The readings of JDHomrighausen, aka "the reader formerly known as lilbrattyteen," part 2.

September 2013:

103. Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America by Gustav Niebuhr
104. The Early Middle Ages, 284-1000 (Open Yale Courses) by Paul H. Freedman
105. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
106. Dharma Punx by Noah Levine
107. Beowulf, trans. Benedict Flynn
108. Mortality by Christopher Hitchens
109. All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
110. The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness by Martha Stout
111. A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including their own Narratives of Emancipation by David W. Blight
112. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
113. Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious by Chris Stedman
114. A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation by Diana L. Eck
115. Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Line by Jason Rosenhouse
116. The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis
117. The Buddhist Visnu: Religious Transformation, Politics, and Culture by John C. Holt
118. Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter
119. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
120. Sandman: The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman

October 2013
121. Hardships and Downfall of Buddhism in India by Giovanni Verardi
122. The Silk Roads: A Brief History with Documents by Xinru Liu
123. The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia: A New Beginning for the Middle East by John Curtis
124. The Ancient Orient: An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East by Wolfram Von Soden
125. Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China by Christine Mollier
126. Dialogue of Life: A Christian Among Allah's Poor by Bob McCahill
127. Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion (The Great Courses) by Bill Messenger
128. Vain Debates: The Buddhist-Christian Controversies of Nineteenth-Century Ceylon by Richard Fox Young

November 2013
129. Conference of the Birds by Farid al-Din Attar
130. The Place of Tolerance in Islam, ed. by Khaled Abou El Fadl
131. Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World's Religions Can Come Together by Dalai Lama
132. The First Buddhist Women by Susan Murcott
133. Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman
134. I, Claudius: A Full-Cast BBC Radio Drama by Robert Graves
134. An Apology for Apologetics: A Study in the Logic of Interreligious Dialogue by Paul J. Griffiths
135. Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells
136. Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong by Norman Fischer
137. The Earliest English Poems, ed. by Michael Alexander
138. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
139. As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg
140. Hypatia of Alexandria by Maria Dzielska
141. The Shiites by David Pinault
142. Beowulf and Other English Poems, trans. and ed. by Constance Hieatt
143. The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha by Ravi Zacharias
144. Harlots of the Desert: A Study of Repentance in Early Monastic Sources by Benedicta Ward

December 2013
145. The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity by Teresa M. Shaw
146. Blood Brotherhood by Robert Barnard
147. Buddhism and Christianity in Japan: From Conflict to Dialogue, 1854-1899 by Notto R. Thelle
148. From Buddha to Jesus: An Insider's View of Buddhism and Christianity by Steve Cioccolanti
149. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature by Liz Wilson
150. Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor
151. Bestsellers: A Very Short Introduction by John Sutherland
152. The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
153. Understanding Religious Conversion by Lewis R. Rambo
154. The Grace of Silence: A Family Memoir by Michele Norris
155. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
156. Jerome (The Early Church Fathers) by Stefan Rebenich
157. Guadalupe: Mother of the New Creation by Virgilio P. Elizondo

Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Line by Jason Rosenhouse

Rosenhouse, a math professor, did his postdoc in Kansas. While there he worked with the state department of education developing science and math curriculum. This was during a time when creationists were lobbying the state to teach their "science" in the classroom. So Rosenhouse went to one of their conferences. He was hooked. This book is the record of Rosenhouse's experiences at various creationist and intelligent design conferences and the Kentucky creationist museum. Interspersed throughout the book are his refutations of creationism and ID and his explanation of his own secular atheist beliefs.

I admire the way he respectfully debates with creationists. Most people find their ignorance of science irritating. Rosenhouse reports that he enjoys debating with them because in them he sees a passion for the big scientific questions that he shares. He finds a broad spectrum of creationists, from Bible-thumpers to ones with scientific backgrounds who are at least attempting to find viable scientific models for the flood, for the days of creation, etc. What Rosenhouse sees as their concern is not evolution per se, but the perceived dehumanizing effects of evolution. What special and sacred place do humans occupy in a world where we are not starkly separated from primates? I admire the way in which we tries to dig deeper into their worldview and sympathetically understand their concerns.

What else should we know about the creationists? For one, they are expert scienticians.** They are good at throwing around scientific terms, although they often misuse them. Rosenhouse catches this especially when he hears a talk involving information theory, which is one of the foundations of intelligent design. As a mathematician he is not afraid to stand up at Q&A and point out the blatant misuse of terms and bad chain of logic that a speaker has employed. Ironically fellow conference participants - most of whom have no scientific background - often tell him he needs to learn more about science!

Another interesting feature of this subculture is their common belief in a doctrine called the "perspicuity of scripture." If God wrote the Bible to speak to everyone, they say, then anyone who is literate should be able to comprehend scripture. If Genesis says "day," then by gum, it means day! This mindset is rather foreign to me, fascinated as I am by historical and literary approaches to the Bible. They seem to forget that a literate layman's ability to read the Bible presupposes a Biblical expert's need to translate it, which always involves some amount of interpretation. But this kind of dissecting of the broader background of the creationist worldview makes this book a great window into creationist thought.

And liberal Christians don't come off any easier in Rosenhouse's estimate. He reviews various liberal theologians' approaches to Genesis and finds most of them lacking. The main hermeneutic he seems amenable to is just admitting that the Bible is written by humans who bring their culture into the way they understand God, and rather than being God's word word-for-word the Bible is a human document that provides glimpses into God. I have thought this for some time but Rosenhouse's subjects do not.

One of my favorite chapters was his description of his identity as a cultural Jew. I have long admired Jewish culture for their focus on education and debate. Rosenhouse wants the culture without the metaphysics - one might call him a religious non-realist. There are days I feel the same way. But like Rosenhouse, one wonders if cultural religion will last. If every Jew went this route, would there still be synagogues? Are the creationists right in believing that once you start to let go of literalism and fundamentalism, secularist atheism isn't far off?

A dinosaur at the Creationist Museum in Kentucky. Creationists believe not only that we co-existed with them, but that we domesticated them too.

Great review of Among the Creationists. I've lived and worked all my life among evangelicals who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible and that the earth is only 6000 or some odd years old, but I've never heard anyone say that the dinosaurs were domesticated! The explanations I've heard for the fossil record are: (1) those dinosaur bones are all just a hoax by atheist scientists, (2) Satan hid the bones in the earth to deceive people, (3) God himself hid the bones in the earth as a test of faith, and (4) there were dinosaurs in Eden but they missed the boat when the flood came.

Really great review of Among the Creationists. I hope to get a copy of that one day soon.

Steven - You might like this T-shirt:



(more of this sort at: http://controversy.wearscience.com/)

I should mention that I read this book for the Science, Religion, and History group read.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/155626

Steven, I find the "fossils are there just for God to deceive us" argument the hardest of all to refute, because it neatly dodges all evidential requirements and rebuttals. However I think if one ponders its theological consequences, it gets pretty uncomfortable. Because then you only have the question of why a loving God who wants us to know his Truth would willingly plant deceptive lies for us - the problem of evil. If God wanted to guide us to Biblical truth, why put anything in creation to make us doubt it?

of course, the people who hold this worldview are often Calvinists who believe this realm is a shithole and all we can do is get out fast. Not a sacramental Catholic worldview. To me it's a neo-Gnosticism.

...why a loving God who wants us to know his Truth would willingly plant deceptive lies for us - the problem of evil.

Yes, the "trickster God" idea is a minor issue compared with the idea that a loving God would create evil and misery, then punish his creations for being as he created them to be.

(Joyce, I enjoyed the link!)

Great review of Among the Creationists. Not sure what really gets my attention in #2 - the saddled dinosuar or the fact that there is such a thing as a Creationist Museum!

(2) Satan hid the bones in the earth to deceive people, (3) God himself hid the bones in the earth as a test of faith,
What? Like some kind of divine Easter egg hunt? Is that how the tradition started? I have this vision in my mind of Satan and/or God roaming around the planet looking for good hiding places .... LOL!

I've heard that one, too. There's something wrong if you prefer the answer to be that God is lying to you.

i've heard of that museum, and I think there's a theme park somewhere too. It boggles the mind.

I am not religious, but I always assumed that if God did create us, He created with minds and curiosity so we could do science and figure things out. I've never understood how religious people could think God created us with these abilities but didn't want us to use them.

Yay! I am now officially caught up on reading everyone's posts! Your thread is so much fun. What great conversations!

Thanks Merrikay! I have two reviews coming up tomorrow!

The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis

I was born the year after the Berlin Wall fell. So the Cold War for me is a distant memory. Gaddis' book filled me in on the nuances of this expensive and pointless arms competition. For one, I learned that the Cold War started sooner than I thought - its seeds were being sown even before WWII ended. It also ended later than I thought. In some ways it might not be over. The Cold War inaugurated an age where America was never formally "at war" but only "involved in military action" protect its interests abroad. Apart from 9/11, nobody has attacked America on its soil since Pearl Harbor. And 9/11, tragic as it was, was not a foreign country declaring war.

This was overall a depressing book. It chronicles the mad delusions of Mao and Stalin, both of whom killed scores of people for their whims. Not to mention the stalemate reached by two nations that both knew the other could blow up the world, both pretending they were about to any moment but both actually not wanting to do so.

Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter

Like the Cold War, Jimmy Carter was before my time. So I enjoyed this chance to read about an influential past president. Carter laments the divisiveness of modern politics, which he sees as much worse than when he was in office. But he also ruminates on religion and describes his anger at the rise of fundamentalism and its hijacking of the Baptist tradition he loves. His worst ire is reserved for the war on terror and the rising military spending that we could be putting into the environment and education. It's hard to disagree with any of what he says, including his highly unflattering picture of the Bush administration and its crimes against human rights. A short book worth reading.

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

I have not experienced a religious conversion in a while. But Michael Pollan, professor of journalism at UC Berkeley and food politics writer, is making me. Pollan's book does two things. First, it is a massive critique of nutrition science and the ideology of "nutritionism." Second, it is a guideline to how to eat sanely and healthily.

Pollan describes the ideology of "nutritionism." Nutritionism holds that food can be broken down to its nutrient components, and that we need experts to tell us what these nutrients are and what we should eat. It is prone to fads, demonizing certain food groups (polyunsaturated fats) over others (trans fats). But like all fads, these come and go, and certain foods and food groups are bad and then good and then bad for you. Nutritionism, with its focus on nutrients - and particular ones - over taste, supports a vast processed food industry, with more scientists creating microwave dinners and other strange foods. There is money to be made in processed food inventions, much more than in selling food that is close to nature's design. There is also lobbying, as Pollan shows in his description of the food pyramid, which originally was going to recommend avoiding meat until cattle lobbyists protested.

