History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)

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Check and see
Suprise! Suprise!
Prescient St Augustine?
Something of a disappointment
Romulus courts Helen, Paris founds Rome, Moses goes to Troy..

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
Anatoly T Fomenko
Manufacturer: Delamere Resources LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 2913621066

Product Description

`History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2` is the second volume of the most explosive and astounding tractate on history ever written - however, every theory it contains, no matter how unorthodox, is backed by rock solid scientific data. The book is easy and pleasant to read; it is well-illustrated, contains hundreds of charts, graphs and illustrations, copies of ancient manuscripts, and countless facts attesting to the falsity of the chronology used nowadays. You will be amazed to discover: - That the chronology universally accepted today and taken for granted is simply wrong; - That ALL methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts known today are erroneous or non-exact; - That there is not a single document that could be reliably dated earlier than the XIth century; The Author refers to the Middle Ages as the Antiquity and proves mutual superimposition of the Second and the Third Roman Empire, both of which become identified as the respective kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Furthermore, he asserts that the famous reform of the Occidental Church in the XI century by Pope Gregory Hildebrand was the reflection of the XII century reforms of Byzantine emperor Andronicus who in his turn identifies with Jesus Christ. The Trojan war counted by Homer happened only as late as of the XIII century A.D. and the great poet actually lived in XIV century A.D. No stone in history of Antiquity is left unturned. Literally. This book is the beginning of a major correction to the chronology we live with.

Customer Reviews:

Check and see.......2007-06-21

I don't care what other people say of this book. Those affirmig it's fake, they hadn't ever read it. Or have some special reasons to do so. "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see..." This book won't make you feel comfortable. It'll make you feel free. It'll make you feel you're "not the only one" to feel you'd been lied to for centuries.

Suprise! Suprise!.......2007-03-22

Here is a serie of books which turns "the whole world" upside down. I learned a lot of it and I hope that a new book from A.T. Fomenko will follow very quick. A absolute must for everybody who is interested in history or even a little bit from it.

Prescient St Augustine?.......2006-02-05

We can so far divide the New Chronology into the following three parts:

a) The verifiable theory that proves consensual chronology wrong with the aid of astronomy, statistics and mathematics;

b) The new chronology hypothesis based on a new understanding of known historical facts and the most likely logical explanation of the most obvious inconsistencies inherent in the official version of history;

c) The history conjectures, that is experimental historical reconstructions based on assumptions that the authors believe to make sense in the light of their research and linguistic parallels - void of ironclad factual support to date.

Fomenko's theory complies with the most rigid scientific standards as a whole:

It gives a coherent explanation of what we already know.

- It is consistent: independent lines of inquiry all lead to the same conclusion.

- The predictions it makes are confirmed empirically.

Fomenko goes by the following axioms:

- Chronology is the basis of history;

- Human evolution has always been linear, gradual and irreversible;

- The "cyclic" nature of human civilization is a myth, likewise all the gaps, duplicates, "dark ages" and "renaissances" that we know from consensual history;

- The accumulation of geographical knowledge as reflected in cartography is a gradual and irreversible process;

- The chronological distance between a given manuscript and the events described therein is proportional to the amount of distortions it contains;

- There is no "useless" information in authentic ancient sources.

Why the mainstream historians do not shower mathematician Academician Dr.Prof Fomenko with thanks and laurels?

The Russians:

Because Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by three centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called "Tartars and Mongols" were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a bilingual state with Arabic spoken as freely as Russian. The ancient Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities. The hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called "blood tax"). Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion. Fomenko proves that Russian history as we know it today is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scientists brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs, whose ascension to the throne was the result of coup d'état, charged with the mission of making their reign look legitimate. Fomenko proves Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. They represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate rulers and the ambitious upstarts. The winner took it all! Over some 30 years of controversy, Russian historians have made a most remarkable transition - they were initially accusing the young mathematician Fomenko of anticommunist dissident activity and attempts to deface the historical legacy of Soviet Russia; nowadays the middle-aged mathematician is accused of adhering to "pro-communist Russian nationalism" and defacing the proud historical legacy of Great Russia.

