The Buckleys have crafted a beautiful story about decisions made in haste and subsequent redemption.The artwork is superb and carries along a well-crafted story. This was my younger daughter's favorite library book and I believe all children will enjoy it.

i have yet to read this book.send me some edited part

Perhaps this is a bit unfair of me, but let's just take a look at two translations of one of Eluard's best known poems, "L'amoureuse."

Translation 1: She is standing on my lids / And her hair is in my hair / She has the color of my eye / She has the body of my hand, / In my shade she is engulfed / As a stone against the sky. /

She will never close her eyes / And she does not let me sleep. / And her dreams in the bright day / Make the suns evaporate / And me laugh cry and laugh, / Speak when I have nothing to say.

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Translation #2: She is standing on my eyelids, / Her hair mingles with mine, / She takes on the shape of my hands, / She is the color of my eyes, / She is absorbed by my shadow / Like a stone against the sky. /

Her eyes are forever open / She doesn't let me sleep. / Her dreams in the light of day / Make the suns evaporate, / Make me laugh, cry, and laugh again, / And babble on with nothing to say.

---

I posted the two versions so you can judge for yourself, but it seems to me the first is far superior to the second. Not surprisingly, the first is by Samuel Beckett, and his faithfulness to Eluard is not only one of meaning but of rhythm. Alas, it is the second, wooden version that you will find in "Shadows and Sun," and the two translators' tin ears do ill service to Eluard throughout the book. The best thing you can say about this volume is that it contains the French original, and the literal translations should help people with a rudimentary knowledge of French to enjoy Eluard in his own language. But if you can't sound out the French to hear the sonorousness of Eluard's lines, then these translations will give you a very poor impression of the poems' lyrical beauty.

As for where you might find the Beckett translation... well, I don't know. I wrote his translation down in a notebook years and years ago but neglected to write where I found it. I believe it was in a collection of Beckett's writing and not of Eluard's.

I am intrigued by the speeches given during the resistance of WWII, after the first war, at the first surrealist exposition in London, and the 2nd surrealist manifesto of 1924 by angry young men who had seen too much suffering in the war and were looking for a "new language", a new consciousness to overcome the errors of romanticism and super rationalism that resulted in supernationalism and megalomania.

Eluard was a modest human being, in love with life, and love, and Gala, and primitive art. Read Premierement /First of All, admonishing Gala for keeping her "brain in its attic" and forgetting her commitment to her first love, or "She is standing on my eyelids"; or on justice, "Bonne Justice/Good Justice" and "Minuit", on a poor resistance fighter condemned to be shot; or on learning to see with Picasso in two essays and poems from the book "Donner a Voir."

The Historical introduction, Chronological Contents, definitions of surrealism, and bibliography make good reading in themselves. The translations are "seamless", straight forward, do not betray the poet, so provide a fine way to approach the originals on opposite pages.

Pablo Neruda was his good friend, and must have read Eluard long before he wrote "Walking Around."

Paul Eluard was the best beloved European poet of the first half of our century, which William Golding has called the most violent in human history. While illusions were destroyed, this writer wrote love poems, for which he is best known; as medic and infantryman in both world wars, wrote about (while Picasso painted) the devastating bombing of Guernica on market day in broad daylight, during the Spanish Civil War, and the German occupation of France, while he searched for a release from sentimental romanticism and "superpatriotism" held responsible by the Surrealists for the wars, as they recognized the importance of the subconscious and "desire", to find a new language that would help to achieve justice with mercy and release men from the constraints of false values. A historical introduction records this collaboration between writers and painters, who illustrated Eluard's books, with 6 here by Picasso, Chagall, Andre Lhote and Magritte. 6 intriguing prose pieces concern the idea of committed poetry (engagee), Picasso's role in teaching others to see, and the Surrealist Declaration of 1925. Neruda and many others followed the search of this seminal poet. A fine compilation of the poet's life work, with French and accurate, seamless English translations on opposite pages.

WILL THE REAL JESUS PLEASE STAND UP? (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998) is a transcript of the debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan. The book contains responses to the debate by two conservatives (Craig L. Blomberg and Ben Witherington III) and two liberals (Robert J. Miller and Marcus Borg). Finally, Craig and Crossan each offer some concluding reflections on the debate.