Yet for all the crazes about carbs and calories, for all the fad diets that claim to have found the one magical nutrient to either avoid or live on, nutritionist thinking has made us no less healthy. In fact, Pollan traces the rise of the "Western complex" of diseases - obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, to name a few - to the advent of processed foods and nutritionist ideology. He brings up several cases where an indigenous group with none of these diseases living on traditional foods begins to develop them as soon as they move to the big Western city. He describes the mad cycles of the processes food lobby: we take nutrients out of food so it will last longer, then we eat the food and do not feel full because our body still lacks nutrients, so we keep overeating (Americans love portion sizes) to get nutrients.

So Pollan says: avoid the processed food with grand health claims. Instead follow mom, the traditional keeper of a culture's food pathways. Diet is more than nutrients: it is how those nutrients fit together and how their eater lives and works. He brings up cases of foods affecting one another when eaten together, such as wine's effect on the rest of dinner. He cites many scientific studies that go against the nutritionist bias, all the while cautioning the reader to be careful of nutrition science, one of the most fuzzy sciences around.

For Pollan, less is more.
That is his sane diet advice: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."
Eat food, not nutrients. Do not eat anything your grandma (for someone my age, my great-grandma) would not recognize as food. Eat local and organic.
Follow a Japanese maxim and eat until you are 80% full. Americans, he points out, tend to be unaware of their stomach's signal to stop eating. We stop eating when the plate is empty. Considering how much restaurants serve on our plates, that is dangerous.
Eat fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Stay away from meat, and don't eat too much dairy.
It's that simple.

Yes, he points out, it's more expensive. But for the amount you pay for each serving, you need fewer servings, because local and organic food is more nutritious. And you will save in medical bills down the road. Not to mention that his food suggestions also happen to be the most ecologically sustainable diet.

I was enthralled by Pollan's eating advice, in part because I have been gravitating in that direction for a while now. I went "flexatarian," most vegetarian but eating meat once in a while, some months ago. (I can't even touch red meat anymore. It's just disgusting and upsets my stomach.) I now get all my fruit and veggies from the farmer's market.

Sorry for rambling, I just love this book so much!

I ran across Jimmy Carter's name yesterday in an article about the failure of white churches in the South to support civil rights. He, along with two other names (a shockingly short list), were mentioned as notable exceptions in which their faith led them to support the civil rights movement.

I have not experienced a religious conversion in a while. But Michael Pollan, professor of journalism at UC Berkeley and food politics writer, is making me.

That's how I felt when I read my first Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, which turned me into a locavore, when I can--it's often not possible). I see here with In Defense of Food that he's not repeating himself but covering new ground, so on to the wish list it goes! Thanks for the excellent review.

I'm happy to say that I was eating a bowl of homemade oatmeal with blackberries when I opened this thread.

>13 JDHomrighausen: I was in college when the Berlin Wall came down. It was a pretty exciting time. I've always liked Jimmy Carter; he always struck me as a true humanitarian. And humble.

>14 JDHomrighausen: Boy, oh boy, did that book get my attention. I agree wholeheartedly. When I was doing the practicum for my medical coding class I learned the unholy trinity of very ill patients: obesity, diabetes, and depression. The first two are obviously diet related but even depression can be related to diet. Hypoglycemia can mimic depression (something I learned from experience).

Great and interesting reviews - as always!

I lived through most of the Cold War and still remember Sputnik, the civil defense drills in school, and the rush to build bomb shelters during the Cuban missile crisis. By the mid 70s, however, most of the world's attention was focused on the Middle East, the anti-Soviet rhetoric was toned down, and Russia and China weren't seen as much of a direct threat.

Jimmy Carter may not have been a great president, but I believe he is the finest man to have been president in my lifetime. Not long after he left Washington I drove with my family through Plains on vacation. He was outside cutting the grass in his mother's front yard while the Secret Service men lounged in the shade, and was nice enough to greet my son and pose for a picture.

Jimmy Carter may not have been a great president, but I believe he is the finest man to have been president in my lifetime.

He does seem like a very fine individual, and one who has a lot of class.

Steven that is a great story!

14, 16, etc. I felt the same way when I read The Omnivore's Dilemma, which finally made me avoid almost all beef. Haven't read any other Pollan though, as I was afraid he's made sort-of a business out of this, so glad, like Joyce, to see that this one is different.

18 I too lived through a lot of the Cold War, and I agree with you on both counts about Jimmy Carter, although I can's say I agree with him about everything.

Steven, that is a great Carter story. Mowing his mom's lawn - he really IS that good ol' Southern boy image!

Thanks for all the other commentary. School started this week so I will be on LT less, but I will do my best to look at your threads. :)

Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of "Pink Floyd" by Mark Blake

Though I had listened to Dark Side of the Moon Before, I first really heard Pink Floyd when a friend loaned me a DVD of Roger Waters' performance of The Wall at Berlin in 1989. I was entranced. This was some of the best music I had ever heard.


Roger Waters, the band member who pretty much wrote The Wall, writing on the wall separating Israel and Palestine. Because he can.

But I never knew the backstory until now. Blake has captured the entire history of the wall, from the five members' boyhoods in Cambridge to the 2005 Live 8 reunion and Waters' tour of the Wall that just ended days ago. This book really helped me put into perspective the various stages of the band's career and which albums were their best.

The band's first frontman was Syd Barrett. Syd, who left art school when the band started getting big, was charismatic and a tad crazy. The latter became more prominent as the band toured. Eventually he lost it. He would stand up on stage during concerts, holding his guitar but doing nothing. He tried teaching the band a song called "Have You Got It Yet?", and every time they played it he would tell them they did it wrong and reteach them. But every time he retaught them he changed the song. Eventually they were going to a gig and just decided to not pick him up. Legend has it he dropped so much acid he lost his mind, but Blake points out that perhaps he was not suited to the pressures of touring and being the lead popular guy in the band. The band would spend years trying to crawl out beneath the shadow of Syd.

Side note: I find there are two types of Floyd fans. Some think Syd's work was the best (Piper at the Gates of Dawn) but I'm more a fan of the later Waters-era work. The early psychedelic rock is just too rough for my tastes.

Roger Waters gradually became the band's next lead man. (At least as much as Floyd ever had one. When the band split up, part of their problem was that many people didn't know who the individual members were. Floyd was more about music than sex symbol or personality.) Waters was grandiose, his music angry and rebellious (see Animals). He had an imposing personality and was very difficult to work with. This proved important later on.

Their first album to really hit it big was Dark Side of the Moon. The album had everything: caterwauling, sound effects, funky guitar solos. They wrote cards with questions and life, death, and sanity, and recorded studio technicians and janitors giving their reflections. These reflections made their way into the album: "And I am not afraid of dying. Anytime will do."

Wish You Were Here, another great album, was their message to Barrett. Barrett came into the studio during recording. The band assumed he was a techie of some kind. Within several years he had gone obese and bald, and looked so listless that even his band members and childhood friends did not recognize him. Surely he realized that songs like "Wish You Were Here" and "Shine on your Crazy Diamond" were directed to him. Other songs were directed to the music industry and its greed.

You reached for the secret too soon,
You cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night,
And exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.


From the album cover of Wish You Were Here.

My favorite of all was The Wall. This two-disc concept album follows the life of a self-destructive rock star named Pink. Much of his childhood trauma was Waters' childhood trauma, including losing his father in World War II. Part of the album was recorded with children from a nearby school, who all got a free copy of the album. Surely you have heard their lyrics:

We don't need no educationÂ
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
(This used to be my mom's ringtone, and it would ring while she was teaching. LOL!)

Some of these kids later took the band to court for royalties on their singing. I can't imagine anything more asinine. I would pay just for the excitement of being on this album.


The Wall movie poster.

The Wall was the end of the band's cohesion. Pianist Richard Wright, long the most subdued member of the band and bullied by Waters, left. He toured with Floyd but only as a hired side player. He later recounts this as a traumatic period in his life, marked by his painful divorce. While Waters accused him for not writing music and doing his part in the band, it's just as likely Wright felt too intimidated to contribute much. Wright died in 2011, the only member of the band who has passed.

A couple albums later, Waters left too. The band was down to David Gilmour, the guitarist, and Nick Mason, the drummer. Waters, who had referred to the other band members as "the muffins," found that he was not as much of a prodigy as he supposed. While he had a great mind for philosophical and political lyrics, he was not as good at instrumentation as Gilmour. And despite being the band's lead, he could not sing, as he found on tour. (Gilmour was the lead singer.) His solo albums flopped while Floyd's albums, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell, topped the charts. Ironically named, The Division Bell was the last album of a divided band.


Division Bell album cover. Floyd was known for putting concept art on their covers rather than a photo of the band.

Just a few days ago, Waters concluded his two-year tour of The Wall in Paris. At 70, it's doubtful he will try to perform this elaborate show again. (The Wall marked the high period of the band's habit of massive stage props, including giant inflatable pigs and building a wall between the band and the audience.) Sadly I missed him in San Francisco in May 2012 - it was $200 and I didn't realize what I was missing. So I saw the House of Floyd cover band instead. I think I will go see them again, as they are based in CA. Anyway, what an amazing book. Blake makes me want to look up some of their more obscure albums.

(This used to be my mom's ringtone, and it would ring while she was teaching. LOL!)
Hahahaha!!! Love it!

The older I get the more I like Pink Floyd. Great review. I learned a lot from it. Thanks for that! :)

Yes, that was funny!

I also really enjoyed your review. Not sure I need to read the book now!

The book had so much detail. It's definitely worth reading. Or, if you want eye candy, check out Mind Over Matter 4: The Images of Pink Floyd by Storm Thorgerson. Thorgersen designed most of their album covers, including the famous Dark Side of the Moon cover. He also did many of their tour programs. Sadly he died this year.

Thanks for the Pink Floyd book review. I'll have to get a copy for my brother.

You make me want to listen to Pink Floyd again, after all these years!

Excellent review of Pigs Might Fly: The inside story of Pink Floyd which sounds fairly comprehensive. I am one of those who still prefers the Syd Barrett era, especially as it was a time of my growing up in London. I felt that the band became too overproduced and lost some of their creative spark, but they still managed to come up with some good tunes. I never saw the Syd Barrett Pink Floyd live.

Ooh, that sounds really interesting, at least for someone like me who spent way too much time listening to Floyd in college.

I have a copy of Pink Floyd: The Illustrated Biography on my TBR Pile. I'm wondering now if that's as worthwhile as Pigs Might Fly.

> 30

Who is the author?

Another book with many fascinating visual is artistic director Gerald Scarfe's book on the making of The Wall movie.

>31 JDHomrighausen:: Hmm, I wonder why the touchstone didn't work on that one? The author is Gareth Thomas. Who I've never heard of -- assuming he's not the same Gareth Thomas who starred on Blake's 7, which I rather doubt.

The wonderful Blake's 7.

>33 baswood:: That show was a classic!