The Westerners:

Because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History. Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one the Ancient Rome (the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the XIV century A. D.), the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, and the Ancient Egypt (the pyramids of Giza become dated to the XI-XV century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global "Mongolian" Empire, no less). The civilization of the Ancient Egypt is irrefutably dated to the XII-XV century A. D. with the aid of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone. He was the first one to decipher and date all such horoscopes, coming up with mediaeval dates in every case. English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. To reward the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

The Chinese:

Because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such thing. Full point. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the XVII-XVIII century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation, this time performed on the Chinese soil by the loving Jesuit hands. The Chinese are the next in line to go berserk. Chinese history is inevitably bound to get both more ancient and more eventful, proportionally to the growing involvement of China in the world affairs. Chinese historians will keep on finding valid proof of prehistoric Chinese spaceflights until the Politburo orders them to shut up.

The Arabs:

Too bad. Islam with all its key figures is datable to XV-XVI century A. D. Arabic historians may find consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire in the XVI-XVII century. The trouble is that this empire was initially a Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, according to Fomenko! We can only guess if the acquisition of Alexander the Great (a Macedonian and a Christian) as the founder of the Muslim World Empire will make Fomenko's theories more acceptable to the Arabic mainstream. He certainly does not spare any holy cows at all, claiming The Stone of Qa'Aba in Mecca to contain the lost Arch of the Covenant.

The Divinity:

Despite of reiterated statement that his theory is all about chronology and not Religion, Fomenko stirs up a whole condominium of wasp nests. His collection of anathemas, fatwa, and other condemnations from all parties concerned is already considerable. Little wonder, considering that the history of religions à la Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the XI century and JC), Bacchic Christianity (XI-XII century, before and after JC), JC Christianity (XII-XVI century) and its subsequent mutations into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on.

According to Fomenko we know strictly NOTHING about the events that predate the X century A. D.

St Augustin was prescient when he spoke unto us: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

Something of a disappointment.......2005-09-09

After having read the first volume of this expected series of 7 volumes I was triggered by the thesis of these authors that ancient Greek and Roman history did in fact take place in the Middle Ages. So I started studying medieval history of the Middle East - also known as Islamic history - to find out if the opponents of the ancient Greeks and Romans - the Acheamenid Persians, Sassanids, Scythians, Egyptians, etc. - also have their duplicates in medieval history. My search was disappointing: none of the many medieval Islamic dynasties seemed to correspond to the ancient middle eastern rulers.

However, I did find a close correspondence between Herodotus' Persian kings and medieval events:

- the defeat and capture of an Anatolian king - the Lydian Croesus - by the Persian conqueror Cyrus is identical to the defeat and capture of another Anatolian king - sultan Bayezid - by the Asian/Mongol conqueror Tamerlane;
- the Persian conquest of Egypt by the cruel tyrant Cambyses reds almost exactly as the Ottoman conquest of Egypt by Selim the Grim (note the nickname!);
- Darius the Lawgiver of the Persian Empire looks very much alike to Sulayman the Magnificent, the Lawgiver in Islamic history;
- Xerxes, whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by the Greeks at the naval battle of Salamis, looks like Selim II (the Sot) whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by a Spanish-Italian alliance at the naval battle of Lepanto.

I should have expected Fomenko et al. to arrive at similar conclusions, however, they claim that the Persian kings are the alter egos of the Angevin kings of Sicily whose biographies do not contain the exploits of the Persian kings.

The similiarities I indicate lead to the conclusion that Herodotus must have written his Histories at the close of the 16th century. But this is extremely late, given that Herodotus is "the Father of History", so therefore all other "ancient" histories must have been fabricated even later. Yet, the founders of modern chronology - Scaliger and Petavius - laid their foundations also at the close of the 16th century and had the full corpus of ancient histories already at their disposal.

It seems to me that Fomenko has to address these inconsistencies, maybe in the forthcoming 5 volumes?

Another critique of their book is that the correspondencies between different rulers are often based on a superficial comparison of the biographies; upon a more thorough comparison many details appear that do not correspond at all.

