Posted on 11/22/2015 8:40:27 AM PST by vis a vis
It has been way too long since we had one of these....
Leafes
“Bleak House” Charles Dickens (second time around)
I’m on book 6 of the A. American series. Really good reads; helps you think about something catastrophic happening and how you would handle it. Also all the ‘good’ players in the books are conservatives/patriots :)
I just started “Ireland” by Frank Delaney.
I am again reading BODYGUARD OF LIES. Absolutely recommend to all friends and Freepers.
Winston S. Churchill - The Challenge of War, 1914 - 1916 (Volume III) by Martin Gilbert
on deck: Nothing Less than Victory
Not reading anything at the moment, but the last book I finished was “Rush Revere and the Star Spangled Banner”.
One of my favorite PKD shorts is “The Variable man”. Its kind of a depressing story with a positive outcome.
“Second Variety” became the Screamers film.
"...the many books explaining how stupid Odungo is and why"
Cold Fire by Dean Koontz and skipping around re-reading some stories in an anthology of H.P. Lovecraft’s works.
Am now starting on a recounting of Custer's battle at the Little Bighorn, even though I've read a dozen of them already.
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. I just saw a wonderful play adaptation. It made me want to read it again.
Part of the Jack Reacher series.
The Bible As It Was by Prof James Kugle.
Here are a couple of reviews from Amazon...
Review OneThis book would be more accurately titled "The Torah As It Was", but this minor complaint aside, I can only say, "What a book!" The extremely informative introduction lays out the plan: Mr. Kugel is giving us a glimpse into how the Torah, or at least a number of major events in it, were interpreted by a wide variety of authorites during the so-called intertestamental period, from approximately 200BCE-100CE.
He takes an event, the Flood, say, and martials an array of quotes regarding one or another aspect of the story from a truly dizzying variety of authors. Extra-biblical interpretive strains are indicated by words or phrases printed in boldface type. It is fascinating to witness the process, as ambiguous texts metamorphose into moral instruction via interpretive discussion. The variety of creative, and sometimes mutually contradictory, uses to which the texts are put is amazing. It's also surprizing how many of these interpretations have stuck with us into the modern age.
In addition to over 500 pages of well-presented interpretation, the 50-page listing of Terms and Sources, as well as the 30-page Bibliography, and comprehensive Index of sources cited, make this a truly useful and valuable resource for anyone interested in the Bible or the thought of this pivotal period in history. If all this isn't enough, the book itself (and keep in mind that I'm talking about a paperback here!) is a delight: from cover, to paper, to typeface, to engravings and illustrations, everything about this volume gives me pleasure as a reader and owner.
Hats off to Harvard/Belknap. Too bad more publishers don't follow suit.
Review Two
"The Bible as it was" is a wonderful and exhaustive work regarding scriptural interpretation and the first five books of the Bible. Early Jewish tradition was to fill in interpretive information when necessary to resolve items that were ambiguous or unclear. In addition, notes and commentary were often passed along with the texts and over time tended to become a part of the text. As a result, the Bible of today includes a lot of commentary as well as the original texts.
Kugel's purpose is to try to reconstruct the Bible as it was in its original form as closely as possible. While we all know that no copies of the original Bible exist today, the King James version was based on the Textus Receptus which was a Greek translation of the Bible and considered the oldest reliable source at the time.
Since then there have been many archaeological finds of manuscripts from earlier points in time and in the original Hebrew language. Many of these passages differ somewhat from current translations. In theory, the older versions should be closer to the original version.
Working from the oldest texts he examines some of the differences in the way passages were interpreted and what that could mean. This gets us closer to an original version without all the intervening thoughts and interpretations that earlier writers had added in an attempt to make it more understandable and applicable to the people of their time. Dr. Kugel thoroughly documents his work complete with quotes, sources and annotations as appropriate.
A fascinating book that sheds new light onto many passages it should be read by anyone attempting a serious and scholarly study of the Bible.
“The Lost Traveler” by Ruthven Todd
“Surface Detail” by Iain M Banks
Next up something by Lord Dunsany
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