I do in fact still exist. :) Week two of school just finished and things are nutty. One thing I don't like about school is that I am in the middle of many books at one time, so it is harder to write good reviews with so many books floating around in my head. On top of that some professors like assigning only 2/3-3/4 of a book. Being a completist, I have to finish the tome before I can review it.

That said, I have managed to finish two books in the last week. :) Reviews forthcoming.

I should mention my class schedule:
Islam
Gender in Early Christianity
Early Medieval Literature
Advanced Hebrew Reading (so far Jeremiah and Isaiah)
Buddhism and Religious Diversity
And I'm peer educator for a course in Foundations of Catholic Theology.

So far Islam and Early Medieval Literature are the most fascinating. My Early Medieval Lit professor is a totally brilliant hippie neo-pagan who reminds me a bit of Joni Mitchell. My Islam professor is an Indiana Jones type who has travelled all over the world and put his life in danger a few times for his research.

The Buddhism course is an independent study and it is actually far more reading than the others (200-250 pgs/week). It's a course looking at case studies in Buddhism's history. We've just finished three books on the history of Buddhist-Hindu interactions. This week are doing Buddhist-Muslim relations and looking at the book I read earlier, Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road.

I took the theology course in the winter and had a terrible professor so this is a way for me to learn the stuff right. We are reading Pope Benedict XVI's dense Introduction to Christianity.

Hope all is well in y'all's worlds. :)

Here is a gratuitous photo of my wide-eyed cat.

Wow! That's quite a class schedule. I'm impressed that you had time to stop by LT at all, and of course look forward to learning more about your reading when you have the time. It makes me feel like I'm vicariously going to school with a miniscule fraction of the effort you're putting in.

holy moly see you in a couple of months!

I like your cat.

Remember to breathe, Jonathan! That's quite a schedule. Sounds like you have some professors you already really like; always makes school so much more fun.

Thanks everyone. I am still committed to reviewing and reading. So never fear, I am here. :)

Interested to find out what your reading list is for the Early Medieval Literature and a real bonus being taught by Joni Mitchell.

The Silk Roads: A Brief History with Documents by Xinru Liu

After reading Elverskog's book on Buddhism and Islam in Central Asia, I realized I needed more background on the Silk Road. Liu's book combines a short (~30 pages) history of this thousand year trade route with another 140 pages of primary sources: inscriptions, letters, artwork, travel logs, Buddhist doctrinal texts, records of trade transactions, etc. More than the trade, I am fascinated by the religious and cultural exchange. For example, the Silk Road enabled Buddhism to spread from India to China. Buddhist monasteries, far from being centers of ascetics, served as banks and resting-places for merchants. Think of it like a Motel 6: you feel safe stopping there because they are generally well-kept. In return the wealthy merchants donated to monasteries. But Buddhism wasn't the only religion that facilitated trade. As Elverskog notes, Islam's cosmopolitan, universalist (rather than tribal) mindset allowed people from different groups to interact, including trade.

Overall, a good book, for both undergrad courses and the general reader. Some of the translations were old and odd - one of the readings translates the Buddhist "sangha" as "Church." But using public domain translations keeps the cost down. Some of the Chinese sources had never been translated, and Liu provides her own.

The primary sources in this book must be fascinating. Fortunately for you, it sounds as though you have the language skills to know when translations are wonky. It would be lovely if you posted your review on the book page, as there are no other reviews of it.

Hope you don't miss NielsenGW's review of Ecology and Religion by John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker. Wrong touchstone.

Thanks you everyone!

Baswood, the reading list:
Beowulf: a Dual-Language Edition by Howell Chickering, Jr.
Beowulf and Other Old English Poems ed. by Constance Hieatt
The Earliest English Poems ed. by Michael Alexander
The Saga of the Volsungs ed. by Jesse Byock

My prof is NOT a fan of Seamus Heaney's "translation" of the Beowulf. I put "translation" in scare quotes because it's not a translation. Heaney could not read Old English and cobbled together his translations from those who could. (I suspect Stephen Mitchell does the same. So Heaney's translation is not always very accurate, and in my professor's opinion renders the epic too colloquial when it fact it is high diction.

Hardships and Downfall of Buddhism in India by Giovanni Verardi

Another book for my Buddhism and Religious Diversity class. Verardi's book covers the history of Buddhism in India. Contrary to popular belief, he writes, Buddhism was not driven out of India by Muslim invaders. He argues that Hindu persecution had done most of the job long before the Muslims came. The Muslims were just the tail end of the process that made Buddhism virtually disappear from the land of its birth by the fifteenth century.

But how did we get there? Verardi traces the roots of the conflict back to the very beginnings of Buddhism. Like Elverskog, he writes that Buddhism was a merchant religion. Its belief in human equality made it possible to form a "Buddhist oecumene" in which different people could trade in goods and ideas. Because Buddhism rejected the caste system, social status in the oecumene was based much more on talent and business acumen. Contrast this to the rigid, closed caste system of the Hindu ideal for society.

The Buddhist oecumene reached its peak under great Buddhist rulers such as Asoka (304-232 BCE), the "Buddhist Constantine." Asoka was the first king to choose Buddhism as his religion, and his patronage of monasteries helped its growth. Though he banned Vedic animal sacrifice at the court, he allowed religious freedom for Hindus and Jains. Still, the backlash was inevitable. Hindus and Buddhists engaged in centuries of competition, often vying for the favor of a ruler to be their patron and protector. One form of this competition was debates between religious scholars over whose religion was better. The loser of these debates not only lost patronage, but faced harsher punishments, such as being thrown in a vat of boiling oil. Another tradition holds that the loser of the debate would have to join the winner's religion - I would prefer that one, perhaps for the American two-party system.


A transcription of one of Asoka's edicts. We still have inscriptions of his laws, which is how we know about his reign most directly.

However, as Hindus gained more and more ground, Buddhists found new ways to react. The development of Tantra, with its violent rhetoric and disregard for social convention, came out of this time of unrest. Many Tantric texts speak in the apocalyptic language of a persecuted community, much like the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. This violent language is still in Tantric texts in Tibet (Tibet's Vajrayana Buddhism is the biggest living Tantric tradition). But now it is interpreted symbolically. So if you read a phrase such as "pierce ignorance and delusion with the sword of awakening," most Tibetan lamas would say it is symbolic. But perhaps it was not so in the Indian Tantric communities who came up with the line.

As the persecutions wore on, Buddhists either left India or converted. So the center of the Buddhist oecumene shifted east, to the "Tantric bloc" of Tibet and China. It would take British colonizers a few centuries later to begin uncovering the history of Buddhism in India. It's a fascinating story.

Interesting to read your summary of Hardships and Downfall of Buddhism in India. I didn't realise there was such a conflict between the Hindu's and the Buddhists.

Another interesting and informative review. I was curious why Buddhism has almost completely disappeared from India while several other religions manage to coexist.

...Buddhism was a merchant religion.

I wouldn't have thought this, since the image most of us have of Buddhism is monks in monasteries, but it makes sense. It also makes me wonder if the same sort of distinction might be made between Protestantism and Catholicism, as the former seems to have caught on quickest in mercantile cities like Amsterdam, London and the Hansa League.

I would prefer that one, perhaps for the American two-party system.

Which one, the mandatory conversion or the boiling in oil? ;-)

That picture looks like my left-handed granddaughter's handwriting.

The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia: A New Beginning for the Middle East by John Curtis

I went to the Asian Art Museum to see the Cyrus Cylinder in its last week in San Francisco. What a fascinating site! I splurged on the book for the exhibit at the gift shop. I'm glad I did. It has beautiful photos of all the artifacts in the exhibit and really lays out the meaning and significance of everything.

The Cyrus Cylinder is a royal decree found in Babylon, written shortly after Cyrus' capture of it in 539 BCE. Cyrus, emperor of Persia, is most known for being the man who allowed for and even supported the rebuilding of Israel's temple. This cylinder gives biblical scholars and historians confirmation of Cyrus' tolerant and cosmopolitan attitude. Unlike the Assyrians and the Babylonians, he did not move Israelites in a diaspora. He realized that an empire was strongest when people were less pissed off and ready to rebel.



The Cyrus cylinder is written in Babylonian cuneiform, which you may remember from my review of John Kaltner's book Beyond Babel. I'm still not a big fan of cuneiform - looks like chicken scratch when compared to the beautiful Egyptian hieroglyphs and Hebrew/Aramaic alphabet of the ancient Near East. But that's just a matter of taste.

The exhibit had some other fascinating artifacts: some jewelry, fancy plates, royal seals, coins, plaques depicting priests. I found the animal iconography most interesting. Curtis describes the rams' heads that would decorate the tops of columns in royal buildings. Other works would have lions or deer, often as prey in a royal hunting expedition. It made me want to learn more about the symbolism of ancient Persian art.

I think the exhibit is the still in the U.S. If you get a chance, see it.

> 47

Those monks got rich off the Silk Road. Buddhism's tradition lay-monastic division, in which the lay people accumulate karma by giving time and money to the monks, ensured that Buddhist monasteries were well-patronized by wealthy Silk Road merchants. Thankfully we still have some of the beautiful artwork that resulted from this wealth. :)

Your course load looks both daunting and like a lot of fun. Good luck! And your cat is gorgeous - he looks like an accomplished book sitter. Cats read with their hind ends, you know, and are very interested in stuff you really need to have read for the next morning.

That exhibit sounds great, and the book too.

I just got over a crazy week in school. :) But I shall survive! I'm still here!

The Ancient Orient: An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East by Wolfram von Soden

Von Soden's book is a textbook-style overview of the cultures of the ancient Near East: the Sumerians, Babylonians, Mesopotamians, Assyrians, and so forth. He deliberately ignores Israel for the most part since biblical scholars already study it so much. The book has chapters on everything from very basic aspects of culture such as agriculture and artisanry to scientific ideas, religion, and literature.

I finished the book on Monday, so a lot of the material was fuzzy, but I will say that this book added to my TBR list quite a bit. I was floored, however, by how many times he mentioned that nobody has written a book on some key aspect of medicine or political changes. Although ANE is a relatively old discipline, I get the impression that it is relatively small in academia, and he claims that many ANE scholars only focus on Israel. (This has some validity - many Hebrew Bible/Old Testament scholars are trained not in biblical studies but in ANE programs.)

As for the book, I really wish there were a companion volume with primary sources. He will discuss inscriptions, myths, poems, artwork, etc., but if I can't read it myself then the book is hard to understand. There was also a major dearth of maps, which was very frustrating in chapters on agriculture and the history of ANE empires. Personally, I wouldn't recommend this book to be read by itself, but only in conjunction with primary sources.

Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China by Christine Mollier

When Buddhism first went into China, there was no such thing as "Taoism." There was the Tao Te Ching, to be sure, and certain rituals associated with Taoist practice. But as an organized religion with a canon, an "ism" to belong to, Taoism developed largely in response to and in competition with Buddhism. It borrowed scriptures and organizational models from Buddhism as it was established by Indian missionaries. Meanwhile, Buddhism borrowed rituals from Taoism that appealed to peoples' need for ritual.

Mollier's book examines the ways in which rituals, scriptures, and deities were mutually plagiarized by Buddhism and Taoism in medieval China. Most of the rituals she studies are designed to bring long life and health, a central concern of Chinese folk religion. I'll give an example of the borrowing, in the case of the Buddhist "Sutra to Increase the Account" (of life) and the Taoist incantation it drew from:

Taoist version:
"May all the immortals grant me life,
The sacred scriptures sustain me,
The sun and the moon illuminate me,
The life of jade make me shine,
The Yin and Yang make me grow,
The four seasons nourish me,
The five fungi (of immortality) give me shade,
The five clouds shelter me,
The five Perfected protect me…."
(It continues but that's enough to get the picture.)

Buddhist plagiarism:
"May the buddhas grant me life,
The sutras sustain me,
The luminaries illuminate me,
The Yin and Yang make me grow,
The four seasons nourish me,
The five Heavens guide me,
The five clouds shelter me,
The bodhisattvas protect me…."

Of course, the Buddhists' explanation for this sutra is that the Buddha revealed it to a disciple, and perhaps it just didn't appear until centuries later. A likely story, but many of these copied texts were seen as suspect by Buddhist scholars who created lists of sutras and ranked them in terms of authenticity. Many that were written originally in China with no Sanskrit original from India were deemed apocryphal and invalid. But that didn't stop these apocrypha or the rituals they described from having influence for folk religion or ritual specialists!

To me the most fascinating chapter was that on the Taoist Jiuku Tianzun. He is a Taoist deity, described as a great savior who helps people in deep distress. Mollier shows that he was actually a copy of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, bodhisattva of compassion, who also helps people out of dire straits such as sickness or false accusation. Avalokiteshvara, known as Guanyin in Chinese, was portrayed as male in India but gradually in China became female. Given her ritual function, Guanyin was not surprisingly popular, so Taoists wanted to have something just as effective.

Mollier's book raises many questions. How did each group explain their copying? Buddhists might have said that it was skillful means, but how did Taoists explain their copy of Guanyin? We simply don't know - this kind of thing was not something publicly admitted, so the motives were left unrecorded. I also wish she had tackled the question of how Buddhists and Taoists in China make sense of their shared past in this book. Does it invalidate any of the teachings and rituals that were copied? Because of this lack of the big picture, and its assumption of much background knowledge of medieval Chinese religion, I would not recommend this book to the curious lay reader. But for the purpose of my course in Buddhism and religious diversity, it was a useful source.

Once again, more great and interesting reviews. The most I know about Eastern religion and the Near East is the stuff I am learning on your thread here! I'm gonna have to go think about the five fungi (of immortality) ....

I just got over a crazy week in school. :) But I shall survive! I'm still here!
haha! My week was not "crazy" but it was stressful ..... so glad it's over! I need to adopt your attitude. :)

That's quite interesting that there are major aspects of Ancient Near East history still unexplored, but it's not surprising that the focus has been on Israel.

In recent years I've read several Chinese classics such as Journey to the West (where Guanyin has a major role), and it struck me in each case how Buddhism and Taoism are intertwined, with characters worshiping at both shrines or interacting with deities from both faiths. It's a hard notion to get used to that a person can be both Taoist and Buddhist, when our Western religions traditionally insist on mutual exclusiveness.

Steven, it's even stranger for me that Nepalese people are often both Hindu and Buddhist. It's not like the founder of Buddhism rejected his Hindu background or anything.

Dialogue of Life: A Christian Among Allah's Poor by Bob McCahill

In any religious organization, there are the administrators, the people with education and stable work. Then there are the prophets, the St. Francis types who live on conviction alone. McCahill is one of those types. A Maryknoll priest, he has found his vocation in living amongst the poorest Bangladeshi Muslims. This book is a description of the interfaith life he leads, detailing his daily routine in vignettes and explanations of his mission.

I was touched by the stories of McCahill's life. What he does: he listens to peoples' griefs, which are legion in a country with such poverty and infant mortality. He carries sick people to the hospital. He helps pay for medical care for those he loves. And every three years he packs up his small bag of belongings and moves to another city with another dirt-floored shack for him to inhabit. In his ministry he seeks to be an apostle for altruism. He wants people to know that they are loved.

Often a Muslim will come up to McCahill and declare that they wish to be a Christian. He always turns them away. Rumor has it among some Bengali Muslims that missionaries give you a job, a bicycle, a car if you convert. He knows this. But even if the Muslim's intent was pure, he would not want them to convert. McCahill tells them that he wants his Muslim friends to be good Muslims. His style of mission is through dialogue and living amongst the Muslims.

I definitely appreciate the pure love which McCahill shows to the people he lives among. But there was a side to this book I did not like. As poor as McCahill chooses to be, he is still funded by his family. He is not starving, though he eats sparingly. If he needed an operation or cancer treatment he could get it. The poor Muslims he lives among do not. In my mind this is a basic tension of his lifestyle that he never discusses. In some places he really idealizes the poor, waxing about their patience and faith in God through suffering. But if he loves these people so much, why doesn't he do something to alleviate their poverty? Why not open a clinic to provide free medical care to children? Why not try opening a social business to provide employment and job skills for these poorest of the poor, to help give them a window out of their circumstances? Being a loving ear is good - God knows poverty is traumatic - but changing the fundamental structures of society is better.

So McCahill's book arouses as much admiration as suspicion from me. I would be curious to know how the Muslims surrounding him felt about his lifestyle and what he does.

Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion (The Great Courses) by Bill Messenger

An amazing lecture series. I especially enjoyed learning about ragtime. The only thing I would say is that these lectures got less structured as the course went on. Messenger illustrates all of his musical styles by playing on the piano and inviting guest speakers such as blues singer Ursula Ricks. Overall a good investment to start in on the complication and vast genre of jazz.

Fascinated by your Buddhist and Silk Road studies -- I just ordered the Silk Road book from Amazon. I think many Buddhists also practice other religions -- not only Taoism in China, but certainly Shintoism in Japan. Even Hinduism is not inherently an exclusive religion -- it's monotheistic, but allows thousands of ways and images for its followers to find the divine. But as you point out, its the caste system inherent in Hinduism that creates its exclusivity. It's the religions of the book -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam that are exclusive.

I don't know anything about McCahill other than your review -- but weren't some of those criticisms similar to the ones leveled at Mother Teresa?

Interesting book about McCahill. I guess I have the same "why not" questions that you do.

I especially enjoyed learning about ragtime.
Cool! I had to learn Scott Joplin's "Mapleleaf Rag" for my first (and only) piano recital. I struggled terribly with rhythm and timing so when my piano teacher handed me that piece of sheet music and told me that she had picked it out for me to play at the recital, I thought she was nuts. (She was.) It took a few months of constant practice to get it down. I still love that particular song and ragtime music in general. It's fun. :)

Hello? You must be buried in textbooks!

I am not dead. :) Just brooding until Thanksgiving break. :)

at which time all students and teachers have to decide whether to take a much needed break and relax, or try to get caught up!

Well, I'm trying to do both. I only have three papers to do during that time...

Nice to hear from you, and good luck with the papers!

I'm curious how the visit by Zealot author Reza Aslan was received by your professors. Any change on how you feel about the book?

Now THAT is a great question streamsong!

Hypatia of Alexandria by Maria Dzielska

A few weeks ago I got into a debate with some friends over how to teach history. One of them quipped that they would not take any class that only had readings from white men. I responded that they should probably not become a classics major. For example: how can one teach ancient philosophy without only covering men?

Hypatia was his counterexample. And now that my girlfriend is writing a paper on Hypatia for a class, I figure it’s time I read the book she’s using to find something out. Dzielska does a great job of elaborating Hypatia’s life and work in both the historical record and contemporary legends.

Hypatia herself lived from about 355-415, in Alexandria, a city renowned for its cosmopolitan culture and intellectual activity. The daughter of Theon, a renowned religious poet and mathematician, she established herself as a Neoplatonic teacher and cultivated a band of disciples. Almost all we know of her comes from the letters of Synesius, one of her disciples who converted to Christianity and became a bishop while under her tutelage.

Neoplatonic schools emphasized a close teacher-disciple relationship. The corollary to this was that the teacher would be highly charismatic and the teachings were kept secret. Thus we know little of the content of Hypatia’s teaching, though it included some Platonic teaching, Ptolemaic astronomy, and Pythagorean mathematics.

We do have a story of her charisma. At one point a disciple fell in love with her. She showed him one of her bloodied “sanitary napkins,” saying: “This is what you are in love with, not beauty.” He realized the error of his lust, his fixation on physical beauty, and deepened his search for the Platonic ideal Beauty. Still, one wonders how much her disciples sublimated their attraction for her into their Platonic quests for truth. Hypatia herself was celibate. Like powerful and spiritually advanced women in early Christianity, she was described as “manly.”

Hypatia’s teaching activity brought her much political influence in the city. Her religious affiliation was fluid: some of her disciples were Christian, and she took little interest in the pagan rites of the city. (Why focus on pagan rites when one can contemplate the form of Beauty?) However, it was Christianity that led to her downfall. Cyril, the young and impetuous new bishop of Alexandria, got into a bitter political rivalry with one of Hypatia’s supporters, Orestes. Cyril began a smear campaign of Hypatia, calling her a witch, and in response a mob murdered her.

Hypatia’s death has been the frequent subject of legends, of polemicists trying to smear Christianity or uphold paganism. Voltaire upheld her a martyr for freethought against the dogma of Catholicism. (As we have seen, Hypatia was not killed so much for being non-Christian as for being too influential for the jealous Cyril. Cyril's predecessor, Theophilus, instigated an anti-pagan campaign but had no problem with Hypatia.) Often her death is eroticized, as in Charles Kingsley’s 1853 novel elaborating on her young, virginal, Aphrodite-like body being displayed by the mob. (In reality, she was about 60 at her death, and would not have had a nubile, fresh figure by any means.) More recently, feminists have drawn upon Hypatia as an icon for female thinkers in the public sphere. A premier academic journal of feminist philosophy is named after her.

Dzielska's book is part of a very small body of research on Hypatia, but its brevity (108 pages) and background explanations make it valuable for a general reader as well. Recommended.

And some fiction:

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

What a thought-provoking, fun, fanciful novel. I really like Pi, who reminds me of myself in his endless spiritual questing. The end was completely unexpected.

I, Claudius: A Full-Cast BBC Radio Drama by Robert Graves

The lunacy of ancient Rome on full display.

