The Prophets: Who They Were, What They Are

Rating:
Summary: JUDEN! Heraus!
Review: Amusing survey of the ancient "prophets" -- some parts of which still have relevence today. Podhoretz will never rival David Letterman as a comic, but he has his moments, bless his soul.

Ultimately, one comes away from this screed with a refreshed appreciation of the Greek Gods, who are neither so self-righteous nor so whiney as the Hebrews. Hermes is so much brighter than a Moses or an Isaiah -- and let's not even bring Diana into it!

Podhoretz is astonishingly ignorant about modern-day Palestine, alas -- although one can forgive this from somebody from his underprivileged background. How one wishes a Henry Cabot Lodge or a Henry Adams were around to do this history up right! Chomsky does his best, but he too has a vulgar history and cannot always be trusted.

Rating:
Summary: Old Testament as ideology
Review: My first reaction to this book was moderate outrage, kneejerk politics, mind you, followed by grim satisfaction, the author should cap his conservative ministrations with re-entanglement with the altogether radical prophets of yore. The last embers of the once (and future) hothead still glimmering.
Need one indulge in the obvious observation that this proves an old charge, that the OT is ideology, a sentiment reminding one of Lewis Feuer's Ideology and Ideologists, a work so irate on the subject that it outstripped its anti-marxist tirade enough to find the source of the genre in the realm of the ancient Israelites.
The prophets are indeed remarkable by any reckoning in the mystery of the Axial Age, and science has not understood them. But the progression of Biblical Criticism has delivered the subject to a new world, and we are left with something almost more interesting than the 'last chance' efforts in a neo-conservative vein to keep American mentation in line and money flowing. Cf. The Bible Unearthed, by Silberman and Finkelstein.

Rating:
Summary: Yiddish comedy at mid-staff
Review: Podhoretz, who would seem a religionist of a low order, has written a wry study of the "prophets" of ancient Palestine. While most of them are more appealing than the dread Saul of Tarsus -- the Christians call him "Saint Paul" -- they remain dreary and humorless zealots, and hardly worthy of a civilized person's attention.

Podhoretz's profound enthusiasm for Mel Gibson's (...) "Passion of the Christ" is surprising -- but I suppose it is good (or at least original) to find a Yiddish supporter of such iconography in the 21st century.