Half Broke Horses by
Jeannette Walls - one of my favorite books last year was a memoir by
this author. This book was a "true life novel" about Jeannette's
grandmother, Lily. An interesting read especially if you are curious
about how people grew up in the Southwest a hundred years ago.
Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell -- I pretty much
hated this book from the beginning. I really don't like books that say
the same thing over and over. The first chapter was about a dirt poor
family conniving to steal turnips from a passing neighbor. If I heard
them say one more time about how much they love turnips, but their
turnips had "damn-blasted green-gutted worms in them" so please give me
yours -- grrr. Thankfully the next chapter dropped this subject, but
it was disturbing! Books like this feed contempt for the poor, the
backward farmers, women preachers (or any perverted preachers because
Bessie was perverted), the southerners who dare think like this. I guess
it's for the best that people like this starve and/or burn to death
with few people caring. Wouldn't want to bother any one with these lazy,
perverted lowlifes, and the sooner this breed dies out, the better for
all of us.
The Silver Star by
Jeannette Walls - since I read her memoir and her true-live novel, I
decided I should read this novel since my library had it. Pretty
interesting book. I didn't really love the ending, but the story itself
was pretty good up until the last bit. It just ended a bit "happily
ever after" which is good, but was too abrupt perhaps.
A Jewish Understanding of the New Testament by
Rabbi Samuel Sandmel - I saw this book recommended to Rachel Evans
sometime last year and put it on my wishlist. I got it for Christmas and
decided it would be the first book I began in 2014. It took me nearly
the whole month (some days I read more than others), but I finished it
earlier today (the 27th).
I enjoyed reading how the New Testament comes across to a
rabbi. He wrote it for Jews, and many things that were familiar and
innocuous to me in the NT, came across differently when I considered
them from his perspective. I enjoyed how he concluded the book (see
below.)
Here are a few notes I took.
One example of why Paul is difficult for many Jews to understand:
"Rabbinic
Jews and modern Jews believe that man is by nature good; Paul, that he
is by nature bad. Jews hold that a man may commit sins and by
repentance re-establish himself in God's grace; Paul, that man, in
possessing a physical body, is gripped by inherited sinfulness from
which he himself cannot extricate himself. Jews believe that each
person, through repentance and good deeds, works out his own personal
atonement; Paul, that helpless man requires atonement to be made for
him, and that the death of Jesus was this atonement." (pg. 38)
Page 41 dealt with Jewish missionaries and how missionary activity was "by no means unsuccessful" in the Greek Diaspora.
The
Jewish view of sin vs. Paul's view was interesting. "In the Jewish
tradition, man atones and, it is believed, God graciously pardons him.
In Paul's view, man cannot atone, but needs to have his nature changed
from the bodily to the spiritual." (pg. 59)
When the author talks about the gospels, he speaks of Matthew
and Luke borrowing heavily from Mark yet recasting the stories to suit
the emerging needs of the church. Since Paul seems to abolish the use
of the Law, the gospels were written due to "the urgent need for some
regulation." This is why Matthew introduces Jesus' version of the Law
in the Sermon on the Mount.
"The differences between Mark, on the one hand, and Matthew
and Luke, on the other, show us with unmistakable clarity how the
problems, doctrines, and needs of the church developed and reached a
crystallized expression." (pg. 143)
"The Gospels do not in reality tell us about Jesus; they tell
us about the faith, the problems, and the interests of the church which
created them." (pg. 195)
"In the Jewish
tradition there have been many men who have inspired in modern Jews
ideals such as self-effacement, nobility, and exaltation, yet neither
the Old Testament nor rabbinic literature depicts the ancient worthies -
Abraham, Moses, David - as perfect. Not perfection, but goodness, has
been the Jewish demand from the individual, a goodness which we Jews
have urged upon ourselves as a personal responsibility to be nearly as
perfect as possible. But we Jews have not equated strict perfection and
goodness as interchangeable. If this standard seems deceptively to be
lower than Christian perfectionism, we Jews would reply that the
standard is not less exacting, but only more humanly tolerable. In the
Jewish view, there have been many great men, but not any perfect man to
be exalted above all others." (pg. 209)
And the conclusion:
"For Jews, the New Testament is not and
cannot be a literature sacred to us. But the sacred literature of
others can be enlightening and broadening to us, even giving us fresh
perspectives on our own beliefs, if we try to understand sympathetically
the profound perplexities and deep aspirations which human beings have
been inspired to express, and how the lives of our contemporaries are
moved by those ideals and institutions which embody them.
The New Testament, although it is not ours, is closer to us
than any other sacred literature which is not our own. It shares in a
legacy which is eternally precious to us. For American Jews it is the
Scripture of our neighbors - and, happily, of fellow citizens and
friends." (pg. 321)
The Butler: A Witness to History
by Wil Haygood -- This short book (fewer than 100 pages) was pretty
good. I wish it had been more about 'the butler' and his time in the
White House, serving 8 Presidents. The first part is, but much of the
end is about the making of the movie by the same title. That part was
just OK.