Best line:
"Why, Caligula, you are the standard of human sanity in all the habitable world!" - Claudius

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman

As usual, Gaiman intrigues in this author-read audiobook. I want to read this in paper form now too.

Fascinating (and gross!) stuff on Hypatia.
Nice to see you back :)

There has been a recent film featuring Hypatia http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186830/?ref_=fn_al_ch_2a

Neil Gaiman is one of the few authors whose narrations I enjoy. I haven't read that one. Life of Pi was fanciful, and a good read.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving break.

Fascinating -- I never heard of Hypatia before!

Thanks for your response everyone!

And - happy Thanksgiving!

Been doing some library weeding this weekend. It's amazing how many books can pile up. I think I got rid of about 100.

Fellow readers, how do you limit your book piles and book spending?

Fellow readers, how do you limit your book piles and book spending?

I don't!

Happy Thanksgiving to you too.

Nor do I

Fellow readers, how do you limit your book piles and book spending?
Two words: library card! XD

Beowulf and Other English Poems, trans. and ed. by Constance Hieatt

My Early Medieval Lit class used this book. Hieatt has edited together her translations of Beowulf and such poems as "Wanderer," "Seafarer," and "The Dream of the Rood." First, the translations. Hieatt translates Beowulf into prose. I am somewhat in principle opposed to translating poetry into prose (there are prose translations of Homer too - yuck!) because it strikes me as an admission of defeat. There are many good translations of Beowulf into poetry - on my shelf are those of Michael Alexander, Howell Chickering, and Burton Raffel. While translating an epic poem into prose may make the plot easier to follow, I do not believe that it does much for the poem.

That said, I did appreciate her introduction. One point she makes about Beowulf is its lack of realism. Beowulf himself is unrealistically heroic and perfect. In class I made the question: does this make him more or less relatable, human than a flawed hero like King David? To me, one of the great virtues of Hebrew Bible narrative is that even great figures of their history are portrayed warts and all. The fact that Beowulf has no warts makes the poem feel unnuanced. My professor argued instead that we need perfect heroes. Why would we want to look up to mediocrity? Why should our standard be anything less than greatness in every area of life?

Hieatt writes that our need for realism in art is a very modern idea which we should not impose on the past. She writes, "art is possible beyond realism, embodying today our deepest subliminal urges and convictions, of the kind which has been embodied in myth and which appears to us in dreams." In other words, Beowulf carries the potent power of archetype rather than the broken fragility of humanity. As a parallel art form she cites the mass.

Another important issue in Beowulf interpretation is its references to Christianity. There are two types of references to divinity in the poem. The first are generic references to "Lord," such as the Lord who sustains and aid Beowulf in battle. The second are more specific references to biblical stories, such as referring to Grendel as Cain. These passages tend to be clunky, awkward, even disruptive of the narrative flow of action. They only appear a few times and can be cut out with no loss. As for "Lord," my professor points out that that could refer just as easily to Odin. Certain cultural allusions in the poem, such as the swords, also point to a Germanic pagan religious mindset. The Christian stuff was just interpolated later to make the epic respectable enough to be copied out by monks. My professor, who I suspect is pagan herself, treats this through and through like pagan literature.

So it was interesting to see Hieatt describe the Christianity of the poem as if it is really there. She seems to dismiss the theory of interpolation. Instead, she writes, the poem represents "the Anglo-Saxon Christian viewpoint, which assimilated older views rather than completely discarding them." I'm not sure I believe that, but it is interesting that she disagrees with my professor.

Anyway, some thought provoking ideas in the introduction, but overall I wasn't crazy about Hieatt's translations.

As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg



"'You know, Nicholaus,' Elisha replied obliquely, 'I have of late made an interesting discovery about the processes of living. In our Tradition there are a number of epigrams about the prerequisites of jiman happiness. One of the sages generations ago enumerated truth, justice, and peace as essentials; another, God's law, His service and acts of mercy. Actually the stuff of spiritual peace is of a much less heroic character. A man has happiness if he possesses three things - those whom he loves and who love him in turn, confidence in the worth and continued existence of the group of which he is a part, and last of all, a truth by which he may order his being…. These are just the qualities that are passing from my life.'"

The protagonist of this novel, Elisha ben Abuyah, has a dilemma. He is one of the most respected rabbinic authorities in the land, having been elected to the Sanhedrin. He has also begun questioning God's existence. This novel, imbued with philosophy, and history, follows him on this pursuit. It comes to a startling conclusion.

Steinberg, an American and Conservative rabbi, first published this novel in 1939. I can only imagine what kind of tumult Judaism was in worldwide at the time. How were Jews to relate to the larger world? Would outside ideas invigorate Judaism with a new idiom or debase and distort it? Steinberg uses the example of Hellenistic and Jewish thought to speculate on this question. Here Jewish thought is tradition-based and devotional, focused on legal questions more than philosophical. Greek thought, on the other hand, is pure reason, beginning with no presuppositions (think Euclid). Elisha is caught between the two, struggling to develop a synthesis.

I really, really enjoyed this novel. It reminds me of Herman Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund, another highly philosophical novel that I read in high school. Unlike Hesse's novel, this is historical fiction based on a figure described as an apostate rabbi in the Talmud. Steinberg not only speculates on the historical Elisha's life journey but convincingly recreates the milieu of Judaism between the destruction of the Second Temple (70 AD) and the Bar-Kochba revolt of 131-132. This is what led my Talmud teacher to recommend it to me in the first place.



Sadly, Steinberg himself died at 46 in 1950. It was thought that he had nothing else to write until an unfinished novel of his, The Prophet's Wife, was published in 2010.

The Shiites by David Pinault



I am usually skeptical when a professor assigns their own book for a course. I have heard too many stories of academic egotism, of professors who only teach their own viewpoint. But in this case, I was pleased. Pinault, my Islam professor this quarter, wrote this book two decades ago as both an introduction to Shi'a Islam and some of its folk rituals as he observed them in Hyderabad, India in the late '80s.

Shia Islam emerged within a few decades after the death of Muhammad. Originally the split concerned disputes over who should succeed the Prophet as the guide of the Ummah, the Islamic community. However, these disputes have given the Shiites a distinctive theological outlook and unique rituals that most Sunni Muslims would condemn as bizarre or even idolatrous.

Pinault focuses on the rituals of matam that take place during Muharram every year. Muharram is a time of remembrance for Shiiite Muslims, remembrance of the death of Husayn (Ali's son) at Karbala in 680. Husayn, they believe, was the rightful guide of the ummah after Ali's death, but Husayn was killed by the man Sunnis believe was the rightful caliph. Shi'a Muslims view this death as a martyrdom, and use Muharram as a time to reenact that martyrdom and demonstrate their devotion to both Husayn and the family of Muhammad in general.

I won't post photos of the rituals. To an outsider they are gruesome. Some are calm, such as women and older men chanting devotional songs while beating their chests in sorrow and simulation of martyrdom. The more extreme practices involve flailing oneself with razors or sharp metal attached to a chain. Blood flies everywhere. These extreme practices are mostly performed by young men, who sometimes get so carried away in an ecstasy of religious passion (and, I suspect, adrenaline) that friends must stop them and carry them to the medical stations set up to cure devotee's self-inflicted wounds.

As gruesome as it sounds, this intense practice is deeply meaningful for the Shiites who practice it. It is a way to bring the present into the past, to relive the battle at Karbala and symbolically fight in that battle for the honor of Husayn and the family of the prophet. While it is gruesome, I remind myself that flailing and other forms of self-inflicted bloodshed have not been without parallel in Christianity. Indeed, it can be nice to remind ourselves at times that a standard term for the Eucharist, the "blood of Christ," should be disturbing. We forget it is because we hear it every week.

Pinault's researches focus on the mens' guilds in Hyderabad who put on the performance-cum-devotional rituals every year at Muharram. These guilds engage in friendly competition over whose music and physical performance will be the best. Even Hindus sometimes join in (Hindus have a way of taking on religious holidays). He also interviews participants to better understand why they engage in these practices and how different members of the Shi'a community in Hyderabad feel about them. He finds, for example, that some dislike the rituals because the young men in them do not attend to the sermons and religious teaching offered during Muharram. He also examines these rituals in relation to interreligious relations and political events in Hyderabad. Most important, these Shiites want to remain apolitical, focusing on Allah and Husayn alone. They emphasize that these rituals do not make them warlike in the present, only defending the honor of their past hero-saint.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Pinault is a great writer who vividly brings to life the rituals he witnessed.

The Earliest English Poems, ed. by Michael Alexander

Scholars of Old English literature have little to work with. Whereas classicists have scads of drama, poetry, novels, treatises, and dialogues to work with, Anglo-Saxonists have only six volumes of original sources to work with. The literature itself, with its unknown allusions and artistic skill, points to the fact that much more was produced by its culture. We will never know what we lost in Robert Cotton's library. But what we have is stunning.

Alexander here includes selections from many different genres. We have puzzling riddles, heroic elegies, laments at lost love, fragments from the sole remaining Anglo-Saxon epic, and early Christian poetry. Alexander gives all the great translation lacking from Hieatt. I am very impressed by the way he captures the lexical density and consonantal alliteration of Old English poetry. His notes make very clear the poems' connection to a more pagan, nature-centured, egalitarian, nonhierarchical society.

Though we read most of this for class, reading beyond the boundaries of the syllabus yielding one surprise: "The Dream of the Rood," an exemplary piece of early Anglo-Saxon Christian literature which we neglected in class. (I really want to ask my professor why.) This poem commemorates a piece of the True Cross of Christ arriving in England.


The Ruthwell Cross, a stone cross now in Scotland dating back to the 8th century. Parts of "The Dream of the Rood" are inscribed on its side.

The poem describes the narrator's experience of sitting in front of the True Cross in a dream. In true Anglo-Saxon fashion, the true begins speaking to the narrator, telling its story of holding up the Savior in his dying moments. The beautiful report of a mystical experience is, Alexander writes, the best Old English Christian verse we have. (And unlike Beowulf, it is Christian verse through and through.) Just as biblical writers used genres from their time to write their truth, so the anonymous scop (poet) of this poem uses the technique of personification common to Anglo-Saxon poetry. Just as swords have personality and history in Beowulf, so does the wooden cross of Jesus.

One big question I have coming away from this class is how Christianity in England was transformed and reshaped by its Anglo-Saxon context. For example, Old English society was a highly tribalistic culture. How did they receive the ideal of universal compassion in Christianity? My professor did not touch the Christianization of England all quarter, and I wish she had at least given us one day of Bede.

But Alexander gives a good starting point for these issues. Alexander also has a translation of Beowulf, which is bound to be good given his skill as a word-wender. I would recommend this over Hieatt.

I wrote on Christianity in Beowulf when I was at uni, and the more I looked at the poem, the more any Christianity in it faded away. Old Testament religion, maybe, but New Testament? Not so much.

