Religious Books > H Religious Books

Advantages: Well written, well organised, well researched
Disadvantages: -

The HarperCollins Bible Commentary, published in 2000, is a good volume to have sitting on one’s shelf. So far as one-volume commentaries are concerned, this one is accessible, authoritative, and well conceived and written. 'The Commentary covers all of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the books of the Apocrypha and those of the New Testament, and thus addresses the biblical canons of Judaism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. Its innovative ...
...of a cooperative effort between HarperCollins Publishers (a major publisher in the field of biblical and religious material, both scholarly and popular) and the Society of Biblical Literature (the major academic group of biblical scholars, of which I am a member). The range of contributors is international in scope, as well as incorporating the views of scholars and researchers from many faith traditions and points of view regarding the biblical ... Read review

Advantages: Interesting way of looking at Jesus' words
Disadvantages: Bound to be controversial in ways

...'But wait,' I can hear you saying already, 'Jesus didn't give commandments!' This is a matter of interpretation and reading, actually - Wittstock has done an interesting study exegetically to locate the different kinds of speech contained in the gospels. He does this complete with pie-charts and graphs showing the numbers of kinds of speech, including command/imperative types of statements from Jesus in the gospels. With regard to interpreting them, ...
...antecedents in both Jewish and Christian tradition, relying most heavily on Rashi (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac), Nicholas of Lyra, and Martin Luther. To be sure, there are far more than 125 statements made by Jesus in the gospels (and, as Wittstock concedes, far more that never made the written record, for which we have no authority); he lists the kinds of other imperatives that were excluded from his list of 125. What is left, when the wheat is separated ... Read review

Advantages: Good as a corrective
Disadvantages: A bit too one-sided in a few spots

The book 'How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization' was a book I enjoyed reading. It presents an often overlooked idea, the importance of one of the longer-lasting and widely influential institutions in the Western world. It reminded me very much of Thomas Cahill's book, 'How the Irish Saved Civilization', both in content and in tone. Indeed, one of Woods' early chapters deals with some of the same information - the Irish of Cahill's text ...
...more generally (and more briefly) in his chapter. Author Thomas Woods, Jr. states that one of his intentions is to remedy the generally pervasive attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church these days in historical studies which is either negative or lacking in reference altogether. There are history books (quite often those used by the public school system) that try to downplay the role of the church in Western history or eliminate it altogether. ... Read review

Advantages: Annotated, introductory essays, apocryphal texts, NRSV
Disadvantages: -

In other reviews I have already offered a few words (of wisdom or folly, I leave to the readers to decide) on the actual text of the Bible, and will likely offer such words again as the spirit moves. This review, in contrast, is not a reflection on the text of the Bible so much as the usefulness of this particular edition by Harper Collins. The Bible holds the record for the book with the greatest variation of editions, versions, and separate publications. ...
...that has remained an essential part of my collection and study. I was given a copy of the Harper Collins Study Bible many years ago as a gift, shortly after its publication about a decade ago. I had several versions, and my friend thought he was giving me one more (I like to examine the differences in translations to find deeper meanings in the texts, or misinterpretations based on faulty or incomplete translation). Alas, he was disappointed when ... Read review

Advantages: Clear, well presented, useful
Disadvantages: -

‘Hearing the Sermon: Relationship/Content/Feeling’ is the latest book by Ronald J. Allen, professor of preaching and New Testament at my seminary. This book is also part of a four-part series on developing an understanding about how people listen to and respond to sermons and homilies. Supported by the Lilly Endowment, this project has involved many scholars at my seminary and elsewhere. The first volume, ‘Listening to Listeners’, was published a ...
...in his introduction, of parishioners filing out the back of the chapel, shaking my hand and giving me a one or two word summary of their impressions of the sermon or service – ‘Good job.’ ‘Nice sermon.’ ‘Good message.’ Others develop a little more, but rarely more than a sentence or two. The intriguing thing is when parishioners in the same service here such radically different things. Allen develops a three-part structure, filters as it were, through ... Read review