Duncan Howlett

This book is the french translation of the original american text The Essenes and Christianity and, as the title clearly points out, it deals with th similarities and differences between the jewish sect of the Essens and the early Christians (another jewish sect at that time, really). However, it is not a mere comparative study: it has a number of very interesting chapters on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the history of Ancient Israel, and the history of the Qoumram community (as long as one can reconstitute it from the surviving evidence). Of course this book was written half a century ago, and possibly a fair number of details have been changed by the additional scholarship in the intervening years. Nevertheless, it still constitutes a very interesting reading about this somewhat obscure epoch.… (más)

"[The author} Duncan Howlett is Minister Emeritus of All Souls Church in Washington, D. C., and has written several books. . .He was active in the civil rights movement, and was the first chairman to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. [This book is about] a comparatively unknown minister who labored for social justice and rehabilitation in Boston's Roxbury community, James Reeb went to Selma, Alabama in 1965 to make a peaceful stand for civil rights. His brutal death at the hands of unknown assailants catapulted his name into headlines around the world and focused a nation's eyes on the growing civil rights movement. With all the shine and all the blemishes, Duncan Howlett retells that spiritual odyssey that lead James Reeb to Selma. . .Howlett's careful, undramatized precision does not try to enhance Reeb's character or to cast him in a heroic mold, but tells of a man who lived and loved and tried to make the world a better place." Source: The book's back cover.… (más)