Various

The Bible in Modern Culture: Theology and Historical-Critical Method from Spinoza to Kasemann By Roy S. Harrisville and Walter Sundberg Eerdmans, 282 pages, $20 paper The aim of this book is to provide “a confessionally critical history of modern biblical criticism,” that is, “an . . . . Continue Reading »

Getting Along In “Why We Can’t All Just Get Along” (February), Stanley Fish sets out to persuade people “of religious conviction” that we cannot be liberals”that we cannot subscribe to a regime of equal rights and freedom of speech and conscience. He says we . . . . Continue Reading »

The Life Of Adam Smith By Ian Simpson Ross Oxford/Clarendon Press, 495 pages, $35 Professor Ross, who teaches English at the University of British Columbia, briefly mentions in his introduction various fashionable literary methodologies, but he does so only to reject them as inappropriate to the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Mission of the Christian University Gertrude Himmelfarb and Richard John Neuhaus wisely note (“The Christian University,” January) that the ideals of a Christian university are complex ideals. For Himmelfarb, a university to be authentically Christian must nurture both intellectual . . . . Continue Reading »

A Troubled Conscience 1. Twenty-three years after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, the conscience of the American people remains deeply troubled by the practice of abortion-on-demand. Because of these two decisions, abortion is legal at any time of pregnancy, for . . . . Continue Reading »

Half past two Wednesdays Catholic ”a fair number”would rise up in silence when their special buzzer jolted our Queens classroom, summons a good hour before our scheduled parole to their midweek Saint Teresa’s spiritual sparkle, a canny swap of Byrd’s tale of his schlep over . . . . Continue Reading »

The Five Books of Moses: A New Translation with Introductions, Commentary, and Notes By Everett Fox Schocken, 1,024 pages, $50 This volume stands alone among the many new translations of the Bible that have appeared in recent years. In fact, Everett Fox’s volume is less a translation of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Christian Exclusivism The review of Salvations: Truth and Difference in Religion (January) struck me as a particularly wrongheaded effort to make two wrongs into a right. Not having read the book under review, I cannot say if the fault lies with author (S. Mark Heim) or reviewer (Paul J. Griffiths) . . . . Continue Reading »

Hildegard of Bingen on her deathbed, September 1179 That polished, hot smell like a room closed too long” is there an open flame? Such flickering in the shadows, swirls of marble, sea pebbles, then deep forest green. How is it I see these now? In those hours from four to sext, do your . . . . Continue Reading »

Hannah Arendt/Martin Heidegger By Elzbieta Ettinger Yale University Press, 139 pages, $16 This slight volume has become the occasion of a media uproar. But the text is really too puny to sustain serious debate about how deep runs Hannah Arendt’s philosophical indebtedness to Heidegger, or how . . . . Continue Reading »