After a period of relative quiescence, the quest for the historical Jesus has again become a center of controversy. Two major contributions to the theme—John P. Meier’s A Marginal Jew and John Dominic Crossan’s The Historical Jesus—appeared just before Christmas 1991 . . . . Continue Reading »
Covenant Of Love: Pope John Paul II on Sexuality, Marriage, and Family in the Modern World edited by Richard M. Hogan and John M. Levoir Ignatius Press, 328 pages, $14.95 For those who have had enough of the dull and deadly conformism of recent decades, a manifesto for a sexual revolution that . . . . Continue Reading »
For the historian, as for the philosopher, the quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns is being superseded by a quarrel between the Moderns and the Postmoderns. If the great subversive principle of modernity is historicism—a form of relativism that locates the meaning of ideas and events . . . . Continue Reading »
Of the many obstacles that the modern world has thrown up in front of Judaism and Christianity, certainly one of the most damaging would be the historical-critical method. This form of intellectual inquiry has transformed radically the manner in which modern persons construe the origins of Scripture . . . . Continue Reading »
Toward the end of this collection of essays, Professor Iván Völgyes gently chastises his brethren in the history and political science confraternities for the fact that “all too frequently … many of us in our profession … made compromises with the Communist regimes” of the old . . . . Continue Reading »
Every year during the winter quarter my yearlong course in the history of Christianity reaches the eleventh-century Gregorian Reform and the Investiture Conflict. Every year my students struggle to make sense of the positions of Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. With great effort some of them . . . . Continue Reading »
Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil by Hyam Maccoby Free Press, 213 pages, $22.95 Maccoby is noted, or notorious, for his argument, made here once again, that anti-Semitism is inherent in Christian faith. Judas Iscariot, he claims, is for Christians the demonic symbol of Judaism, which . . . . Continue Reading »
Along with Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein is generally considered to be one of the two greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. But as with the field of twentieth-century philosophy itself, Wittgenstein has never seemed to be a very accessible thinker to the nonspecialist. Those, it . . . . Continue Reading »
In the years 1975-76, Catholics attending Mass anywhere in the state of Montana would have heard the priest pray for “Paul, our Pope, and Eldon, our Bishop.” Apart from the fact that outside of Montana there has never been a Catholic bishop in the United States named Eldon, there was nothing . . . . Continue Reading »
Half a day’s detour to Gran Quivira—and we arrive, near sunset,to find a locked gate across the road. . . . . Continue Reading »
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