Friday, November 23, 2007

Es war als sängen die Engel

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In an effort to brush up on the 'ole German vocab, I devoured this translation of James C. Whittaker's "We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing". A pretty fun read, chronicling numerous miracles during their horrible 3 weeks adrift in the Pacific ocean, and the author's subsequent conversion. While the narrative of a few days did drag along (especially when contrasted with the miraculous days), the book was very short (126 pages) and overall well-written.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

A Rabbi Talks with Jesus - Jacob Neusner

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Interesting premise, as a Rabbi constructs a theoretical conversation between himself and Jesus using the texts in Matthew and a little bit of respectful imagination. Although he decides in the end not to follow Jesus' teachings his perspective is a great reflection for any apologetically minded Christian. The Rabbi claims his rejection really boils down to his view that Israel's nationhood was not prominent enough in Christ's Kingdom message, that he was too focused on the individual's role. I thought however that the Rabbi's rejection of Jesus as God and his dependence on Man's works were the root of his contentions. If man's work to keep the torah's commands is a sufficient way to achieving  God's kingdom on earth, we don't need Jesus as Messiah and if Jesus is not God, how would his "fulfillment" of the torah have any more authority than any other pontificating Rabbi. But Neusner doesn't delve at all into the issue of Christ's deity, and issue I would love for him to have more fully addressed. Nonetheless his carefully constructed arguments are informative for anyone who wishes to see inside the mind of an unantagonistic yet uncoverted Jew. 

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

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Worth a read if you want to be entertained, and don't mind a repeat of the themes of Kite Runner. Hosseini really is a splendid story teller and the book "goes down" as smooth a cream. I think I may have enjoyed Kite Runner a little more because of the dynamic cast of characters and change of settings, which were lacking in this subsequent work. Also the plot and characters seemed more developed in Hosseini's first novel, possibly the result of the former's longer "gestation" period. Overall still worth the time, but don't expect the same quality Hosseini delivered with Kite Runner.