An intriguing new angle on the well-worn field of “historical Jesus” studies.
Understanding the role of memory in the formation of the Christian Gospels.
In his latest work on the historical Jesus, Ehrman (Religious Studies/Univ. of North Carolina; How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, 2014, etc.) delves into the oft-neglected role of memory in the context of the early Christian church. The author argues that memory is of paramount importance to understanding such basic Christian writings as the four Gospels, since these arose from remembered events and were written decades after the life of Jesus. Ehrman demonstrates the widely accepted view of scholars that none of the Gospels were written by people who actually knew and followed Jesus personally. As such, each is based upon the memories of others, often transmitted through unnumbered sources in the early Christian community. Understanding the science behind memory, therefore, helps students of the Bible to understand the origins of, and differences among, the Gospels. Ehrman provides an intriguing overview of memory studies over the past century and introduces readers to a variety of important pioneers and studies in the field. The author finds that memory constructs the past. No matter if the topic is ancient history, recent news events, or personal happenings, the human understanding of all things past is constructed via memory. Furthermore, memories are often flawed or “distorted.” This fact is simply a reality of the human condition; nevertheless, distorted memories lead to distorted history. Readers of the Bible can, however, assume that “gist memories” are based in solid reality. Gist memories reflect the basic situation (e.g., Jesus was crucified) without potentially distorted qualifications (e.g., dialogue at the site of the crucifixion). Despite the fact that his work is highly critical of the Bible as history, Ehrman concludes that it is still important, just as Shakespeare and Dickens are important. “The historical Jesus did not make history,” he writes. “The remembered Jesus did.”
An intriguing new angle on the well-worn field of “historical Jesus” studies.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-228520-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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