Finally, the authors rely heavily on the works of Gregorovius (1821-1891!!) - his medieval histories of Rome and Athens - as the source of medieval history; these works are - at least in the West - hoplessly outdated and have been superceded by more up-to-date works (for instance, Julius Norwich's trilogy on Byzantine history is not even cited).

Romulus courts Helen, Paris founds Rome, Moses goes to Troy.........2005-07-30

If you agree with Fomenko that Roman chronology is basically the foundation of the entire edifice of global chronology; you would also certainly agree that despite its numerous gaps and inconsistencies, Roman history is the best-documented field of ancient history, and thus a reference scale. But how well is the actual date of the Eternal City's foundation known?

Firstly, Rome is supposed to have been founded by the Trojans who had to flee after the fall of Troy. Some claim Rome to have been founded by Aeneas and Ulysses shortly after Troy had fallen; others are of the opinion that there was an entire dynasty that ruled for 500 years between the fall of Troy and the foundation of Rome.

Well, that's just an innocent 500 years long misunderstanding compared with what heretic Fomenko says, asserts, proves in his second volume: Second Roman Empire, Third Roman Empire, Biblical Kingdom of Israel, Biblical Kingdom of Judah, Holy Roman Empire are stories about basically same events, written from different points of view at different times. The underlying events have actually taken place during xii-xv cy. These histories have been written and perfected by multitude of highly talented humanist and clerical writers of xiii-xvi cy disguised as "ancients" with glorious names like Homer, Pluto, Thucydides etc..Chronology 2.0 beta..

Historians are kindly invited to report the bugs.

Topical Memory System Package: Hide God's Word in Your Heart (Topical Memory System)

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Topical Memory System
I've been using this for years....
Cards ARE included
Good book but cards are not included

Topical Memory System Package: Hide God's Word in Your Heart (Topical Memory System)
Navpress
Manufacturer: Navpress Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 990073369X

Book Description

What the topical memory system will do for you.

Freedom from Anxiety: Memorizing and meditating on God's Word will help you overcome worry. You can experience God's perfect peace by having His promises written on your heart.

Victory over Sin: God's Word hidden in your heart is the sword of the Spirit, available for battle at any time against sin and Satan.

Confidence in Witnessing: One of the five series of verses in the Topical Memory System will give you a workable plan for sharing the gospel with others.

Spiritual Fitness: Scripture memory will help you keep spiritually fit. You will experience immediate benefits and become better equipped to meet future needs and opportunities.

YOUR MEMORY IS GOOD. If you don't think so, consider all the information you know by heart-your address and phone number, all the people you know by name, details about your job, facts and figures about your favorite sport or hobby, and much more. You see, your memory is pretty good after all. Anything is easy to memorize when you really have an interest in it. Contains all four versions: KJV, NIV, NASB, NKJV.

Customer Reviews:

Topical Memory System.......2003-12-18

I bought Three of these and they all contained the memory packets. My son uses them and two men from our church uses them. It is good to go over these verse and apply them to our everyday life and thinking.

I've been using this for years...........2000-06-10

This resource has really changed my life and given me the ability to learn and memorize key scriptures. I've just ordered three more for the men in my discipleship group.

You won't regret it! Buy it today and you'll use it for the rest of your life!

Cards ARE included.......1999-08-17

The only review posted for this book says the memory cards are NOT included. My package came with a set of cards for 60 verses in 4 different translations and a card carrying case. I am looking forward to using these cards and the manual to aid in my attempt to memorize Scripture.

Good book but cards are not included.......1998-01-27

This book has a lot of good ideas and methods for memorizing scripture, but the scripture memorization card are not included, which is principally the reason I bought the book. A little disappointing

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Religion as a Chain of Memory
Daniele Hervieu-Leger
Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0813528283

The Memoirs of God: History, Memory, and the Experience of the Divine in Ancient Israel

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Better Have a Mind
The Memoirs of God: History, Memory, and the Experience of the Divine in Ancient Isreal
Collective Memory and Collective Amnesia

The Memoirs of God: History, Memory, and the Experience of the Divine in Ancient Israel
Mark S. Smith
Manufacturer: Augsburg Fortress Publishers
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ASIN: 0800634853

Book Description

This insightful work examines the variety of ways that collective memory, oral tradition, history, and history writing intersect. Integral to all this are the ways in which ancient Israel was shaped by the monarchy, the Babylonian exile, and the dispersions of Judeans and the ways in which Israel conceptualized and interacted with the divine—Yahweh as well as other deities.

