Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine

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Riverhead Books, 2005 - Philosophy - 238 pages
Harold Bloom has written about religion and the Bible throughout his career, but now, with Jesus and Yahweh, he has written what may well be his most explosive, and important, book yet.
There is very little evidence of the historical Jesus-who he was, what he said. As Bloom writes, "There is not a sentence concerning Jesus in the entire New Testament composed by anyone who ever had met the unwilling King of the Jews." And so Bloom has used his unsurpassed skills as a literary critic to examine the character of Jesus, noting the inconsistencies, contradictions, and logical flaws throughout the Gospels. He also examines the character of Yahweh, who he finds has more in common with Mark's Jesus than he does with God the Father of the Christian and later rabbinic Jewish traditions. Bloom further argues that the Hebrew Bible of the Jews and the Christian Old Testament are very different books with very different purposes, political as well as religious.
"Jesus and Yahweh" is a thrilling and mind-opening read. It is paradigm-changing literary criticism that will challenge and illuminate Jews and Christians alike, and is sure to be one of the most discussed, debated, and celebrated books of the year. At a time when religion has come to take center stage in our political arena, Bloom's shocking conclusion, that there is no Judeo-Christian tradition-that the two histories, Gods, and even Bibles, are not compatible-may make readers rethink everything we take for granted about what we believed was a shared heritage.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
1
Eight Opening Reflections
10
JESUS
15
Copyright

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About the author (2005)

Harold Bloom was born on July 11, 1930 in New York City. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Cornell in 1951 and his Doctorate from Yale in 1955. After graduating from Yale, Bloom remained there as a teacher, and was made Sterling Professor of Humanities in 1983. Bloom's theories have changed the way that critics think of literary tradition and has also focused his attentions on history and the Bible. He has written over twenty books and edited countless others. He is one of the most famous critics in the world and considered an expert in many fields. In 2010 he became a founding patron of Ralston College, a new institution in Savannah, Georgia, that focuses on primary texts. His works include Fallen Angels, Till I End My Song: A Gathering of Last Poems, Anatomy of Influence: Literature as a Way of Life and The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of The King James Bible. Harold Bloom passed away on October 14, 2019 in New Haven, at the age of 89.

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