Booklist 2009 # 45: The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Not only is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales a magnum opus of story-telling, but it serves as the perfect introduction into the historical milieu and cultural values of the period, and medieval mentality. Chaucer concentrates on themes such as courtly love, medieval sexuality, chivalry and honor, the corruption of the church, class conflict, and human propensity for [...]

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Booklist 2009 # 39: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (trans. Mildred Marmur)

“Everything about him irritated her now, his face, his clothes, the things he didn’t say, his entire person, his very existence. She lamented her virtuous past as if it had been a crime, and whatever virtue still remained collapsed beneath the fury of her pride. She reveled in all the evil ironies of adultery triumphant. [...]

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“Who Really Wrote Othello?” link roundup

I’ve been busy finishing up the semester . So for the enjoyment of my readers here is a link round-up until I can get back to our regularly scheduled program:
Supreme Court officially declares Shakespeare many not have written his own works after all. Or at least a single justice is making the argument anyway. This is an old scholarly debate with little merit [...]

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Missing the point Completely!

Modern Mitzvot, a progressive blog I read, recently posted a review of a book titled Righteous Indignation. One of the editors posted in the comments that “the goal of this book was to give intellectual and spiritual ammunition to activists who seek a stronger Jewish language to talk about their work, especially in the face [...]

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Those damn uppity Jews!

Found this on: Sacred Cow

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Web of Knowledge

Ancient Tablet about Messiah and Ressurection: rethinking Judaism? Rethinking Christianity?
Seldom Wrong explains the potential implications and issues surounding the tablet.
Oldest/first Christian Church Found?
The intolerance and frustration some religious people feel when engaging in progressive circles.
Apparently many Saudis don’t know much about Judaism either.
The Ivory Ceiling: How Academia Keeps Women out
Ph. D. Comics!!!! [...]

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Book 12: How to Read the Jewish Bible by Marc Zvi Brettler

How to Read the Jewish Bible by Marc Zvi Brettler is an excellent introduction into academic interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Brettler’s approach is the historical-critical method, which attempts to place the books of the Bible into their proper historical context and attempt to uncover how the Ancient Israelites read the various books.
Brettler suggests [...]

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The Bible: Book of Jonah

The Book of Jonah has a different character than the other prophetic books, being less a record of a prophet’s words and more a story of a reluctant prophet.
G-D tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and prophecy to the city. He runs away from his duty and boards a ship to escape over seas. G-D [...]

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The Bible: Book of Obadiah

The shortest of the minor prophets, Obadiah’s book condemns the Edomites for not helping and mocking the destruction of Israel at the hands of the nations. For their lack of sympathy to their relatives, since according to Biblical tradition Esau the brother of Jacob founded the Edomites, they will be destroyed by G-D.
That pretty much [...]

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The Bible: Book of Amos

Amos should be considered the archetypal ‘classical prophet.’ Classical prophets almost always make the following five points:
1) The G-D of Israel is a universal deity
2) Israel and Judah are accountable to this deity: punished and rewarded based off how they fulfill their obligations.
3) The people of Israel and Judah owe both ethical and [...]

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