Books: "In the Valley of the Shadow"
May. 15th, 2011 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ezekielsdaughter Some familiar themes are revisited in this book by James Kugel. We are treated to his gift for setting Biblical narratives in a context that moderns will appreciate. We return to revelations in his book “The God of Old”. I think that he is willing to go outside the comfort level of many: he compares and contrasts the early view of God in Genesis -- a God who does not know everything and is not everywhere and yet shows up at the ancient’s doorsteps at times--with the Greek gods who also sometimes disguised themselves as humans. He invokes Julian Jaynes’ “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” (And I finally read why that theory fell out the favor even though the meme still chases us around.) There are few religious and Jewish writers that wrestle with scientific theory and handle midrash and biblical poetry like a surgeon.
This book was written after the author wrestled with cancer. In it, he looks back at the shadow and ponders the the topics of why religious belief persists, what the “smallness” was that he felt when ill; can the sickening question be answered (why does human suffering exist?). During the brief book, he revisits both Job and the aforementioned Julian Jaynes. He traverses Ecclesiastes and Philippe Aries, Augustus and Boethius. His answer is different from Harold Kushner. In truth, I don’t know if he does answer it. I think that he finds the exploration more interesting; I agree. In the end, we read that he is 10 years free of cancer, but obviously the people that he met during his travails are still with him. He ends the book with memories of people that he left in that shadow.*
*And not in the shadow of death. Early on, he explains that the famous 23rd psalm does not read “the shadow of death”. There’s only one noun in the hebrew phrase. “To begin with,” he writes, “in the ancient Near East -- shadow generally had no negative connotations. The sun was hot, sometimes fatally so; shade or shadow saved you from its dangers. These words therefore generally had positive associations; often they were used metaphorically for ‘protection’.” Loved that!
This book was written after the author wrestled with cancer. In it, he looks back at the shadow and ponders the the topics of why religious belief persists, what the “smallness” was that he felt when ill; can the sickening question be answered (why does human suffering exist?). During the brief book, he revisits both Job and the aforementioned Julian Jaynes. He traverses Ecclesiastes and Philippe Aries, Augustus and Boethius. His answer is different from Harold Kushner. In truth, I don’t know if he does answer it. I think that he finds the exploration more interesting; I agree. In the end, we read that he is 10 years free of cancer, but obviously the people that he met during his travails are still with him. He ends the book with memories of people that he left in that shadow.*
*And not in the shadow of death. Early on, he explains that the famous 23rd psalm does not read “the shadow of death”. There’s only one noun in the hebrew phrase. “To begin with,” he writes, “in the ancient Near East -- shadow generally had no negative connotations. The sun was hot, sometimes fatally so; shade or shadow saved you from its dangers. These words therefore generally had positive associations; often they were used metaphorically for ‘protection’.” Loved that!
