Bible Books (Re: Abortion and the Death Penalty)

Dhlazare at aol.com Dhlazare at aol.com
Tue Jun 9 07:21:27 PDT 1998


As long as people are tossing around religious commentaries, here's my contribution: One of my favorite books is something called "Mythology's Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus," by William Harwood (Prometheus 1992). Harwood is an Aussie/Canadian who got his Ph.D. from Columbia Pacific Univ. He seems to be some sort of free-thinking liberal -- an anti-Marxist who even lets off with a few zingers at us Trots. But he's quite funny, highly erudite, and wonderfully irreverent.

Also, Karl Kautsky's "Origins of Christianity" still holds up quite nicely.

Dan Lazare

In a message dated 98-06-08 12:04:22 EDT, you write:

<<

> I think Smith's work is a is a bit poppish. There was kind of a funny

> interview with him last year in the _East Bay Express_, in which he said

> he performs rituals from every major as well as a number of minor

> religious traditions. Jack Miles _God: A Biography_ recieved positive

> reviews when it came out in 97. Another thing you might want to look at is

> William Countryman's _Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New

> Testament and their Implications for Today_. Also Christopher Wright's

> _God's People in God's Land: Family, Land and Property in the Old

> Testament_.

>

> I was doing research on Jewish social/economic ethics for a while, mostly

> Biblical through Talmudic, so if you're interested in any of that, I can

> send a bibliography. That would be useful if you have an interest in

> Leviticus and/or Deuteronomy.

Poppish is fine. I'm no theological rocket-scientist.

I'd rather get something I will be able to read through.

Leviticus and Deuteronomy are over my head just now,

and I am more interested in Christianity than Judaism

at the moment. Christ has many more divisions than

Moses.

I did see the Miles book in the store but went for

Occhiogrosso, as my previous post indicated.

Thanks for your note.

Max

>>



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