Various

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 »

Race and the O. J. Verdict I offer two comments on James Nuechterlein’s otherwise excellent column on the O. J. Simpson verdict ( “O. J. Simpson & the American Dilemma,” December 1995) . Mr. Nuechterlein makes two assertions in his article that echo commonly held opinions in . . . . Continue Reading »

The Benedictional of Aethelwold By Robert Deshman Princeton University Press, 287 pages, $99.50 A true historian of art, Robert Deshman asserts that images are the equal of texts as historical documents. In this monograph on one of the most important medieval Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts, he . . . . Continue Reading »

Beyond Good and Evil? Elaine Pagels has forged for herself a brilliant career as an academic superstar (Jeffrey Burton Russell, “Getting Satan Behind Us,” November 1995). The Gnostic Gospels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, and now The Origin of Satan are literary events that push their way . . . . Continue Reading »

In and Out of the Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self By Ruth Padel Princeton University Press, 210 pages, $12.95 paper Whom Gods Destroy: Elements of Greek and Tragic Madness By Ruth Padel Princeton University Press, 276 pages, $29.95 A brilliant book, Padel’s first work”now reissued . . . . Continue Reading »

Anti-Christian America? As usual, I find myself in substantial agreement with much that Midge Decter writes (“A Jew in Anti-Christian America,” October 1995) ”in this instance, especially her healthy refusal to become paranoid about the glitches in the dominant society, and . . . . Continue Reading »

Philosophy and Law. By Leo Strauss. Translated by Eve Adler. State University of New York Press. 157 pages, $14.95. In a time when the students of the late Leo Strauss are in various ways advocating “Straussianism,” it is good to have a definitive translation of the book in which the young . . . . Continue Reading »