I finally finished the Pope's Jesus of Nazareth. I breathe a sigh of relief: for some reason this book was incredibly tedious to me. I had to force my way through it. To be sure, I found it to be full of insights on the life of our Lord, but inexplicably it did not hold my interest.
Not so the next book on my list: Mary: The Church at the Source. Already I find it much more engaging. There is some interesting material here on the history of Vatican II, an introduction by (then Cardinal) Ratzinger to Pope JPII's encyclical Redemptoris Mater, and more. I'm planning at least one or two posts already.
After this I've got two more books by Ratzinger on my shelves, and then I'll be moving on to other stuff again for a while. Perhaps after Rice and Gambero (see the sidebar) I'll read some more Chesterton.
2 comments:
Dr. Michael Foley has an interesting review of Jesus of Nazareth in the latest Latin Mass magazine in which he praises Benedict's rehabilitation of what's good in the historical critical method and throws out the bad, and also how he engages in appropriate inter-religious dialogue (here with Rabbi Jacob Neusner) without conceding anything at all of the Faith. You should check it out if you haven't.
I'm reading Benedict's book on the Apostles. Smaller snippets, less dense (but still Ratzingerian) than Jesus of Nazareth.
On an unrelated note, Dr. Alice von Hildebrand has the first of a series of articles critiquing Jacques Maritain, and I will be interacting with that critically (and congenially, I hope) on Syzygus.
Hi Mike,
I thought the parts with Neusner were very interesting. I found the stuff on the historical-critical method to be helpful, which is high praise coming from me: as a former Reformed Bible student, there was little else I loathed so firmly as modern Bible criticism.
I look forward to your posts concerning Maritain :-)
Peace,
RdP
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