My friend has borrowed volume I and I'm afraid he may never give it back... There is so much that is subtle in the Gospels that is brought to light. I've never seen anything else like it. I'm shocked that this work was ever permitted to go out of print.

I am so glad this book is back in print! Can you imagine how valuable a Bible commentary written by early Christians themselves would be? Well, this comes very close! St. Thomas Aquinas himself compiled this opus from sermons and commentaries on the Gospels written by the early Church Fathers. He arranged their thoughts in such a way that they form a continuous commentary on each Gospel, verse-by-verse. How I wish Aquinas had done this with the rest of Sacred Scripture as well! It's pricey, but well worth it for the serious Bible scholar.

I like country, just don't spend much time actively in it. This treatment of the subject is thorough and easy to follow in its points. Written from a solid Christian perspective, the authors make the consistent point that country has as its roots a Christian, gospel orientation.

While such orientation does not predominate, it is there and has always been there. Now, contemporary country fights the battle with other venues of the pop culture. Amazing the story of Alan Jackson at the CMC awards. Right on Alan. I knew this man was a winner!

One learns much about the real world from country music. Nothing is hidden in the lyrics of this music, it tells it like it is. People can relate to it. It's not all the hype of pop. Until, Garth et al started letting it seep in.

Suggest also Mark Zwonitzer's excellent book on the Carter Family where he shows how the Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis types cut their musical teeth on Country Gospel, then lost it to the commercialism.

What we sell our souls for! This book exposes that while admirably detailing how traditional country supports classic Christian values. Well done and great read!

While I'm not a real fan of country music myself, I did find this book to be a great read. Country music may be the last vestige of popular American culture that still has Christian underpinings but it has also begun to drift as it is swallowed up by the "no-brow" culture of marketing. The authors do seem to have some trouble with facts (Bristol is in Virginia and Tennessee not Kentucky and the relationship between Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart) but other than a few minor points the thesis still holds up.

Father Keating presents solid, classic concepts of mystic theology in a fashion so simple and gentle that the clarity is astonishing. As is usual in his works, one discovers new insight in (and often awe for) passages of scripture one thought one knew all too well. He also incorporates brief mention of sacramental theology - speaking a volume in a sentence.

As one example, Father Keating's treatment of the raising of Lazarus, lovely in its simplicity, is a powerful look at faith, patience, love, original sin, personal sin, reconciliation, and how Jesus's humanity was touched by the incident.

This book is not only suited for those with a deep interest in theology - in fact, that does not seem the general intended audience. Anyone with an interest in prayer and the gospels will find this a peaceful but deep means to strengthening that commitment. Everything is presented clearly and well, which is not a common trait of theologians!

This book presents an outstanding understanding of the personality types including psychosocial development. It correlates Jungian personality types (and Meyers-Briggs Type Indicators) to a spiritual and biblical context to help us in our journey toward wholeness. This is an excellent resource for personal growth as well as retreat material. I am a psychotherapist and a spiritual director. I have used it for many years with my directees to help them better understand themselves in relationship to God, scripture, and their spiritual growth.

Anyone who shares my passion for the Gospel and Ignatius of Antioch can't afford not to have this book in their personal collection. His mastery of the inner meanings of the Gospel are unparralleled. For anyone caught in the tumultuous seas of Biblical Literature, this book is the lighthouse that will guide you to truth.

The Gospel of Thomas is the most important resource for the study of the teachings of Jesus outside of the New Testament. Andrew Smith's new version of the Gospel of Thomas is a fine introduction to that important text. His commentary on the "Inner Meaning" of the Gospel of Thomas, linking it to the "Fourth Way" school of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, is very interesting; it is a landmark effort to make Thomas a useful spiritual guide for the present day. Today, Smith writes, "The Gospel of Thomas asks us to choose between being dead and becoming the image of God." In addition to a full translation of
the Gospel of Thomas, Smith's book contains a useful historically-based introduction to the text to enable ordinary readers to put Thomas into historical context and a set of penciled illustrations based on religious works by Rembrandt van Rijn.

Prof. Stevan Davies was one of the first scholars to take the Gospel of Thomas seriously as a first century text. An acknowledged expert in his field, he is fascinated by early Christianity, has few preconceptions as to its earliest form, and is always willing to try out new ideas.

This book contains a solid translation of the Gospel of Thomas, a good introduction, plus a new age preface by Andrew Harvey. The great strength of the book is the saying by saying commentary. Davies does not try to give a unified interpretation of the Gospel of Thomas, but to "offer suggestions, share observations, and participate in a reader's seeking..." Prof Davies has a way of wheedling out the system of thought that lurks beneath the text, and he looks at the sayings as clearly as he can, disregarding religious or scholarly commonplaces. This is one of the three or four best books on the Gospel of Thomas.

Mr. Hock pioneered in the recent studies of Infancy Gospels by making the original texts available too all. I personally appreciate much of his effort of editing the critical apparatus/textual variant, as well as his scholarly introductory notes on the two Infancy Gospels. This book has been very useful in my research paper, especially when I began working on a paper about the apocrphal Infancy Gospels, I had the impression that this subject has not yet been thoroughly researched by scholars. I want to thank Mr. Hock's good work.

