If your expecting a book with many pictures, this is not the book for you. But it gives good details on changes since our country began. At the begining of each chapter is a time line on what the chapter is about. I would recommend this book.

This is not a review. I'm trying to reach Ted Lowi. If anyone has an e-mail address, please contact me at Richjoansf@aol. or otherwise tell me how to reach him. Thanks

Especially edifying is the section on exactly when there became two Bibles, Catholic and Protestant. Written fairly, he shows how Trent did not "add" books to the Bible, only recognized books already considered canonical through the centuries by most of the Church. Luther in his turn, chose the shorter canon, with his own historical reasoning (some prominent Church Fathers preferred the shorter text, like Jerome). The book also does a good job of reviewing how the New Testament was formed. But this book put to rest the deuterocanonical question. The Bible has 73 books, not 66, and arguments for the shorter canon shows their historical weaknesses. Very good read.

This wonderfully written book is not a history of the formation of the canon nor is it a justification for the Catholic or Protestant Canon. The author doesn't try to justify any one position. This book deals with many difficult questions, but at the same time, he answers in a manner that allows you to come to your own conclusions. For example, Why are there two version of the Old Testament? Is the Canon infallible? What does and did Gods inspiration mean? Why can so many people read the Bible and come up with so many different doctrines? These questions are tackled in the manner that provides a tool rather than a simplistic answer. It was the "Rule if Faith." The author explains the role that the "Rule of Faith" played in the development of the Canon and its interpretation. I great book, easy to read, well written.

Professor Abraham's account of how the idea of cannon became increasingly limited to an epistemic norm is superb. However, I couldn't help wondering if the tacit suggestion wasn't that, since the early Christians didn't employ canon as an epistemic norm, we should all just stop thinking about epistemic norms when it comes to Christianity. To recover the fullness of the canonical tradition and expose the ways that the notion changed through history is one thing....but what is the underlying point? Do we really avoid epistemic pitfalls by merely changing the subject from "norms" to "canon?" I guess the answer really rests on whether the questions raised most prominantly in the Enlightenment have a kind of independant legitimacy, or whether we can ignore them by identifying them as historical artifacts. Abraham doesn't really spell out an epistemic proposal in his book, which leaves us all to speculate about whether one is even possible given the problems he so carefully uncovers. The book is best seen as an historical archeology of the idea of canon rather than as a constructive solution to the profound problems it documents. One can't help thirsting for more!

Abraham is an Oxford-trained evangelical Methodist who teaches philosophy and theology at SMU.

After describing that "canon" in the patristic era was larger than Scripture alone and included other items like the rule of faith, the Creeds, the Fathers, iconography, the episcopacy, and so on, he describes what an incredibly huge mistake to think of canon(s) in epistemic terms. Whatever else canons were, they weren't designed to answer philosophical questions re: "what can we know and how can we know it?"

However, as Abraham goes on to argue, that's exactly what the question of canonicity become in Western theology of whatever stripe -- liberal, feminist, conservative, fundamentalist, whatever.

Abraham makes the somewhat startling claim that it was the Reformation that is responsible for the large-scale confusion AND obsession in the West with epistemology. He argues (to my mind plausibly) that the history of modern philosophy, especially our infatuation with the "what can I know and how can I know it? questions, began with Luther and Calvin fracturing St Thomas' synthesis (which had its own problems) and the inability of Catholics and Protestants to solve truth questions based on the current terms of the discussion. Descartes' quest for certitude only makes sense in the carnage left over from the religious wars of the 16th & 17th century.

There's more than a bit of irony when Christians in the West both Catholic and Protestant devised various criteria to define what is true (versus the positions of their opponents) then suddenly find the criteria they devised used against themselves, or turned in directions they hadn't anticipated (the law of unintended consequences).