78 - Seems to me that lots of cultures have some pretty gruesome rituals especially for rites of passage. Maybe nothing so different here?

Glad you are posting again even if only till holiday is over. Missed your reviews.

I share your suspicions of prose translations of early poems. Good to see you are reading beyond the syllabus, and so plenty of excellent and interesting reviews.

Lots of great reading -- will definitely come back to read these reviews because I have to run out now to a family thing.

I await your reply, Rebecca! :)

Blood Brotherhood by Robert Barnard

I needed some light reading last weekend and this fit the bill. Barnard's book tells the story of a murder mystery at a monastery. Most of the characters are Anglican clergy - both easily despised and hysterical characters. I hadn't read a murder mystery in years so this was a good way for me to read something out of my usual groove. :)

Love the cover BTW:



This goes in the books to give away category.

Conference of the Birds by Farid al-Din Attar

Though this was assigned for my Islam class, I enjoyed reading it more than most books I have read this year. The Conference of the Birds is a Persian Sufi poem from the twelfth century. It takes the form of an allegory in which a group of birds led by a hoopoe seek out the mythical simorgh, a Persian analog to the Western myth of the phoenix. The book is meant to be an introduction to and inspiration for the Sufi path.



Much of the start of the book is preoccupied with the hoopoe trying to convince other birds to join his long and dangerous quest. Most of them decline, with the excuse of being attached to comfort, wealth, or some other vice that distracts the Sufi from Allah.

Much of the rest of the book is taken up with loosely connected parables and allegories teaching the reader about the soul's relationship with Allah. Many of them rely on imagery scandalous to traditional Muslims, such as romance, sex, and intoxication. As in many other devotional traditions, these are the best ways to describe the experience of ecstatic love for Allah the believer feels.

Attar himself was tried for heresy and banished as a result of this book. But it was worth it. This is one of the most beautiful poems I have read in a long time.

The First Buddhist Women by Susan Murcott

Murcott is not an academic scholar of Buddhism, but as an interested amateur scholar she has provided a useful introduction to a Pali text known as the Therigatha. The Therigatha is a compilation of poems written by early Buddhist female renunciates, women who have left the world to practice the dharma. Though these women come from many different backgrounds, they all have an experience of powerful liberation from old identities and old suffering.

I am glad Murcott did this book. Many of the Pali texts of early Buddhism remain locked away in inaccessible, expensive scholarly tomes such as those put out by the Pali Text Society of Britain. Her translations are easy to read, and I like how she organized the collection by theme and provided social commentary. She comments that many of these nuns were not driven to renounce the world by spiritual desire alone, but also by economic need. Many were widowed and had no other support. Others had been prostitutes and becoming a nun was the most obvious route out of that life of sexual suffering. While Murcott does not deny the real spiritual aspiration and attainment of these women on the Buddhist path, she reminds us that there are always more mundane social realities at hand.

That said, the book did get dull, and much of Murcott's analysis of historical context was simplistic. I would have preferred something with a more meaty commentary. But for now her book is the best out there on these early Buddhist womens' poems. Hopefully as scholarship on Buddhism continues to grow, we will have scholarly commentaries as comprehensive and accessible as biblical scholars produce.

These have been in the review pipeline for weeks now. Too long. Sometimes we just have to get something out there! Here goes.

Vain Debates: The Buddhist-Christian Controversies of Nineteenth-Century Ceylon by Richard Fox Young

Surprisingly readable and interesting academic tome on very public Buddhist and Christian apologetics in Sri Lanka in the second half of the nineteenth century. Young ties these public debates to popular stereotypes of the other religion and how Buddhism experienced a resurgence precisely because it had a public enemy in British Christian missionaries.

The Place of Tolerance in Islam, ed. by Khaled Abou El Fadl

An edited volume covering the question of religious tolerance in Islam. Fadl writes that yes, Muslims should reclaim a tradition of tolerance and acceptance of other religions. A variety of responses from Islamic scholars, Islamic studies scholars, and one disgruntled Pakistani political radical.

Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells

Sells translates the early surahs of the Quran, which tend to be the most mystical and poetic, and therefore the most accessible and likable for a non-Muslim. His translations are a tad loose and lack punctuation but then again, so is the original Arabic. Sells situates each surah in the timeline of the early Muslim community and explains difficult turns of phrase. Highly recommended.

Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong by Norman Fischer

Fischer, a Zen teacher, provides a commentary on a practice in Tibetan Buddhism. A fascinating example of the Buddhist ecumenism taking place as different Buddhist sects interweave in the West. Lojong, or mind training, is a series of exercises designed to help the adept develop wisdom and compassion. Fischer is honest about the fact that Zen tends to eschew rigid forms of practice, but wants to balance that with an understanding of the importance of sticking to forms and set practices.

Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World's Religions Can Come Together by Dalai Lama

The Dalai's vision for religious harmony involves focusing on compassion as the end goal of each religion. He spends chapters overviewing his dialogue and experience with other religions - often the mystics, such as Thomas Merton - and explaining how compassion is a part of that tradition. He mentions but does not make much of the huge ontological differences between religions such as Christianity and Buddhism.

An Apology for Apologetics: A Study in the Logic of Interreligious Dialogue by Paul J. Griffiths

Griffiths argues that the religious believer has a right, sometimes even a duty, to defend the truth claim of their religious tradition in the public sphere. He addresses arguments against apologetics and its necessity, such as perennial or noncognitivist approaches to religion. An interesting if dry book, but doesn't emphasize enough the importance of the social and political context of apologetic discourse.

The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity by Teresa M. Shaw

Many of the non-primary-source readings for my Gender in Early Christianity course were exceedingly dull, but this book by Shaw was nothing of the sort. Her book looks at how early Christian ascetic practices - particularly fasting - were shaped by ancient Greek medical models of diet and health. Although both men and women were ascetics, the way asceticism was expressed in early Christianity was highly gendered. As Shaw writes, ,"another critical factor in the association of women with food asceticism is the developing ideology of virginity and the theoretical framework that links eating to sexual desire, sexual desire to the fall, and the fall to embodiment (or at least bodily suffering), gender differentiation (or at least gender hierarchy) and death." If there is anything I have learned in the course, it is that after the first few centuries after Christ's death, Christians were really not much different in practice from Greco-Romans in how they conceived of gender and women's' roles.

You have certainly had a busy semester! Enjoying learning from your reviews, as always.

I like the sound of Conference of the Birds, might be worth a look.

I was introduced to Conference of the Birds through Peter Sis's book of the same name. It is primarily a picture book with enough of the poem to intrigue and give a basic plot of the hoopoe trying to convince the other birds and their journey. The illustrations are wonderful and mysterious and detailed. In addition, the paper is textured, which adds a tactile element as well. I wonder what you would think of it.

I also have Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells on my shelf. My copy has a CD with the Call to Prayer and six Suras, did yours? I'm glad to hear that you recommend it so highly.

Wow, labfs! I am glad to hear someone else has explored mystical Islam. Speaking of adaptation, I would check out the Penguin classics edition. The translation is superbly done in rhyming couplets.

I know the Sells book comes with a CD but mine was used and didn't have it. I have listened to surah recitation on youtube so I am aware of how amazing it is. In my experience, Christianity doesn't have the same kind of aural connection to its texts as Islam and Judaism do.

85 oh my had to order that after reading your and other reviews on LT and amazon.

87 - almost ordered this too. Thank god LT reminded me I already have it LOL!

88 - Lojong practice helps me come back when I am lost.

gender stuff always intriguing to me

92 - I wonder if that's because of when they were established (aural connection)

The quarter is over! A total of 34 pages of writing was done this week. I think I am sated. Until next quarter that is.

From Buddha to Jesus: An Insider's View of Buddhism and Christianity by Steve Cioccolanti

I read this for an essay on alterity in anti-Buddhist Christian apologetics. Cioccolanti, despite his name, is Thai and is now the pastor of a large nondenominational church in Australia. It was kinda sad and funny how Buddhism was portrayed in this and other books I read for my paper. Cioccolanti emphasizes the fact that the Buddhist system is cruel and heartless and makes everyone rack up unimaginable amounts of karmic debt. Contrast this to atonement theology in Christianity where the price has been paid. (I have never liked atonement theology – makes God look like a masochistic cosmic slot machine.) Not the kind of book I would ordinarily read but a good source for my paper.

Bestsellers: A Very Short Introduction by John Sutherland

A real letdown. Sutherland brings up some provocative questions but spends most of the book giving tedious summaries of bestsellers in Britain and American for every era of the 20th century. Some interesting questions: how many foreign books are on American bestseller lists? (Very few.) What is the relation between literary books and bestsellers? (Sometimes they are the same – usually not. But as Sutherland puts it, books like To Kill a Mockingbird are running a longer race than The Da Vinci Code.) I found it interesting how many bestsellers are now never read, with thousands of copies floating around Goodwill and other thrift stores. Really, when was the last time you read Doctor Zhivago or The Thorn Birds, books that were #1 hits in the 1960s and 70s?

Another take-home point: nobody is able to predict bestsellers. We’ve all heard stories of the book that several publishers rejected that became a huge hit. The late Tom Clancy’s first novel, the #1 bestseller The Hunt for Red October, was originally published by a navy publishing house because mainstream publishers thought it was too technical to sell well. Were they ever wrong!

And what exactly makes bestsellers so important? Why do people want to read the latest fluff (The Da Vince Code? Really?) when classics are available? Is this another instance of “keeping up with the Joneses”? I appreciate Oprah’s work in this regard, because of book club selections have shot several decades-old works to the bestseller list.

Still, Sutherland’s book is tedious and dry, bringing up interesting questions only to set them aside without really answering them.

So there's this meme going around facebook in which you share the 10 books that have influenced you the most. Mine were hard to pick - so many to choose from.

1. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
2. The Bible
3. Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung
4. Sandman series by Neil Gaiman
5. Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
6. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion by Peter L. Berger
7. The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods by A. G. Sertillanges
8. The Art of Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter
9. And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning by Joel M. Hoffman
10. Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian by Paul F. Knitter

What are yours, LT friends?

Oh that's one to think about Jonathan

THAT is an intereting title, about how translations of the Bible CONCEALED its original meaning. From Christians/Jews or from those who might use it against them?

Wow, that's a hard task you've set us. I would say different books influenced me at different times of my life, but it would take me some serious thinking to figure out which were the most important over the years.

Hmmmm ..... off to think ....

> 97

Merrikay, I believe I have a review of that book somewhere...

Try this:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/139449#3494279

100 Wow that was a treasure to find. Thanks for that link to your old review. I learned a lot about translations. Wish I could remember on which thread we had a nice discussion about translations so I could post it there. Very interesting.

> 101

Thank you! I am very interested in the question of translation. Perhaps you would find this interesting. I hope to read it someday:

http://www.gbv.de/dms/goettingen/193646900.pdf

I do! Thanks.

