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Product Identifiers
PublisherFree Press
ISBN-100743242998
ISBN-139780743242998
eBay Product ID (ePID)2284145
Product Key Features
Book TitleBeginning of Wisdom : Reading Genesis
Number of Pages720 Pages
LanguageEnglish
TopicJudaism / Sacred Writings, Biblical Commentary / General, General
Publication Year2003
IllustratorYes
GenreReligion, Philosophy
AuthorLeon R. Kass
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height1.9 in
Item Weight30.7 Oz
Item Length9 in
Item Width6 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN2002-045593
ReviewsLeon WieseltierAuthor ofKaddishOnce upon a time, before everyone was an original, commentary was a proud and primary activity of serious intellectuals, and no embarrassment attached to the hunger for wisdom. With this uncommonly rich and stimulating book, Leon R. Kass has refreshed a magnificent tradition and grandly joined its ranks. There are genuine profundities in these pages. They teach by example that there is nothing more beautiful than philosophy. Happy (but not too happy!) is the man who thinks such thoughts, and happy is the reader upon whom such thoughts fall., Kirkus Reviews (starred) A learned and fluent, delightfully overstuffed stroll through the Gates of Eden....Mix Harold Bloom with Stephen Jay Gould and you'll get something like Kass. A wonderfully intelligent reading of Genesis., Leon Wieseltier Author of Kaddish Once upon a time, before everyone was an original, commentary was a proud and primary activity of serious intellectuals, and no embarrassment attached to the hunger for wisdom. With this uncommonly rich and stimulating book, Leon R. Kass has refreshed a magnificent tradition and grandly joined its ranks. There are genuine profundities in these pages. They teach by example that there is nothing more beautiful than philosophy. Happy (but not too happy!) is the man who thinks such thoughts, and happy is the reader upon whom such thoughts fall., Kirkus Reviews(starred)A learned and fluent, delightfully overstuffed stroll through the Gates of Eden....Mix Harold Bloom with Stephen Jay Gould and you'll get something like Kass. A wonderfully intelligent reading of Genesis., Michael FishbaneNathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies, The University of Chicago Tertullian famously asked, What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? -- and now Leon Kass has formulated an answer, the product of a lifelong quest: the reason of philosophy can help reveal the spirit of Scripture. The result is a penetrating reading of Genesis, with challenging conclusions. Writing in luminous prose, Kass draws his reader into a pedagogy of compelling thoughtfulness., Michael FishbaneNathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies, The University of ChicagoTertullian famously asked, What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? -- and now Leon Kass has formulated an answer, the product of a lifelong quest: the reason of philosophy can help reveal the spirit of Scripture. The result is a penetrating reading of Genesis, with challenging conclusions. Writing in luminous prose, Kass draws his reader into a pedagogy of compelling thoughtfulness.
TitleLeadingThe
Dewey Edition22
Dewey Decimal222/1106
Table Of ContentCONTENTS Preface: The Professor and the FossilIntroduction: The Beginning of Wisdom PART ONEDANGEROUS BEGINNINGS: THE UNINSTRUCTED WAYSGENESIS 1-11 1. Awesome Beginnings: Man, Heaven, and the Created Order2. The Follies of Freedom and Reason: The Story of the Garden of Eden (I)3. The Vexed Question of Man and Woman: The Story of the Garden of Eden (II)4. Fratricide and Founding: The Twisted Roots of Civilization5. Death, Beautiful Women, and the Heroic Temptation: The Return of Chaos and the Flood6. Elementary Justice: Man, Animals, and the Coming of Law and Covenant7. Paternity and Piety: Noah and His Sons8. Babel: The Failures of Civilization PART TWOEDUCATING THE FATHERSGENESIS 12-50 Abraham (Genesis 12-25)9. Educating the Fathers: Father Abraham10. Educating Father Abraham: The Meaning of Marriage11. Educating Father Abraham: The Meaning of PatriarchyIsaac (Genesis 25-28)12. Inheriting the Way: From Father to Son13. The Education of Isaac: From Son to PatriarchJacob (Genesis 28-35)14. The Adventures of Jacob: The Taming of the Shrewd15. Brotherhood and Piety: Facing Esau, Seeing God16. Politics and Piety: Jacob Becomes IsraelThe Generations of Jacob: Joseph, Judah, and Their Brothers (Genesis 36-50)17. The Generations of Jacob: The Question of Leadership18. Joseph the Egyptian19. Joseph and His Brothers: Estrangement and Recognition20. Israel in Egypt: The Way Not Taken21. Losing Joseph, Saving Israel: Jacob Preserves the WayEpilogue: The End of the BeginningEndnotesIndex
SynopsisImagine that you couldreallyunderstand the Bible...that you could read, analyze, and discuss the book of Genesis not as a compositional mystery, a cultural relic, or a linguistic puzzle palace, or even as religious doctrine, but as a philosophical classic, precisely in the same way that a truth-seeking reader would study Plato or Nietzsche. Imagine that you could be led in your study by one of America's preeminent intellectuals and that he would help you to an understanding of the book that is deeper than you'd ever dreamed possible, that he would reveal line by line, verse by verse the incredible riches of this illuminating text -- one of the very few that actually deserve to be called seminal. Imagine that you could get, from Genesis, the beginning of wisdom.The Beginning of Wisdomis a hugely learned book that, like Genesis itself, falls naturally into two sections. The first shows how the universal history described in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, from creation to the tower of Babel, conveys, in the words of Leon Kass, "a coherent anthropology" -- a general teaching about human nature -- that "rivals anything produced by the great philosophers." Serving also as a mirror for the reader's self-discovery, these stories offer profound insights into the problematic character of human reason, speech, freedom, sexual desire, the love of the beautiful, pride, shame, anger, guilt, and death. Something as seemingly innocuous as the monotonous recounting of the ten generations from Adam to Noah yields a powerful lesson in the way in which humanity encounters its own mortality. In the story of the tower of Babel are deep understandings of the ambiguous power of speech, reason, and the arts; the hazards of unity and aloneness; the meaning of the city and its quest for self-sufficiency; and man's desire for fame, immortality, and apotheosis -- and the disasters these necessarily cause. Against this background of human failure, Part Two ofThe Beginning of Wisdomexplores the struggles to launch a new human way, informed by the special Abrahamic covenant with the divine, that might address the problems and avoid the disasters of humankind's natural propensities. Close, eloquent, and brilliant readings of the lives and educations of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob's sons reveal eternal wisdom about marriage, parenting, brotherhood, education, justice, political and moral leadership, and of course the ultimate question: How to live a good life? Connecting the two "parts" is the book's overarching philosophical and pedagogical structure: how understanding the dangers and accepting the limits of human powers can open the door to a superior way of life, not only for a solitary man of virtue but for an entire community -- a life devoted to righteousness and holiness. This extraordinary book finally shows Genesis as a coherent whole, beginning with the creation of the natural world and ending with the creation of a nation that hearkens to the awe-inspiring summons to godliness.A unique and ambitious commentary, a remarkably readable literary exegesis and philosophical companion,The Beginning of Wisdomis one of the most important books in decades on perhaps the most important -- and surely the most frequently read -- book of all time.
LC Classification NumberBS1235.53.K37 2003
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- 17. Sep. 2019
Good Book, Good Price
Stimulating theological reading.Bestätigter Kauf: JaArtikelzustand: Gebraucht
- 27. Aug. 2019
Thanks
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- 17. Jun. 2020
Extensively researched
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