That philosophical and theological quest for certainty took on a life of its own after the Protestant Reformation. Abraham is quite a good story-teller. After describing the nature of "canons" in the patristic era, he recites the break between East and West, the theological and philosophical synthesis of St Thomas, goes through the Reformers Calvin and Luther, on to Descartes and Locke, to the Princeton theologians Hodge, Alexander, and Warfield, to John Henry Newman, Karl Barth, and finally down to the present day with the current feminist rewrite of the very notion of "authority."

C.S. Lewis once said any book worth reading once was worth reading twice. (Some books aren't worth reading once!)

I'm in my second reading, despite its non-Lenten nature.

It is always fascinating to see these old texts coming back to light. Nylan deserves much credit for his interesting work on the text. Even so, several misunderstandings seem to accompany the re-emergence of this text. One of the editorial reviews claims that Nylan's text translation (for the Suny series) was the first to appear in a European language. That is incorrect,Derek Walters version('The Alternative I Ching,' 1986) was already available, accompanied by similarly bold claims. Like Walters, Nylan claims special advantages for the 'tri-partite' division of the Tai Hsuan Ching. Walters had argued that the Tai Hsuan Ching accorded a more complete, active role to 'man' - as against the Yi-Ching's allegedly 'fixed' dualistic system.All of this shows a poor grasp of what the Yi Ching (and Tai Hsuan Ching) actually teach.The 'Tso chuan' section of the Yi-Ching stresses that 'Heaven, Earth and Man' are what comprise the Tao. Every trigram (and hexagram) in the Yi Ching reflects this threefold unity ('the 'three powers' or 'san-tsai') - and the Yi-Ching makes this clear on every count. Human 'agency' is therefore vital to the Yi-Ching. It was not a 'new' idea with the Tai Hsuan Ching. The antiquity of this intuition is evident in the formation of the Chinese script, the old Ku-wen forms, giving the character for 'king' or 'kingship' as a representation of the 'san-tsai' or 'three powers' - linked by a vertical stroke, anciently, the kingly-priest in whom the 'san-tsai' were united or focused. It is a basically a 'trigram' - crossed by a vertical line. Like Walters, Nylan makes some rather bold claims for the Tai Hsuan Ching. But trying to place it in 'competition' against the Yi-Ching - is naive. The Tai Hsuan Ching, along with another text called the 'Lien Shan' (Mountains Standing Together' - has been included in the 'Imperial Oracle' of China. Nevertheless, Chinese history and culture tells its own story. The sexagenary cycles and yin-yang system connected with the Yi-Ching have governed everything of relevance - the cosmic calendar, medicine/healing arts/Taoist yoga, feng-shui, the martial arts, military strategy (Sun-tzu's ideas were based on it) against which, the role and influence of the Tai Hsuan Ching or Lien shan, have remained obscure, shadowy and marginal.

This classic has continually amazed the reviewer with its high incidence of "reality".One can only conclude that this is a reference oracle of the highest order and its time has come in the post-millenium world.It is indeed a reincarnation.It has applications as a daily calendar,intense wisdom to be considered at any time, and a living oracle.The tripartate philosophy supercedes the I Ching in many ways.This is well worth a look for any divinatory scholar.Highly recommended.

The magnificently resonant language in this short book made it a delight to read. However, I could not help but reflect that at the end, it's depressing. All man's works and labours turn to dust, all is "vanity and vexation of the soul". Therefore what is the meaning of life, what reason is there to strive, to carry on?

In the absence of any obvious and objective meaning, in the face of the transience of all things and the absence of justice, the answer (as in The Book of Job) appears to be once again to trust in God. Whether or not you're convinced by this depends on whether or not you have faith: it seems to me a central pivot upon which belief (and non-belief) depends.

The thing that hath been, is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. My eldest sister, Dawn, sent me this book. This was the simplest of gestures with the largest of statements. On the inside cover "Master the difference between invigorating pride and wicked arrogance....Lead by example and not by arrogance. I was not the only one to have read the words of "The Preacher". Doris Lessing very well encapsulates the depth of the beauty of early 17th century writing. This signatured style provides the King James version of The Bible with the longevity it has endured thus far.

loved this book as a child - and as an adult - the pictures (black & white sketches) are marvelous and remained with me for years.