«I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives» - Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson was a private man, and nowhere more so than in religious matters. A believer in the «eternal divorce» of religious opinion from civil authority, he was just as wary of the curtailment of individual freedom of conscience by the tyranny of public pressure, castigating the tyrants with clean hands who «altho' the laws will no longer permit them... to burn those who are not exactly of their Creed, ... raise the Hue and cry of Heresy against them, place them under the ban of public opinion, and shut them out from all the kind affections of society.» Afraid of any undue influence on other people's opinions, and jealous of any interference with his own much abused tranquility and reputation, this man who was «in a sect of my own» refrained till the end of his life from any public disclosure of his beliefs in divine matters.

However, his silence did not extend to those among his closer friends whom he suspected to be receptive to his unorthodox opinions, and in addition to his correspondence with them, time -seconded by the efforts of the editors of the present volume- has preserved for us two remarkably revealing documents : «The Philosophy of Jesus», which he composed in 1804, and «The Life and Morals of Jesus», which produced about fifteen years later.

These two pamphlets, the former in English, and the latter in four languages (Greek, Latin, French and English), evince Jefferson's enduring dedication to what he believed to be the restoration of Christ's authentic life and message. Their method of composition, matured after reading and rereading Joseph Priestley's radical, Unitarian treatises on the subject (such as his *History of the Corruptions of Christianity* and his *History of the Early Opinions Concerning Jesus Christ*), was simply to rewrite the Gospels by cutting out anything smacking of the «idolatry and superstition» of the «vulgar», any reference to the supernatural or to Jesus's divinity, and retaining only the «diamonds» that were his sermons and parables.

These two pamphlets tell the story of a child, born to a Jewish couple, who grows up in wisdom, preaches for a short while a reformed (one is almost tempted to say «Enlightened») version of the wicked faith and morality of his people, and is put to death by the civil and religious authorities, a martyr of the unholy alliance of church and state. This man never rose from the dead nor performed any miracles whatsoever, and if he ever claimed to be divinely inspired, the error was excusable : «Elevated by the enthusiasm of a warm and pure heart , conscious of the high strains of an eloquence which had not been taught to him, he might readily mistake the coruscations of his own fine genius for inspirations of a higher order.»

Jefferson deeply regretted his revered Jewish reformer died «at about 33, his reason having not yet attained the maximum of it's energy», but he nonetheless considered the system of morality he had begun to develop to be «the most benevolent and sublime that has been ever taught ; and eminently more perfect than those of any of the antient philosophers». He saw in this system the ultimate guarantee of the one value that seemed to matter to him above all others : social «utility» or harmony, the state of generalized peace and goodwill which is achieved when men refrain from initiating force against each other and love each other as Jesus loved them. And he saw in it too, the one common denominator in all the preachings of the myriad Christian sects, the one hope of their ultimate reconciliation and of an end to centuries of religious wars and persecutions : for only dogma, that crazed concoction of corrupt, «overlearned professors» and priests, divided them.

But *Jefferson's Extracts From the Gospels* contains much more than reproductions of his heretic selections from the Evangelists. It also includes a highly competent and sensible introduction to Jefferson's religious evolution, from the influence of Bolingbroke to that of Priestley; and, perhaps my favorite section of the volume, a one-hundred-page collection of letters written by or to Jefferson from 1800 to 1825, and revealing his opinion of Plato («a Graecian sophist... dealing out mysticisms incomprehensible to the human mind»), Epicurus (whose doctrines «contain everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us») and Calvin («a madman... on whom reasoning was wasted. The strait jacket alone was [his] proper remedy») ; of the Quakers (whom we should all imitate, opting to «live without an order of priests, moralise for ourselves, follow the oracle of conscience, and say nothing about what no man can understand nor therefore believe») and the Unitarians (whose «advances towards rational Christianity» would soon convert the whole nation) ; of the Apocalypse («the ravings of a maniac») and the «incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three.»

I would not recommend this book to anyone seeking answers to the ultimate questions, but if all you want to know is what Jefferson believed in, I cannot imagine a better source.

This is a wonderful book for those interested in Christian mysticism and/or Carmelite spirituality. My faith in the Lord, understanding of the Gospel and of contemplative prayer has deepened as a result of reading about the lives and teachings of Saint Therese and Saint John of the Cross. This book served to inspire and motivate me to to relinquish everything that gets in the way of love of God, and to devote my entire life to this end.

I took over a year to go through this book: reading a few pages, then processing it for several days or weeks. Explaining mystical prayer is very difficult outside of trying to describe the experience, yet Fr. Dubay uses the writings of these saints beautifully for instruction and reflection. He spends considerable time refuting modern critics and cynics by demonstrating the Gospel calls all of us to deep union with God (according to God's choosing). He seems to write about this central theme endlessly; yet, without being verbose or tedious. My prayer life had become very dynamic over the year or so before I found this book. Reading it gave me some way of making sense of it all. I expect to reread it several more times throughout my life.

Fr. Thomas Dubay has been able to synthesize the teachings of two of the greatest teachers and mystics in the Catholic tradition. A comprehensive discussion of St. Teresa's "mansions" and St. John of the Cross's "dark night of the soul," this book is also a practical guide for people who want to grow in prayer and in the universal call to holiness. Fr. Dubay is an authority on both theory and practice, and is a much sought-after spiritual director. His explanation of discerning genuine encounters with God versus one's own self-delusion is especially useful in the realm of contemplation, since contemplation is by its very nature not an objective experience. He elucidates the movement from meditation to contemplation and distinguishes it from other psychological states. His chaper on friendship and the development of virtues sets the entire contemplative experience within the context of the goal and purpose of prayer. This is a meaty book, but it is well worth the effort.