Customer Reviews:

Better Have a Mind.......2007-05-10

Brilliantly written, Mark Stratton Smith takes you on an intellectual journey into the why's and wherefore's of Monotheistic belief.
It is certainly not for a reader with no background in the subject.

The Memoirs of God: History, Memory, and the Experience of the Divine in Ancient Isreal.......2007-03-08

The material presented by Mark Smith is an insightful interpretation of the collective memory of an ancient culture. The thoughts are well organized and easy to understand by a non academic.

Collective Memory and Collective Amnesia.......2006-09-04

Mark Smith writes in this book that the Hebrew Bible contains both the collective memory of ancient Israel and the collective amnesia. The first two chapters are representations of Israel's past in the Bible. This discussion begins about 1200 BCE and ends about the beginning of the Persian Period. The Dead Sea Scrolls get mentioned as examples of the longevity of ideas. The biblical history prior to 1200 BCE (Genesis, etc.) is explained as a memoir from a later period when Israel simply wished that life was not so painful as it was. In chapter 2, Smith focuses on the challanges facing Israel's existence. One of the basic questions was: who or what was an Israelite? Israel was not just the "twelve tribes." In chapter 3, Smith takes a look at the biblical representation of montheism in the Bible. In this chapter Smith looks at the monotheism of the Bible from the point ot view of the pantheon of Ugarit. If this is unfamiliar to the reader, the reader may want to consult Lowell Handy's _Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy_ or other writings. In chapter 4, Smith introduces collective amnesia as proposed by various scholars.

In a postscript, Smith addresses the *theological* problem of how to deal with a revelation which may be related to both the language and culture of the Bible or which may be unrelated altogether. Those who study the Bible as a "single eternal" witness fail to understand the Bible's own witnesses. Yet the Bible as theology is an attempt to relate how Israel engaged the challanges it faced and, as a record, to help subsequent peoples to do the same.

Does a people collectively forget its oral history? Or do written records replace what we think people had thought when maybe they did and maybe they thought something else. Smith has a most thought-provoking book.

Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope: Contested Truth in a Post-Christian World

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Another Magical Epiphany of God Present in the Text!
"we are in a deep dislocation in our society..."

Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope: Contested Truth in a Post-Christian World
Walter Brueggemann
Manufacturer: Augsburg Fortress Publishers
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ASIN: 0800632370

Book Description

These studies on a variety of biblical texts focus deftly on reading, listening to, and proclaiming the gospel in a broken, fragmented, and “post-Christendom” world. Brueggemann explores how these traditions have the potential to continually resonate in our contemporary communities and individual lives.

Customer Reviews:

Another Magical Epiphany of God Present in the Text!.......2003-02-25

After classes with the Master Teacher of Old Testament, I felt a need to dig around in his more recent essays: "The Role of Old Testament Theology in Old Testament Interpretation" ; "Preaching As Sub-version" ; Both his last and first essays!

In his current lectures in Old Testament Theology, Bruegge has progressed from Reformation and Enlightenment through Barth, Eichrodt and von Rad bringing up his issues of historical criticism and post modernism...landing squarely on page 115 with his repeated description of Theo-ology is "speech about God." Then as he does often conclude lectures: It may be from another source can come an alternative to this dominant construal of reality, "perhaps from what Robert Bellah terms the 'republican' tradition... If we work from the ground-up it is entirely possible that lived reality reimagined from this Character (God) who lives on the lips of these witness could offer a wholesale and compelling alternative."

This alternative world is clearly marked out in the first essay "Preaching as Sub-version"..."We say these things to one another because...the utterances mediate the Easter option" as possible, in our practice, imagined in public policy, stated again on pages 17, 25 and 49.