Beautifully written tale of the last griffin who visits a town where his image-a statue- has been part of the old church for hundreds of years. The only person with enough courage to speak with the terrifying Griffin is the Minor Canon. The townsfolk are sure that the Griffin will eat their children. Their selfishness and small-mindedness leads them to a life they couldn't have imagined. A great fantasy in a very realistic world!

Delbanco, a Columbia University professor, shows the reader what is so great about American authors such as Herman Melville, Kate Chopin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen Crane and others. I'm not sure that the writing style (sentence complexity and vocabulary, etc)matches the intended audience for this arguement. Seems to me that if you pick up this book and can gather meaning from some its more obtuse sections, you already know why we need to continue to read the "classics".

I tangled with Required Reading in its opening pages. I had thought it was something more like The Lifetime Reading Plan and was dismayed when I thought I had stepped in some hardcore lit crit theory which can be a killjoy. The good news is, that's not what I stepped in. While Required Reading is rather like a capstone seminar and requires a college freshman's acquaintance with literature to really swim far with it, it is as engaging as it is edifying. It reminded me why I chose to major in lit back in school and was never sorry. To others who belong to that great English major diaspora, who find themselves lost among the Grisham worshippers, you can go home again with Delbanco.

The acid test of a book like this is whether or not you can disagree with some of the author's opinions but still want to keep reading, and Woodhouse succeeds just fine at passing this test. The openly personal nature of his readings of the texts he chooses excuses the leaving-out of so much (for instance, a gay "canon" with nothing about Gordon Merrick?), and the author's articulateness makes me hope he'll write a sequel.

One of the more engaging and refreshing studies of its type, though not without its controversial readings of the literature, much of which is not as insightful as this.

This book not only offers incredible insight into the work of gay fiction writers, it offers brilliant observations about what it's like to live life as a gay man. Woodhouse's ideas are original, compelling, and dead-on. My only reservation is that too few readers will be brave or intelligent enough to take Woodhouse's ideas and observations and apply them to their own lives. That's where they belong.

Out of the three English dictionaries I have installed this is the one I never use. If I run it ocasionally it takes forever to start (on a fairly equipped 800 MHz machine) and it then usually asks for the CD to be inserted (every 60 days, they say). Thats the point where I normally give up ...

I have purchased several similar products on CD-ROM format. And none of them can be compared with the uniqueness of this dictionary.

The main selling points:
Pronunciations of headwords are really exceptional clear (British and American). Many of them are provided with ample examples to the point that second language learners know how & when to use new words from its contexts. With over 50,000 definitions and over 100,000 examples sentences, it should be adequate for day-to-day reading task. You may use different searching criteria to find specific word. But the search engine is intelligent enough to give you ample related words on its default setting. For example, when you input the word 'dictionary' you got 52 of related words from its outcome instantly. This is a revolution in lexicography over traditional method.

This is not a perfect dictionary and none in our world. I hope in the future edition, there will be much larger headword entry, more learner-oriented features and more pictures and illustrations in fancy cartoonish format.

The dictionary is perfect! It has pronunciation for British, American and Australian English. It has an extensive list of usage examples for each entry. It also has some sections with subject-correlated words; for example, shows all different cars and describe their names, shows the car parts and some expressions related to the issue.
It comes with a CD that was intended to be interesting, since it has a voice engine that pronounces the words for you. BUT the application takes power from the computer, takes forever to startup and is excessively slow.
In a brief, only the dictionary is worth it.

Metzger in an ordained Christian minister. This book is theology prettied up to pass as scholarship.

Amplifying an earlier reviewer, Metzger also says maybe the ending of Mark's original gospel got burned. One imagines conflagrations all over Christendom, everywhere burning up just that last little bit of Mark.

