A Book Every Jew Should Read . . .

. . . and every Christian and every Muslim, too. Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus is a primer on the New Testament that aims to introduce the layman to the fundamentals of textual criticism. In addition to laying bare a number of ways in which Christian scribes altered the Biblical text to justify the Church's growing antisemitism in the early centuries after Christ, the book also contains fascinating discussions of the differences among the Gospels — particularly Mark and Luke — and the political and theological agendas of different scribes that led them to copy and miscopy the Bible in particular ways. (One minor point is that the rolling cadences of the Authorized Version were based on a Greek text that was corrupt and partly concocted.)

Equally fascinating is Ehrman's description of the methodology and labor that have been employed by Biblical scholars in hopes of recovering the lost "originals" of the New Testament manuscripts.

Jews and Muslims should take no solace in the discomfiture of the adherents of the New Testament, however. Ehrman suggests that the Hebrew scriptures suffer from fewer variants only because fewer manuscripts have survived, and he speculates that textual criticism of the Koran would reveal the same 'fingerprints' of human composition as the New Testament.

Getting Hitched

An interview with Christopher Hitchens at Powell's Books. I think his hopes for a tolerant, secular state emerging in Iraq are . . . naive. Given the corrupt manner in which we have managed the war, I do not think we ever really intended to create such a state, even assuming it could have been done. I think our priorities lay elsewhere, with oil and strategic military dominance in the region. Hitchens is a brilliant essayist, but he is also a bit of a crank.

Double Hitch

I just finished two vastly entertaining books by the irrepressible Christopher Hitchens: Why Orwell Matters and god is not Great. Of the two, the first was more instructive and the second more entertaining.

Why Orwell Matters tackles the question of why Orwell has worn so well when so many of his contemporaries are unreadable. Hitchens unflinchingly addresses both Orwell's legendary moral clarity and his moral lapses — mainly with respect to women and gays. Acknowledging the limitations of Orwell's early fictional efforts, in contrast to his lifelong mastery of the essay, Hitchens also shows how Orwell found his voice by the time he wrote Animal Farm and, in the shadow of impending death, 1984. Hitchens, a former Marxist, has a thorough mastery of the factional politics of Orwell's time on both the Right and the Left, and clearly delineates how Orwell, having been a forceful supporter of the war against Germany, made his name exposing the less apparent but equally monstrous evil of Stalinism at a time when many of his contemporaries were seeking to palliate it. On a minor note, I enjoyed the mention of Orwell's composing Coming Up for Air in Morocco, and the wicked skewering of French criticism and Claude Simon that comes as a coda to the book.

god is not Great, though it has a profounder subject, is in some ways a shallower book. A classic vituperative essay, it seeks not merely to show that religion is false but that it is wicked. Hitchens cites religion's laughable creation myths (and consequent enmity to science), its celebration of blood sacrifice, its genital mutilation, and its sexual repression as being among the qualities that have a poisonous influence on moral and civic life. In covering so much ground in several hundred pages, however, the book necessarily has a more general focus than, say, Hitchens' extended essay on Orwell.

New Depths for the GOP

In case anyone was wondering whether the level of political discourse from the GOP could sink any lower, we now have Rush Limbaugh race baiting Barack Obama with his song "Barack the Magic Negro."

R.I.P. David Halberstam

David Halberstam, 73, Dies in Car Crash - New York Times

The Dean of Modern Journalism and one of the Vietnam War's most intrepid reporters is dead at 73 after being hit broadside in a car accident in Menlo Park, California. A reporter to the end, Mr. Halberstam was conducting research for a book when he died. We mourn for Mr. Halberstam and for the books he will never write and note the bitter irony of a death on America's streets of one who endured so many perils abroad.

Horror in Virginia

As the facts unfold about the tragedy in Virginia, let us take a moment to remember the thousands of anonymous victims of gun violence across America every year. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports, firearms are used in 72.6 percent of homicides in America. Of these, handguns comprised 87.3 percent, killing 7,543 people in America in 2005.

Forget About Darwin . . .

. . . this Pope has doubts about Galileo:

At the end of Retrying Galileo, Finocchiaro surmises that the history of the Galileo affair is not over. Interestingly, in a speech delivered at Parma, Italy, 15 March 1990, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) stated: "At the time of Galileo the Church remained much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself. The process against Galileo was reasonable and just" (3). Perhaps this portends the next story in the grand saga of the Galileo affair.

HISTORY OF SCIENCE: The Many Trials of Galileo Galilei -- Machamer 309 (5731): 58 -- Science

Voice of Freedom

Vladimir Putin's Russia might seem like an unlikely soil for one the foremost modern voices of freedom to take root, but world chess champion Garry Kasparov has transformed himself from world renowned chess player to world renowned advocate for democracy. Today in Red Square, Kasparov and some 2,000 companions faced down, and were arrested by, some 9,000 heavily armed riot police, stifling the demonstration but illustrating Kasparov's point that Russia is once again a state run by gangsters. (One of the many troubling aspects of George W. Bush's foreign policy outlook is his admiration for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, despite (or because of?) Putin's suppression of domestic dissent.)

Kasparov discusses his program at his Committee 2008 website and as a contributor to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

Galileo Would Smile

Pope Says Evolution Can't Be Proven - washingtonpost.com

BERLIN -- Benedict XVI, in his first extended reflections on evolution published as pope, says that Darwin's theory cannot be finally proven and that science has unnecessarily narrowed humanity's view of creation.

Just in case you were wondering whether the Papacy had gained in intellectual sophistication since the 17th century.

Lawyers

Lawyers (Scripting News)

Ur-blogger Dave Winer is critical of the civil justice system, and predicts that bloggers will make it more accountable:

Critics ask if blogging is a field of banality but arming citizens against big corporations is becoming an important part of our economy, and it's for the good. Today, when I tell a company that's taking unfair advantage that I have a blog, nothing happens. In a few years I don't think it'll be like that.

Mr. Winer notes that — at least today — nothing happens when he tells a company he has a blog. He might get farther by telling them he has a lawyer.