjects): An investigation for which the author already knows the answer. I would rather see something a bit more open-minded than the sort of "writing the facts to fit the opinion" that usually comes to religion. For instance the entire concept of Jesus's "Kingdom of God" has only one possible meaning to the author; suffice it to say this is not so for a great many scholars, theologists and spiritualists. Rather disappointing for something that came through the Oxford University Press.
Debunking Da Vinci.......2007-01-08
It can't really be said that a scholar of Dr. Ehrman's magnitude was needed to demolish the historical claims of Dan Brown's piece-of-garbage novel. Any 12 year old Sunday school student could have blown down half the arguments of the Da Vinci Code while any intelligent person with a history book could have knocked over the other half. The value that Ehrman provides is that he delves deeper into Brown's claims and, rather than merely pointing out Brown's whoppers, gives us a very detailed education on Early Christianity, Biblical exegesis, the Gnostics, Mary Magdalene, Constantine, and all the other issues touching on the Da Vinci Code. It is a real pleasure for anyone interested in the Early Church and historical truth. However, Christians should be warned- although the vast majority of the book is unobjectionable, the born-again apostate Ehrman does indulge his agnosticism and judges the relative historical truth of the Gospels. If you can disregard that, the rest of the book contains some very valuable information.
Expert demolition.......2006-12-14
Bart Ehrman is a well-known historian of Christianity and chairman of the Religious Studies Department at UNC-Chapel Hill. This short book (it can be read in one long sitting) debunks Brown's plot and purported evidence from top to bottom. Better yet, it contains a lot of interesting material about early Christianity, the development of the NT scriptural canon, historical Jesus, what Constantine was and wasn't trying to do at Nicea, etc. I've read some of Ehrman's other books, which is why this one caught my eye. This one was clearly done in a hurry by pulling together parts of those other books, and a it's a bit padded with repetition. But Ehrman knows his stuff, and this is a nice, boiled down rapid-fire overview of that whole area of scholarship, how it proceeds (in a word, skeptically), and what kinds of conclusions it tends toward. Well worth the investment of time, even beyond the specifics about 'Da Vinci Code.'
The bottom line on Brown's book is that it's a page turner, but largely a mess in terms of historical accuracy, and a book that unfortunately promotes some really fundamental distortions and errors. Probably the two foundational inaccuracies are (1) Constantine did not decide the NT canon, and (2) the books that were left out of the NT were not books that over-emphasized Jesus' humanity, quite the contrary. There is much more wrong with 'Code,' (for example, it badly misrepresents both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the content of the books found at Nag Hammadi), but those two falsehoods pretty much destroy all its plot premises. 'Da Vinci Code' is an entertaining book that should not be taken seriously.
After all, it is a novel!.......2006-11-03
While I appreciate Bart's scholarship and have devoured other books he has written, I was disappointed in the tone of this book. As much as I champion feminine spirituality, the novel in question is, after all, a novel, for goodness sake! Enough already!
Book Description
It's hard for graphic designers to stay inspired when they're constantly working on deadline. Inspirability gives them a fresh look at how to keep those creative fires burning in the real world, with:
-Interviews with 40 design luminaries, including Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher, Milton Glaser and Margo Chase -Fascinating pictures the designers took of themselves and their offices, as well as samples of their design work -Revealing insights into what inspires each designer on a day-to-day basis
This book offers an original take on one of the most requested topics by graphic designers. It's a must-have tool for lasting inspiration!
Customer Reviews:
Beautiful & Creative.......2005-10-10
This book is very beautifully designed and put together. Wonderfully eclectic. A good reminder about how we fo and can get inspired by the smallest things. Also very funny. Read one story everyday to remind yourself that you really are a creative.
Inspired!.......2005-08-12
This is a fun read, like you are listing to the conversations between the author and the 40 top graphics designers. Besides their works, this book also let you know more about these designers in an approachable way. Different disigners get their inspiration in different ways. I am definity inspired by their conversation through this book.
Entertaining Motivation.......2005-08-02
I love the the featured designers' snapshots of themselves and their work space. The interviews are really well done, and I especially love the questionnaires with the designers' own scibbled notes and illustrations. It's really, really entertaining! You not only get to truly know them, but this book shows how unique these successful designers are and how they are deeply motivated-that in itself is inspiring. Every creative person should have this book. It's great fun and reference.
Fresh, Fuzzy & Fun!.......2005-07-20
I saw the author-Pash, speak at the How Design Conference in Chicago (June 2005). His presentation was about how he got the idea for this book. It was very cool and inspiring. I couldn't wait to get a copy and start reading it. This book is filled with 40 top graphic designers perspectives on what inspires them. Photographs of the designers and their work stations. As well as a survey page that they all filled out (and one for you to fill out too). It is the kind of book that is so much fun to read. You feel like you are right there in the moment. This book draws you in, includes you and most of all inspires you. This is a great book for a graphic designer to own.
Truly Inspiring.......2005-06-20
After buying this book (and being lucky enough to have it signed by the author!) I just couldn't wait to flip through it's pages and find out what inspires my heroes in the world of graphic design. I love the format the author has chosen for the interviews and being able to get a sneak peak into the designers' studios and see what inspires them. This book will remain a timeless addition to my bookshelf and I know I'll refer to it when I get stuck or need a bit of inspiration myself. The questionnaire is awesome, and I love how different they all are. It's a wonderful book and one that belongs in every designer's library.
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