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iceberg

iceberg@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years, 2 months ago

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iceberg's books

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Review of 'Jesus' on 'GoodReads'

5 stars

4.5 but I'll round up because I know Ehrman gets dinged on here.

I think this was Ehrman's first book for the general public, and it's a great introduction to the topic. He doesn't lead with his views, but rather takes the time to explain how historians evaluate evidence, so that you can think about the Gospels for yourself.

Earlier this year, I read one of his more recent books, Jesus Before the Gospels. It explores oral transmission in depth, something that gets a few pages here. One thing I noticed is that, with the benefit of fifteen additional years of researching, teaching, and thinking, Ehrman's list of facts about the historical Jesus has shrunk since he wrote Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, so I wouldn't take this to be the be-all, end-all of What Jesus Actually Said and Did, but rather a great starting point.

Charles Kurzman: The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran (Paperback, 2005, Harvard University Press) 2 stars

The shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, would remain on the throne for the foreseeable …

Review of 'The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran' on 'GoodReads'

2 stars

I broadly agree with Kurzman's implicit assertion in the introduction that society is a complex system in the technical sense, which may render precise prediction impossible, and that this has been insufficiently incorporated into social science ontology and methodology; however, the way that this is argued in the chapters is weak, even devolving into attacking straw men.

For example, in the chapter arguing against the predictive value of economic indicators like poverty, relative deprivation/income inequality, or inflation, Kurzman compares Iran with similar oil-exporting countries that did not have revolutions in the 1970s or '80s -- but that did have uprisings and rebellions. What is the point of this rebuttal if no one is arguing that a struggling economy is sufficient cause for a successful revolution? Likewise, Kurzman points out that it was not those living in shanty towns, but rather the bazaaris that took up protest early and enthusiastically. But …

Bart D. Ehrman: Misquoting Jesus (2007, HarperOne) 4 stars

For almost 1,500 years, the New Testament manuscripts were copied by hand — — and …

Review of 'Misquoting Jesus' on 'GoodReads'

5 stars

This is more of a 4.5-star book for me, but I’ll round up since I’m sure Ehrman gets unfairly dinged on this site.

I read this in conjunction with Jesus Before the Gospels and kind of mashed them together in my mind to create one book that is superior to either ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Jill Lepore: The secret history of Wonder Woman (2014, Alfred A. Knopf) 3 stars

Review of 'The secret history of Wonder Woman' on 'GoodReads'

3 stars

Not a review, more of a summary of my frustration: It's hard to read the last page without concluding that Lepore thinks that Olive Byrne and Elizabeth Holloway were also lovers, but she never voices her speculation, probably because she couldn't find any love letters. (Of course, a few pages earlier, she recounts Margaret Sanger, Byrne's aunt, winnowing her papers before donating them, and why very few of Byrne's mother's papers survived -- the argument is right here, just never made. As for interviews with the family, at one point she includes one of the children's assertion that Marston never practiced bondage with his wives, which -- how would the son possibly know that?) A story this queer needs a queer historian who is better able to grapple with the epistemology of lives like this.