I find translation fascinating too! Thanks for the links.

Wow, I loved your review of And God Said, including your caveat about footnotes, and immediately added it to my wishlist. Have you found a copy of the Buddhist Translations book?

> 105

It's on Amazon but it's a bit obscure and pricey. Thanks for your review of my review!

The Grace of Silence: A Family Memoir by Michele Norris

I came across this book as my girlfriend was weeding through her room. In 2011-2012 all students at Sac State (where she was) were encouraged to read it, and it was assigned for her composition class. She didn’t care for it too much. Her loss, I say.

Norris’s name might be familiar to you who listen to NPR. She is one of their news correspondents. In 2011 she began writing a book about Obama and what his election means for African-Americans. She wound up writing a book diving into her family history and how it intertwined with many seminal events in black history. She found out things about her maternal grandma and her father that they hid from her (and everyone else) for life.

Her maternal grandma, it turned out, worked as an “Aunt Jemima” saleswoman in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Norris even managed to turn up a newspaper article about her grandma, celebrating her achievement as a representative of a major brand. Aunt Jemima was actually based on racist “slave mammy” stereotypes, evoking nostalgia of pre-Civil War days. Norris tries to dive into her grandma’s mind and make sense of the ambivalence she would have felt, using something traumatically racist for her own benefit and fortune.

She also found out that her father had been shot by a white cop as a young man. She was shocked. Her dad, the most law-abiding man she ever knew, a man who worked hard and took pride in his perfect garden and polished car – attacked a cop. This was in 1946, in Birmingham, a city later reviled during the Civil Rights era as the “most segregated city in America.” He had just returned from his armed forces tour overseas. Norris does some amazing searching to find police records from that time, and interviews some elderly people who were involved in her dad’s shooting and arrest.

But why did he never say? This is where Norris captures the “grace of silence.” Her grandma, dad, and all her other relatives scarred and traumatized by racism were not passive or too frightened to speak, she argues. Instead they chose to not dwell on the negative. But how, Norris asks, can the healing begin without any testimony? She understands the grace of silence, but prefers the catharsis of opening old wounds. Thankfully her way of writing about those wounds is clear, deftly mixing personal and political. Her conclusion – about bringing in everyone to conversations on racism, not just victims – is spot-on. A neat book.

Understanding Religious Conversion by Lewis R. Rambo



Rambo’s book was published in 1993, but it is still THE book for social-scientific approaches to religious conversion. Integrating studies from sociology, anthropology, history, and his own interviews with converts, Rambo describes a framework for conversion of all types. He defines a 7-stage model:

1. Context
2. Crisis
3. Quest
4. Encounter
5. Interaction
6. Commitment
7. Consequences

Of course, none of this is hard and fast. What’s great about Rambo’s framework is that it is broad, holistic, and integrative. Rather than trying to make grand statements about the nature of all conversion experiences, he organizes them into lists of motifs and types, such contours of religious crisis, modes of questing/seeking, and a four-fold matrix of interaction transformation consisting of roles, relationships, rituals, and rhetoric. This giant “kitchen sink” model is useful for contextualizing and comparing conversion experiences in individuals and groups, but its openness also makes it very hard to empirically test. Still, I really enjoyed this book. I invite you to read it; it’s very readable and non-technical.

Buddhism and Christianity in Japan: From Conflict to Dialogue, 1854-1899 by Notto R. Thelle

Thelle’s book covers the interaction between Buddhism and Christianity in the latter half of the 1800s in Japan. (I guess you could tell that by the title.) It’s a bit dull and aimless, as it is based on his doctoral dissertation, but it is full of good facts and it is the only book in English I know of on the subject. Thelle examines a period that saw a change from Buddhist-Christian mistrust and suspicion to interfaith activities and concord. Along the way he examines many currents of thought related to this interaction: the rise of comparative religion in Japan, suspicion that Christianity eroded Japanese nationalism, liberal Christian groups (such as the UUs) bringing about harmony with Buddhists, and movements to revitalize the seemingly moribund and stagnant Buddhist institutions. I wish he had a tight thesis for this book, but the details were worth it.

Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature by Liz Wilson

This is one of the best academic books I have read in a long while. Wilson examines early Buddhist hagiographies to find ways in which holy women lived under the gaze of male viewers. Female bodies, with all their sexual attraction, represented everything antithetical to monastic virtues: sex, lust, the attachments of family. Wilson looks at how women represented themselves as disgusting, disfiguring themselves to meet monks’ expectations. (Super gruesome.) Wilson is actually a good writer, not always common for an academic.

Charming Cadavers sounds gruesome indeed. Excellent review of The Grace of Silence

Such great reading and reviewing! Thanks.

Very interesting story in The Grace of Silence, and on the subject of Christianity in Japan have you read Silence by Shusaku Endo?

Thanks everyone!

Rebecca, last year there was a Shusaku Endo group read, as I believe it was his 100th birthday. So I've read a few of his books. Silence was the first I read, at 18, as a confirmation gift from my youth minister. The book has stayed with me ever since.

The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

When I began this book, I was expecting an interesting popular science read by a famed neurologist. I had the privilege to take a neuroscience class in junior college with one of the best lecturers I have ever heard in my life. So I knew I was in for something good. I was not expecting to reading a neurologist who was also a poet. Sacks is a brilliant crafter of prose. Listen to him describe a man who has lost all memory and makes up confabulations so the world feels known to him:

"Abysses of amnesia continually opened beneath him, but he would bridge them, nimbly, by fluent confabulations and fictions of all kinds. For him they were not fictions, but how he suddenly saw, or interpreted, the world,. Its radical flux and incoherence could not be tolerated, acknowledged, for an instant - there was, instead, this strange, delirious, quasi-coherence, as Mr. Thompson, with his ceaseless unconscious, quick-fire inventions continually improvised a world around him - an Arabian Nights world, of ever-changing people, figures, situations - continual, kaleidoscopic mutations and transformations."

This book covers different patients he has treated with memory loss, motor problems, autism, and all other sorts of neurological quirks that the rest of us find hard to imagine. Sacks always seeks to convey what life, reality, and consciousness is like for his patients. A brilliant book.

>114 JDHomrighausen: That sounds fascinating. A neurologist poet. Cool.

Merry Christmas!

I enjoyed The Man Who Mistook His Wife, too. Have you ever seen the movie Awakenings starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams? It's based on one of the case studies, I think in this collection. I've read some of his other collections, so I may be misremembering. Oh, and I see he published a longer work just on his case notes from Awakenings. Anyway, it is a great and devastating movie, if you have an opportunity to see it.

> 116

I haven't seen it - but it looks interesting! I have his An Anthropologist on Mars, a newer book that includes a chapter on Temple Grandin. :)

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I'm reading your thread but can never seem to reach the last post. Still haven't but anyway, but posting anyway because I love reading through here.

Pink Floyd - a early favorite of mine up through my college days. Just yesterday there was a Facebook post on the antisemitic aspects of Pink Floyd. Huh? Was my thought. Then in clicked - yes, Roger Waters is critical of Israel, no that is not antisemitic, but yet many Americans consider it to be so. Sigh.

Fascinated by many things here. For some reason your blurb on The Burden of Flesh stands out. Great list of ten influential books (I saw the Fb posts, listed out ten, sighed,and erased my list.)

And terrific review of the Michelle Norris book.

Finally caught up with you -- it was a busy semester for me too. Your posts are always interesting and I agree with Dan about your review of the Michelle Norris book -- I heard her talking about some of it on NPR one morning on my drive to work. Hope your Christmas is merry and joy to you in the New Year!

Dan, thanks! And happy belated Hanukkah!

Jane, Merry Christmas to you too!

Jane, I am more curious about your thoughts on my medieval lit class. Which is your favorite translation of Beowulf? :)

I like E.T. Donaldson's for its accuracy -- despite the fact that it's not poetry. Heaney's is a wonderful poetic rendering, but it's overlaid with an oddly Celtic spirit. If only the two could somehow be combined. But it's probably a good thing to read a number of translations (and interpretations like John Gardner's Grendel).

The Dream of the Rood is pure Anglo-Saxon Christianity -- it has the mysticism of the dream-vision, but the Christ is absolutely an Anglo-Saxon heroic figure who embraces and triumphs over the crucifixion. Have you read Judith? -- Another Biblical (well, apocryphal) figure cast in heroic Anglo-Saxon mode -- Judith of Bethulia who beheads the Assyrian general Holofernes -- she is ides ellenrof -- a courageous noblewoman.



by Artemisia Gentilieschi

I saw that painting by Artemesia Gentilieschiu in Paris a couple of years ago, in fact there are several versions of it painted by Artemesia

Hope you had a good Christmas Jonathan and can look forward to a new year steeped in books

I saw it in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. It is a very striking painting.

>122 janeajones: I saw that painting in NYC a few years ago, in a father-daughter exhibit. I went there to specifically see that exhibit.

The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

I first read LOTR in junior high. My God, was it boring. Recently Audible had a 2-for-3 sale and I snagged all ~60 of LOTR on audio for practically nothing. Why not, I said. After all, I thought To Kill a Mockingbird was boring at 13, and only a year later revised my opinion.

I'm glad I gave it a chance. Tolkien's writing is brilliant. Sure, it's long-winded, and it's not a Dan Brown thriller. But it's not supposed to be. Tolkien is known as one of (if not THE) father of the fantasy genre, but fewer people know that he was a medievalist. He was key in creating critical interest in Anglo-Saxon literature, especially Beowulf. After taking a course on pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature, the parallels with Tolkien are so obvious: the swords with names, the runes, the tribal societies, the entire ethic of heroism lifted straight from texts like Beowulf. As my professor said, "Tolkien was a great editor."

About 6 hours into The Two Towers now. Will report back when done.

Jerome (The Early Church Fathers) by Stefan Rebenich

Winter quarter I am doing a study on the Latin of the Vulgate Old Testament, comparing the Latin and Hebrew to see how good Jerome's translation REALLY is. Translating the Bible into Latin was the magnum opus of Jerome (347-420), a Roman Christian who was later made a Doctor of the Church for his efforts. He was also bad-tempered, mean, and unhesitant to slander and satire any and all who disagreed with him.

Rebenich's book is a useful guide to the many facets of Jerome. The first part of the book is a chronological overview of Jerome's life and different stages: his ascetic life in the Egyptian desert, his writing career in Constantinople and Rome, and his return to Bethlehem after making too many enemies in Rome. Jerome walked among the elites, and combined deep Christian (biblical) literacy with classical style and allusion in his writings. Ironically, one of his favorite subjects to write about to his rich patrons was the need to live an ascetic life, giving your money to the poor and leaving the city with its sins and distractions. His strong pro-ascetic slant got him in trouble when a young woman whom he gave spiritual counsel to died as a result of over-fasting. (Oops.) The second part of the book contains selections from Jerome's writings, representing different genres and literary types. Jerome was one of the last great writers of Latin antiquity, penning epistles, ascetic manuals, biblical commentary and philology, and satire, and they are all excerpted in here.

