Recommended book for 2015-February
The Songs of Galileo: Book 1: Voice of God
2015-February's selection
Avigdor Shinan and Valerie Zakovitch:
"From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends"
Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store.
$20.93 plus postage in Paperback.
Available in Kindle format for $9.40.
Amazon.com book description:
"The ancient Israelites believed things that the writers of the Bible wanted them to forget: myths and legends from a pre-biblical world that the new monotheist order needed to bury, hide, or reinterpret.
Ancient Israel was rich in such literary traditions before the Bible reached the final form that we have today. These traditions were not lost but continued, passed down through the ages. Many managed to reach us in post-biblical sources: rabbinic literature, Jewish Hellenistic writings, the writings of the Dead Sea sect, the Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and other ancient translations of the Bible, and even outside the ancient Jewish world in Christian and Islamic texts. The Bible itself sometimes alludes to these traditions, often in surprising contexts.
Written in clear and accessible language, this volume presents thirty such traditions. It voyages behind the veil of the written Bible to reconstruct what was told and retold among the ancient Israelites, even if it is “not what the Bible tells us."
Christopher McConnell of Booklist:
"The Hebrew Bible—what Christianity calls the Old Testament—is a collection of texts containing stories that '... aimed to persuade readers of the existence of one god and of their relationship with that god.' In compiling, editing, and shaping these texts into the books we know today, the biblical authors had to contend with other vibrant, prebiblical traditions, aspects of which were oftentimes inconvenient. Shinan and Zakovitch approach 30 specific Bible stories (e.g., Was Goliath really slain by a young boy named David?) as literary archaeologists, sifting through varying accounts in the biblical texts themselves and examining extrabiblical sources for evidence of alternate versions. Their thoughtful and sympathetic exegesis uncovers possible explanations why the biblical authors saw their interpretations of these stories as best suited to instruct a nation. Most important, they introduce the oral and literary traditions of ancient Israel with breathtaking clarity and ease."
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You might consider getting a Kindle ebook reader app:
Amazon.com has many millions of movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, books, and audiobooks available for download into their Kindle eBook reader or Kindle app. As of 2013-NOV, stand-alone readers cost from $79 and up. Versons of the Kindle app are available for Ipads, PC's, Mac computers, etc.
Benefits to the Kindle:
- Amazon provides FREE reader apps that you can dowload to your PC, tablet, and many other devices.
- Various models of Kindles can store from 1,000 to 3,500 books and are more more portable than lugging thousands of books with you.
- Ebooks can save a lot of money, because eBook versions generally cost significantly less than print versions.
- Amazon makes a suprisingly large number of books available at no cost. Over a million cost $4.99 or less.
- Delivery of the books over the Internet is free and almost instantaneous.
- You don't need to build or expand bookshelves.
- You don't need to dust off Kindle copies of books.
- Think of all the trees that would be saved if more people abandoned printed copies.
- They have a built-in dictionary.
- They are very light and thinner than a pencil.
- Many books can be lent to other Kindle or Kindle app users.
- Battery life if you use a kindle for 30 minutes a day is 4 weeks.
However, beware that some publishers take advantage of buyers, and charge more for the digital versions than for the print versions. We have a policy of not buying such copies.
Ebooks have a search function. You can select passages from books and store them in a text file for use by an editor program on a PC or Mac. They have a built-in dictionary to find the meanings of words.
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Originally written: 2009-MAY-03
Latest update: 2015-FEB-02
Author: B.A. Robinson
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