My favorite essays land on the first, "Preaching as Sub-version" and the final two out of nine Jewels of distilled Brueggemann!
One comment about Essay 8, "Crisis-Evoked, Crisis-Resolving Speech." "It is clear that OT Theology cannot effectively advance by focusing on conventional conceptual content in the text." In pointing out the "regresses" of Israel in times of crisis, YHWH both discloses and acknowledges the ways in which God fulfills, but also fails in his relationship to Israel. Here again as in most books and lectures, Bruegge gives the Hebrew words used in Exodus 34:6-7a ; Hosea 2:19-20 ; Isaiah 54:10: As
hesed, rahum, hanun, and 'emeth. I always thank him for using the English spellings.

Sincerely for both Bruce Day and Professor Bruegge.
Retired Chaplain Fred W Hood

"we are in a deep dislocation in our society...".......2001-03-18

...so Brueggemann begins the 5th chapter of "Deep Memory..." This is the third book in a series focussed on using Old Testament scriptures to illuminate problems in our post-modern society. As in the previous two books, each chapter will appeal to different readers in diverse ways. Some are of mostly theological interest; some are more visceral. The theme explored in all of them is the similarity between the culture of Isreal in Exile (ca.587BCE)and our own shattered society 26 centuries later.both they and we can no longer trust the institutions or the God that defined and dominated our communities until very recently. Brueggemann says that "...denial and despair are powerfully at work to prevent any serious engagement of the crisis of dislocation into which we are now plunged." These lead to self-preoccupation and self indulgence, words that aptly describe the "winner-take-all" world I see around us today. The author asks us to return to the Exilic scriptures (Samuel, the Psalms and Isaiah are used as examples) to see what help we can draw from the Hebrew relationship with Yahweh. In the past we have often set aside some of these verses because they cause conflict and pain to our post-enlightenment sensabilities. Brueggemann argues that we need to wrestle with these also; there is much to be learned from exploring why they wound us so deeply. These texts would not have been passed on unless they were of importance to the identity of both Isreal and the Christian community. This testimony by a people in exile about their relationship with their God can give us language with which to confront the narcissistic, neighbor-sacrificing culture that surrounds us.

A fair amount of attention is devoted to describing how our relationship with Yahweh has devolved since the Reformation (and later the Enlightenment), but the blame is spread evenly and not dwelled upon. Instead it provides a map with which to get back to the words and relationship we have lost and are desperate to recover. An alternative community, living in communion with God's steadfast-love, is the kingdom that all believers are called to. Dr. Brueggemann's final thoughts urge us to use Old Testament theology to turn away from the brutality of our self-centered society long enough to examine the possibilities of a deeper relationship with God.

Book Description

Explores the way in which Jewish rabbis during the first Christian centuries preserved and passed on their sacred tradition, and he shows how early Christianity is better understood in light of how that tradition develoed in Rabbinic Judaism.

Customer Reviews:

Growing in Importance.......2007-04-24

I wholeheartedly agree with my fellow reviewer Cato and his praise for this book. I only wanted to add that it's my opinion that the importance of this book will not be fully realized for many years, as this study - along with the work being done re ancient Hebraic literary structures (especially as it pertains to meaning) - will combine to unlock the secrets of the earliest Christianity. Birger's incredible work is a must for those who are interested in seminal Christianity. I recommend this book without reservation.

A long-neglected classic, an extraordinarily important book.......2000-05-26

Academia is ruled by fads. This handsomely presented republication (with new material) of one of the most important and least known books relating to the history of early Judaism and of very early Christianity was savagely attacked by one of the leading Biblical scholars of the 1950's and 1960's and a group of his associates and students. One of those students--the prolific Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner--now repents from his unfair attack and adds his own lengthy preface to a book he, in effect, helped to suppress three decades ago. The Scandinavian author, Birger Gerharddson, offered a detailed and very scholarly argument in favor of the "stability" of the process by which trained scribes and religious teachers in the first century C.E. were concerned with the accurate preservation and transmission of important religious traditions in both early rabbinic Judaism and, by analogy, in early Christianity. Since it is a foundational belief of much of contemporary "New Testament scholarship" that the canonical gospels are NOT the product of a conscious process of careful preservation and transmission, this book and its author have been largely ignored for a third of a century. Ignored, but not refuted. This is a densely argued book, drawing heavily on early Mishnaic sources (quoted in the Hebrew), and is not for casual students. For serious students of the origins of the gospels and for those exploring the historical background to the development of early Christianity, this is one of the most important studies to have been written in the past half century.