Given that Craig and Crossan hold diametrically opposed views of Christian origins, this debate could have been an excellent opportunity to learn why each camp rejects the empirical claims of the other. Whereas the conservatives presented arguments for their positions (and point-by-point objections to Crossan's position), the liberals simply did not take the debate very seriously. Not only did Crossan fail to engage Craig on the specifics of his case, Crossan refused to engage in any historical argumentation. Instead, Crossan argued that the New Testament documents--including their accounts of resurrection--should be taken as metaphor. Now, even if that is true--and conservatives will obviously disagree--it was simply poor argumentative strategy on Crossan's part to neglect the empirical claims advanced by Craig. Given that Crossan denies the truth of each of Craig's four historical claims--burial by Joseph of Arimathea, empty tomb, post-resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith--I think Crossan did a disservice to his audience by failing to defend his objections to each of Craig's four historical claims.

To make matters worse, the two liberal commentators on the debate (Miller and Borg) *also* refused to interact with Craig's arguments for the historicity of the resurrection. Miller, in the introduction to his commentary, mysteriously declares, "[I]nstead of responding directly to Craig's argument, I will step back from it and analyze its format, message, and audience" (p. 77). Say what? Borg's commentary is slightly better; Borg argues that the original understanding of resurrection--represented by 1 Corinthians 15--"does not depend upon something having happened to Jesus' corpse" (p. 123). Yet Borg, like Miller and Crossan himself, declares as irrelevant whether the resurrection is literally, historically true.

Given their understanding of "resurrection," the liberals simply could not bring themselves to take Craig's apologetic arguments seriously. While that is certainly their prerogative, they never should have agreed to participate in this project if they were not fully committed to exploring the *full scope* of the topic. Someone needs to tell Crossan, Miller, and Borg that the concept of debate is based upon a *clash of ideas*; if they are not willing to directly clash with the arguments of their opponents; they should not agree to participate! If Crossan was only interested in debating whether Jesus' resurrection was a physical resurrection which depended upon an empty tomb, he should have refused to participate in a debate format where the truth of certain historical claims would be an issue. By participating in a debate but never really debating, Crossan has now managed to give the impression that he did not refute Craig's arguments because he can't refute Craig's arguments. This is, of course, false; there are excellent reasons for rejecting Craig's historical arguments. (See my forthcoming reply to Craig's arguments for the historicity of the empty tomb.) But the vast majority of Crossan's Evangelical audience will never hear those reasons because Crossan couldn't be bothered to state them, either in the debate itself or in his concluding comments.

Turning to the debater's concluding reflections, I was not impressed by the fact that Craig got to give his opening statement first *and* that his concluding reflections appeared last. Of course, Craig's and Crossan's concluding reflections were presumably written simultaneously and independent of one another, but in a debate where no one side had the sole burden of proof, Crossan's concluding reflections should have appeared last in the volume.

In conclusion, given the liberals' refusal to fully participate in this debate, I can't recommend this book to anyone, even as an introductory text. There are better introductory books available on the views of both Craig and Crossan.

Craig and Crossan both provide opening addresses, and rebuttals before the two debaters participate in open dialog with Buckley as moderator. Craig presents four lines of evidence which provide "adequate inductive grounds for inferring Jesus' resurrection." He defends all four (Jesus' burial, empty tomb, post-mortem appearances, and the disciples' belief in Jesus' bodily resurrection) by appealing to confirmatory evidence and the acknowledgement by the consensus of critical New Testament scholarship that these are all established historical facts. As amazing as it may sound, at no point does Crossan, or any of the four respondents (Robert Miller, Craig Blomberg, Marcus Borg, & Ben Witherington) even challenge the historicity of these facts. Nor do they challenge that these facts are accepted by the consensus of scholarship, nor that they provide sufficient grounds to infer the resurrection, nor do they suggest any alternate explanations for even one of these facts. I wish that the scholars who deny the resurrection would address these problems rather than avoid them; it's difficult to get excited about a debate when one side refuses to argue.

This was a great book and I agree with the general observations of the vast majority of the reviewers. That is, Craig won hands down. Crossan didn't really even enter the debate which surprised and disappointed some reviewers. But it's really not surprising at all. Crossan's arguments (or lack there of) come directly from the work of the Jesus Seminar. And Crossan's utter defeat illustrates that the Seminar's work is of little value in disproving the Gospels and the mainstream Christian interpetation of them as largely accurate, HISTORICAL accounts of Jesus' life.
Rather, the Jesus Seminar must be looked upon as an experiment in liberal theological thought. It was a chance for liberal scholars to come together and develop a consensus unburdened by critical peer review from their more conservative, and for the most part more mainstream, more distinguished peers.
The result was a new pardigm for interperting the NT. Briefly, the consensus was that it is all symbolism and metaphor. This new paradigm is a logical outcome based on the assumptions, membership, and methods of the seminar. But when brought out into the light of day, it is very awkward and even ridiculous.
The seminar serves a worthwhile purpose as an experiment and "anchor" at the extreme liberal end of the spectrum. But not much else.