Or maybe the _original_ copy of Mark got burned -- no wait, just the last couple pages of the original book got burned in the fire, so it must have been a tiny fire, and Mark died in the fire, the tiny fire, right, so he couldn't redo it. And there was only that one copy, and no rough drafts, right? Oh, oh, here it is: the fire got all the rough drafts, and the last page of the final version, and Mark.

Any stupidity will do for apology. A useless book.

If you're a believing Christian looking for the believers' orthodox account of gospel origins, this is a five- star book. Metzger knows a lot. He organizes well and writes clearly.

But you should realize Metzger is doing "believers' scholarship," not "critical scholarship." He starts with the idea the gospel stories are basically true (but not historically infallible) accounts of Jesus life. His job is to understand Jesus through the not-quite-inerrant gospels. Any scholarship that leads away from traditional theology isn't worth mentioning -- so he doesn't.

To his credit, Metzger does acknowledge some faith-confounding results of critical scholarship, but he always explains them away, even if the best thing he can come up with is silly.

Silly how? Here's an example. Critical scholars have long seen that the original gospel of Mark ends at 16:8, a few lines back from the current ending, without mentioning Jesus' ascension. That changes Mark's theology. Metzger admits the scholarship and even acknowledges it is correct: Mark's gospel did originally end without Jesus' ascension. But the reason, says Metzger, is that Mark up and died before he could get out those last eleven verses. [pg 92] I am not making this up.

Is silliness evil? No, it's not. Metzger seems like a nice guy. Silly is OK. But if you read this book you will miss all the scholarship about what the changed theology means, not just to Mark but to the history and development of Christian ideas.

What is bad about the book is that it is fundamentally about apology, not scholarship. You always get the believer's conclusion, always with the believer's spin. You don't get the uncomfortable conclusions of critical scholarship. You don't get the facts from the ancient texts that underlie the conclusions. And you don't get the non-silly reasoning behind critical scholarship's faith confounding conclusions.

Faith confounding how? Here's an example. Metzger acknowledges the pre-gospel Synoptic Saying Source, aka Q, exists. He mentions, but because it contradicts his theology (he says this himself) quickly dismisses, the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas. He ignores the fact that neither Q nor the Gospel of Thomas mention Jesus' death and resurrection. That's bad, because there is a large body of critical scholarship about this: Jesus' earliest followers, say many scholars, were not Christians!

Now, I don't know if the early-followers-not-Christians stuff is true or not. But I do know it's an important part of NT scholarship, and if you read this book you won't get any of it. Metzger doesn't mention the underlying facts and he doesn't mention the reasoning. Read this book and you won't even know the issue exists.

That's one example. There are many many others, particularly in the area of the early non-canonical gospels and their similarities, timing and relationship to our four modern gospels.

The good news is there are better books for non-believers, or for believers interested in real scholarship. One very good one is Harvard Professor Helmut Koester's: Ancient Christian Gospels Their History and Development.

Bruce Meztger seems to be the reigning scholar as far as early New Testament books are concerned. He's writen over ten books on that subject alone. From all information about the "Q" document to different textual versions of the gospels, he's your man.

This book, however, is not specifically about where the individual books of the New Testament Canon came from. Meztger does talk about who wrote them, to be sure, but he is more concerned with how they actually came to be canonized. He discuses the outside elements that brought the church to seperate certain books as authoritative(canonize), and investigates various books that were eventually rejected. One thing Meztger seems to stress is that the decision to include books in the canon was not done over night in one council; but gradually over roughly 300 years of various(though similar) 'lists' of books. Eventually he concludes with the excellent illustration:"If, for example, all the academies of music in the world were to unite in declaring Bach and Beethoven to be great musicians, we should reply, 'Thank you for nothing; we knew that already.'" Same thing with the canon.

I found this book to be extremly boring in places; I'm not very proficient in scholarly works. This book seems to be meant for college students. Its very helpful, though, for those who want to know how the New Testament came to be labeled as authoritative, hence the five stars. Don't miss the concluding essays on modern questions concerning the canon. I recomend this to budding Bible scholars or mature Christians.