Religion (Cultural Memory in the Present)

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Reflections on Religion on the Island of Capri
A Neccessary Conversation
arrogant cowardice
not nothing
SUPERB

Religion (Cultural Memory in the Present)
Jacques Derrida , and Gianni Vattimo
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0804734879

Book Description

What should we make of the return to the sacred evidenced by the new vitality of churches, sects, and religious beliefs in many parts of the world today? What are the boundaries between the essential traits of religion and those of ethics and justice? Is there a “truth” to religion? This remarkable volume includes reflections on such questions by three of the most important philosophers of our time—Jacques Derrida, Gianni Vattimo, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Together with other distinguished thinkers, they address a wide range of questions about the meaning, status, and future prospects of religion.

In his meditation on the “return of religion,” entitled “Faith and Knowledge: The Two Sources of ‘Religion’ at the Limits of Mere Reason,” Derrida addresses the ways in which this return is intrinsically linked to transformations of which the new media are both the carriers and the symptom. Derrida coins this process one of globalatinization. This neologism signals, among other things, the process of a certain universalization of the Roman word or concept of religion, which tends to become hegemonic, as well as a certain performativity discernible in the new media and in contemporary structures of testimony and confession. Examples of this include, Derrida reminds us, not only the phenomenon of televangelism and televisual stagings of the pope’s journeys, and not only the portrayal and self-presentation of Islam, but also the fetishization and becoming virtually absolute of the televisual and the multimedial as such.

Using Being and Time as a point of reference, Vattimo suggests that religious experience is both an individual experience and a manifestation of a historical rhythm within which religion regularly appears and disappears. A commentary by Gadamer summarizes and enriches the contributions by Derrida and Vattimo.

Four essays by Maurizio Ferraris, Eugenio Trias, Vincenzo Vitiello, and Aldo Giorgio Gargani complete the volume by examining other facets of the “religious.”

Customer Reviews:

Reflections on Religion on the Island of Capri.......2000-11-24

Jacques Derrida's contribution to this seminar which was held in 1994 on the island of Capri is the essay entitled "Faith and Knowledge." What is particularly interesting about this keynote address is Derrida's neologism "globalatinization" which he defines as "this strange alliance of Christianity, as the experience of the death of God, and tele-technoscientific capitalism." There is talk of religion and digitality, airborn pilgrimages to Mecca, Jerusalem and its three monotheisms watched over by the heavenly and monstrous glance of CNN, a Pope versed in televisual rhetoric, miracles transmitted live followed by commercials, and lastly the televisual diplomacy of the Dalai Lama. Because Capri is an island not far from Rome, Derrida also has some interesting things to say about religion in the Mediterranean and the Levant, as well as the Promised Land and the desert. This essay is particularly opaque and beautiful and it would definitely help the reader if he or she is familiar with Martin Heidegger's Sein und Zeit (Being And Time) as well as Beitrage zur Philosophie (Contributions to Philosophy), as JD name drops the great German philosopher's ideas here and there throughout this essay. This is definitely good beach reading.

A Neccessary Conversation.......2000-02-03

Derrida and Vattimo's collection of essays given on the Isle of Capri truly shows how even postmodern philosophy must still come front-and-center with the question of religion. As postmodernity brings an end to the metaphysics that made God undesirable, a different type of God, a God of Life (as Unamuno would call it) must be dealt with anew. Derrida, Vattimo, Gadamar, Vitiello, Trias and others discuss the role of religion in an age that claims to be so removed from it.

