Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Book Review: Life In Year One


Frequent Readers of QG know that I usually do not review books that I didn't like. However, I am making an exception for Life in Year One by Scott Korb in the interest of alerting those of you who are looking for interesting material for adult study groups. Avoid this one.

I thought this would be a good addition to my teaching library, but was disappointed to find that it was very derivative of the work of John Dominic Crossan, former Catholic priest and founder of the Jesus Seminar. The author quotes so frequently from Crossan's The Birth of Christianity and his book with co-author Jonathan L. Reed, Excavating Christianity, that I wonder why this was published. I'm not a fan of Crossan and do not agree with his theological point of view, but if you are, I suggest you just read his books instead of this one.

Additionally, much of the text is contained in the numerous footnotes which are in teensy tinsy print which makes the book difficult to read.

Caveat lector.

3 comments:

Sue said...

Thanks for the heads-up QG. It's just as important to know what *not* to bother with as it is to know what is good.

recovering baptist said...

Frankly, I found Borg and Crossan some what heretical so thanks I wont even bother reading this.

John McNeese said...

As one who was no fan of the Apostle Paul, Crossan and Borg’s “First Paul” gave me a new appreciation of him.