Another interesting episode in his life was his dream. Supposedly, Jerome had a dream in which Jesus appeared to him and asked him, "Are you a Christian?" Of course Jerome said yes. Jesus then said, "No, you are a Ciceronian!" Jerome used this dream to illustrate his dramatic turn from his youthful love for classical literature to his single-minded devotion to scripture, Origen, and other Christian writers. Of course it was more rhetoric than reality. Scholars are now finding deliberate classical allusions (e.g. Ovid, Virgil) embedded in the Vulgate itself!

And it is that Vulgate that most interests me. Jerome takes all the credit, but it is more complicated than that. Jerome began his labor when a bishop-patron suggested he revise the Old Latin translation of the Bible already in use. The Old Latin's Old Testament was translated not from the Hebrew text, but from the Septuagint, a Jewish translation from before Jesus' time. Christians considered the Greek Septuagint better than the Hebrew Tanakh, not least because they could understand it. But Jerome, wanting to dig deeper, learned Hebrew from Jewish scholars and began his own translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew.

Unsurprisingly, Christians were in an uproar. Hebrew was suspect, and the Jewish influence on Jerome and his dependence on Jewish scholars to create the translation didn't help. Augustine wrote nasty letters accusing Jerome of slandering the translators of the Septuagint. Unlike the Old Latin, Jerome's translation had to be accepted on his authority, since very few Christians could understand Hebrew and see whether or not his translation was accurate. So while Jerome's translation won in the end, Old Latin manuscripts were used throughout late antiquity and the middle ages, perhaps because some Christians didn't trust Jerome's work.

And while Jerome gets credit for the whole Vulgate, he actually did only the Gospels and Acts from the NT. Later translators would have to complete the work of revising the Old Latin.

As a historical figure and a scholar, I found Jerome fascinating. But despite his being a saint, I found little spiritual consolation in this book. The beauty of Jerome's description of saintly friends and patronesses was overshadowed by the petty ad hominem attacks of his satirical writings, letters, and, well, everything he wrote. His description of asceticism - especially the focus on female virginity so common to his age - didn't strike any chord with me. But Rebenich has edited a useful introduction to Jerome's life and works.

I like this painting of Jerome by El Greco. Actually, I love anything El Greco does. I love the harsh, austere look on his face - really fits what I have learned about his personality.

> 122

Jane, I will check out Donaldson's translation. A part of me feels that prose translations of poetry are sacreligious, which is why I didn't like Constance Hieatt's translations of Old English poems. What am I missing? What is the value of prose translations?

We DID look at the Old English Judith in class! It was a fascinating little tale. I love the hero-transformation of Christian and Jewish characters in Old English literature.

Guadalupe: Mother of the New Creation by Virgilio P. Elizondo

I found this book free in the donation room when I was moving out of the dorms last year. Apparently someone took a Hispanic theology class and didn't find it too memorable. Their loss!

Elizondo, Catholic priest and Notre Dame professor, presents a translation of the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe and a commentary on it, placing it in its syncretism of native pagan and Spanish Catholic cultures and explaining Guadalupe's vision and meaning for Christianity today.

The basic story: in December 1531 a vision of Mary appears to a poor native American man named Juan Diego. Mary tells him to bring a message to the bishop to build a house of worship for her. The bishop thinks Juan Diego is nuts. This refusal repeats itself until, on the third try, Juan Diego brings a sign to prove his authenticity. He brings a bundle of flowers, blooming in December (!), and an image of Mary on his cloak. The bishop is converted to Juan Diego's Marian message and builds a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe.



I was fascinated by how many aspects of Guadalupe's iconography and story are lifted from indigenous traditions of goddess worship. Elizondo interprets the vision in a post-colonial perspective. Here was the bishop, the powerful man of God and the colonizer, being ministered to by a native man, a poor laborer without an M.Div. or a knowledge of Latin! Part of the Spanish colonizer's process of subjugation was a denial of the humanity, intelligence, and ability of the natives of the Americas. This story is a reversal of that dynamic. It shows how Jesus overturns all our conventions of race, class, education, and poverty, to appear - just as he did in Luke's Gospel yesterday! - as simple, poor, and open to all people.

Elizondo wants the reader to take Guadalupe seriously, not just dismiss it as folk religion kitsch. At the end of this book I was convinced. I'm glad I got a window into a culture (and a growing part of Catholicism) I don't know much about.

Fascinating story about Jerome -- interesting to learn how suspicious the early Christians were of Jewish scholars.

> 129

Fascinating and sad. Purging Christianity of anti-Semitism is going to take a while - after all, it's right there in the gospels.

I hope you add your reviews to the books' pages, as yours will be the first and because yours are so interesting.

Interesting that not only were the Jewish scholars suspect, but the Hebrew language itself.

#130 I was always taught, and maybe you can shed some light on this, that Jesus not only was Jewish but intended to reform Judaism rather than start a new religion, and that it was his followers who after his death created Christianity. (Perhaps this is an historical view but not a religious one.) If so, I can see how a distrust of Judaism and the Hebrew language would arise.

Wanted to let you know I just finished Blood Brotherhood and am glad you mentioned it. I haven't done much reading lately and am a little cranky so might rate it higher otherwise, but still, gave it three stars. Would have given it more maybe but some parts seemed slow. For something published in 1977 I thought it was rather brave and quite clever. Yeah I think I'll kick it up a point for cleverness and creativity. I obviously had a different reaction than the two other reviewers, maybe because I read it as satire.

#126 - My experience with Tolkein was more the reverse. I adored it when I read it in high school, but on re-reading a couple of years ago the magic had faded.

#128 - I've been to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and seen the cloak on which the image appears. The basilica is a hideous modern building, so it makes it all the more incongruous to see pilgrims approaching it on bloodied knees. Inside you have to take a moving sidewalk that glides you past the cloak, just like viewing the crown jewels in the Tower of London. The same image of the Virgin can be seen in most Hispanic households where I live. In my mother-in-law's house it was all over the place on calendars, candles, plaques, and statuettes.

> 128

I have seen the pictures - I think I would prefer the old basilica too. Especially for that moving sidewalk - sounds frightening - do they do that so nobody spends too much time in front of the cloak?

do they do that so nobody spends too much time in front of the cloak?

Yes, that plus safety and security. You stand in an orderly line instead of having to force your way though a packed crowd.

In honor of the last day of the year, I'm posting a short reflection on what I've done in 2013 reading-wise. Sadly I failed the 13 in 13 category challenge, but in other ways this was a good year.

2013 reading reflections

Statistics:

Men vs. women
24 (15%) women
133 (85%) men

Date of Publication: Before or After 1900
19 (12%) before 1900
138 (88%) after 1900

Nationalities and Ethnicities
111 European-American
17 English
4 Dutch
4 Jewish
3 African American
2 Ancient Greek
2 Medieval Italian
2 Hispanic
2 Arab-American
2 Tibetan
1 Afghani-American
1 Indian-American
1 Algerian
1 Italian
1 Chinese-American
1 German
1 Argentinian
1 Vietnamese
1 Persian
1 Indian
1 Thai
1 Ancient Roman

Fiction vs. nonfiction
25 (16%) fiction
132 (84%) nonfiction

Most boring: books I have a hard time saying anything nice about
King David by Kyle Baker: poorly drawn, not much rethinking of the biblical story
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking: too technical, couldn’t understand it (contrast to Carl Sagan)
Bestsellers: A Very Short Introduction by John Sutherland: tedious and un-analytical

Most Innovative: books that opened new questions for me, often about things I don’t ponder much
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman
I don’t know much about economics, so I really appreciated Friedman’s overview of the economic and political problems and opportunities associated with global capitalism.
The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois
I don’t know much about African-American history, but Du Bois is a great expositor of many of the social, economic, and moral problems that still affect them today.
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
A food bible.
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
Sagan’s book is dated but really made me gain a sense of wonder at the beauty of the universe and our quest to understand it.

Most Influential: Books that have a longer impact on my intellectual development, especially as a budding scholar of religions
Vain Debates: The Buddhist-Christian Controversies of Nineteenth-Century Ceylon by Richard Fox Young
Young’s book is an excellent look at how interreligious apologetics play out in the public sphere. He helped me think about ways in which interreligious discourse should NOT happen.
Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious by Chris Stedman
Ever since reading Richard Dawkins for a spring class, I have wondered how the current atheist/humanist movement is moving its positive issues forward rather than the negative ones Dawkins focuses on. Stedman gives a great explanation of what interfaith work means to him as a secular humanist.
Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism by Rita M. Gross
Gross’ book really helped me think about ways in which current paradigms can reread the past. How can feminists retrieve models from the past, if the past if misogyny and denial of womens’ ability?
Animal Guides: In Life, Myth and Dreams by Neil Russack
I read Russack’s work after having a profound dream involving some of my childhood cats. Russack, a Jungian analyst, gave me great insight into how animals function in dreams and fit universal archetypes.
Turning Suffering Inside Out by Darlene Cohen
Late Zen teacher Cohen helped me see an often-underemphasized side of Zen: its compassion, gentleness, and patience. I want to read this again in 2014.

Authors I discovered and want to read more of
G. K. Chesterton
H. P. Lovecraft
Milton Steinberg, although he only has one famous novel
Barbara Brown Taylor
J.R.R. Tolkien
Oliver Sacks
Barbara Ehrenreich
Irvin Yalom
George MacDonald

Questions:
What changed my reading habits this year?
Definitely audiobooks. It started with Librivox. Then one day I went to the public library and discovered its audiobook section. Then I started listening to courses on iTunes U. Then I got an Audible subscription and started listening to the Great Courses series. I have now done 3 Great Courses and 2 iTunes U courses.

How can I change next year?
I passed the 75 books challenge this year – not hard for a university student whose job it is to read. But I failed the 13 in 13 challenge. Next year I would like to pass the even-harder 14 in 14 challenge.

I would also like to reach 175 books. Last year I reached at least 150, and this year I hit 157. Within a few years I would like to get to 200.

Next year I would also like to re-read some of the books I mentioned above and read more of the authors above.

One other thing: this year I have done quite well in weeding out my collection (especially the last few months): moving from dorm to apartment, donating about 80 books over Thanksgiving break, etc. Every unread book is another thing chomping away at my life, stressing me out with its "you should read me" message. It's like having a house full of unfinished projects. Last night I weeded out 3 bags full for donation. This coming year I hope to keep more strictly to my book buying limits and get through much of what is already in my library.

I like the way you categorize the books in your review of the year. Happy new year, and happy reading!

I agree, Most Innovative and Most Influential are interesting categories.