My personal impression of the book is that Derrida reveals the type of religious issues that he offered us in his _Circumfessions_ and is wonderfully explicated in John Caputo's _Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida_. Vitiello's essay "Toward a Topology of the Religious" is insightful and necessary (if only Nietzsche could have read it!).

arrogant cowardice.......2000-01-24

This is a very saddening book in which these authors, who have helped to move our thinking away from some of the remnants of religion over which we continue to trip, express their (perhaps elderly, not to say senile) longing for old-time religion itself. Not only that, but they suggest, as opponents of postmodernism or pragmatism do, that outgrowing the tiresome remnants of religion found in the arrogant self-descriptions of scientists or ethicists actually allows (or is it causes?) "the return of religion" - an event which they claim to be witnessing although they offer little argument for its existence or desirability. They seem (and, of course, each takes a slightly different tack) to be arguing ad populum instead of admitting their desire for religion. They explain that people are scared by nuclear proliferation and environmental destruction and are turning to religion, but do not address whether such false comfort should be joined in. Rather, they simply join in it - without, however, ever quite saying so. Not one of them writes "I believe in God," but each asserts by every word he writes "God is worth writing about."

not nothing.......1999-02-14

Derrida misses out on the spiritual dimension in this book--although other authors have pointed out similarities between Derrida's thought and that of Nagarjuna. Especially helpful are Powell's "Derrida for Beginners," and Coward's Derrida and Negative Theology."

SUPERB.......1998-10-03

RELIGION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS. DERRIDA FALLS SHORT OF EXPLAINING THE NEED FOR RELIGION AND TRANSCENDENCE, BUT AS USUALLY HE IS FASCINATING AND DIFFICULT.

Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible

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Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible
Ronald Hendel
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

History of Religion | Judaism | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0195177967

Book Description

According to an old tradition preserved in the Palestinian Targums, the Hebrew Bible is "the Book of Memories." The sacred past recalled in the Bible serves as a model and wellspring for the present. The remembered past, says Ronald Hendel, is the material with which biblical Israel constructed its identity as a people, a religion, and a culture. It is a mixture of history, collective memory, folklore, and literary brilliance, and is often colored by political and religious interests. In Israel's formative years, these memories circulated orally in the context of family and tribe. Over time they came to be crystallized in various written texts. The Hebrew Bible is a vast compendium of writings, spanning a thousand-year period from roughly the twelfth to the second century BCE, and representing perhaps a small slice of the writings of that period. The texts are often overwritten by later texts, creating a complex pastiche of text, reinterpretation, and commentary. The religion and culture of ancient Israel are expressed by these texts, and in no small part also created by them, as they formulate new or altered conceptions of the sacred past. Remembering Abraham explores the interplay of culture, history, and memory in the Hebrew Bible. Hendel examines the Hebrew Bible's portrayal of Israel and its history, and correlates the biblical past with our own sense of the past. He addresses the ways that culture, memory, and history interweave in the self-fashioning of Israel's identity, and in the biblical portrayals of the patriarchs, the Exodus, and King Solomon. A concluding chapter explores the broad horizons of the biblical sense of the past. This accessibly written book represents the mature thought of one of our leading scholars of the Hebrew Bible.

Remembering the Future, Imagining the Past: Story, Ritual, and the Human Brain

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Story in Ritual, Pastoral Care, and the Brain

Remembering the Future, Imagining the Past: Story, Ritual, and the Human Brain
David A. Hogue
Manufacturer: Pilgrim Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0829814892

Customer Reviews:

Story in Ritual, Pastoral Care, and the Brain.......2004-06-17

David Hogue sets out an ambitious goal for Remembering the Future, Imagining the Past. He strives to integrate neuroscience, ritual studies, and pastoral theology in a 200-page text.

The first half of the text outlines the roles of imagination, memory, and story in the human brain and human living. The second half of the text then expands upon these concepts and applies them to ritual leadership, pastoral counseling, and spiritual disciplines.

I found Hogue to be moderately successful in his goal. In particular, the scientific material on the brain was not always well integrated into the text as a whole. It was as if Hogue had two starting points, ministry and neuroscience. While he tried to make the two meet in the middle, Hogue didn't quite make it.

The connections between ritual and pastoral care were much stronger (Hogue's own area of expertise is pastoral theology). This work, alone, makes the book worth reading.

Overall, I did find many sections of the book to be enlightening. Hogue helped spark some new directions for my own thinking. It just wasn't the well-integrated whole I had hoped for. If you are interested in narrative theology, liturgy, or pastoral care, this is a book worth reading.

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