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The scholarship is impeccable. His evaluation of critical scholarship is incisive and largely critical, yet he does not try to "beat something with nothing." He offers his own evaluations of the evidence in compelling ways. His compiling of Jewish views on Blasphemy makes for a tremendous resource for any student of the New Testament to make sense of Jesus' claims.
Do you want to know what Jesus actually claimed at his trial? Do you want to know what was so offensive to the ears of Jewish leaders so as to merit capital punishment? Read this book.
One caveat: if you are not used to reading works of scholarship on the New Testament (i.e. you are a layperson), this work can get very technical. You need to be aware of the tools of NT criticism (form, source, redaction, literary, etc.)in order to understand Bock's interaction with them. In other words, this book is not for everybody. It's not a "popular" treatment. But, if you want a workout, go for it!
I am very grateful to Dr. Bock for this resource.
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John Le Carre is a master of language and of character development. Patrick O'Brien comes to mind in the same veign of storytelling elegance. You just know that you are dealing with someone who is the man among boys in the NY Times Bestseller List realm. Le Carre is highly intellegent in his approach and how he makes intricate details centerpieces to plot. I truly enjoyed just being sucked into this novel, which is sometimes hard to say when describing strict genre writers. You can tell Le Carre is writing this because he enjoys his work.
I have a hunch this is not his best work. I have heard so much about Le Carre from friends and reviews that I know that his works are worthy and necessary reading. Perhaps this is a book I may have to come back and read again after I have become more acquanted with his artistry. My only criticisms are that Tim Cranmer was hard to penetrate as a main character and the story has several complicated flashbacks. Most assuredly they are necessary (I hope), but I found myself getting confused and distracted. Like I said, maybe I need to read more of his work and come back to this novel at another time in the future. Perhaps I will pick up some technique or formula I was missing that only fans of John Le Carre can pick up on.
Good writers of this type of genre are reknown because they know their subjects so well and know the landscape their characters dwell in so intimately that the stories they tell are believable. Le Carre will be an author remembered 100 or 200 years from now, I am sure. He is incredible to read and it is fun to read. That is the true measure of any author--make it enjoyable. I will other reviews of John Le Carre in the future I am most sure of that.
Being the same age as Tim Cramner and having been "early retired" myself was a real attention grabber for me. It was extremely interesting to see how another "cold warrior" was handling his own post-cold war existence.
I was about a third into the book when I thought to check this site for comments - BAD IDEA! The BOOKLIST review TELLS THE ENTIRE STORY - Shame on it, AND Amazon.com for putting it on the site. Luckily, I caught myself before seeing too much. Hope other readers do too.
Le Carre's attention to detail is what MAKES his stories (for me at least) so gripping. So my only gripe abt OUR GAME is that he DOESN'T develop the EMMA character nearly enough to make me see why Cranmer is in love with her. Le Carre doesn't succeed much better with Larry. He too, remained relatively one-dimensional for me. Sure, spys are supposed to be "shadowy", but I still had a tough time trying to see what it was about him that so intrigued Emma. (I know, she's fm Venus and us Martians won't ever understand.)
But as I said at the top, Tim C is the character I was MOST interested in, and Le Carre's "first person" narrative kept me reading way past my bedtime. I found myself specifically scheduling the final chapter for a time when I could read it line by line, covering what was coming with paper.
For someone new to Le Carre, however, I'd recommend "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" first. It is STILL the best spy book ever written; and the movie with Richard Burton is also still the best of its genre.
One of the problems is that the characters aren't very appealing. Tim is an insufferable public-school Englishman about whose fate we care nil plus the square root of zero. Larry is a professor who's committment to the downtrodden of the world seems an ego trip, the female lead is an airheaded artist who doesn't seem to merit the sort of admiration she gets.
But the subject matter is interesting. Who ever heard of the Ingush people until Le Carre wrote about them? His portayal of them is superb: the downtrodden ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union asseting themselves brutally, stupidly, unsuccesfully, but with doomed courage and dedication. "Our Game" is kind of thin gruel compared to Le Carre's great cold war novels, but it's worth a read.
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