Review: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was an interesting read. It reminded me of twenty plus years ago when I was reading about brain and memory science, game theory, and Martin Gardner books and columns. I was familiar with some of the mnemonic techniques but had no idea there were competitive international memory championships.
The author focused mainly on the memory palace technique for memorizing. I have never personally tried any of these tricks because I fail to see much practical use. Even the author struggled to find some really useful application after a year of training and dramatic performance in competition.
I would like to have seen more counterpoint in this book. He did make one anecdotal reference to puritanical William Perkins, but he didn’t offer much pushback at all. For instance, what is the real benefit of such exercises and what is the cost, mentally? Do these tricks really make a person smarter, or a better person? Finally, seeing numbers as colors or experiencing numbers as emotions makes no sense to me. Foer has packed in a lot of interesting information and it is a worthwhile read.
Review: Love Among the Chickens
Love Among the Chickens by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ha ha, that was a fun ride. I’m not entirely sympathetic with Ukridge but his final stand was entertaining and approaching redemptive.
Review: Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam M. Grant
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was an interesting read. It’s filled with psychology and sociology studies, but written in an accessible and interesting way. Grant uses real world illustrations and doesn’t flood us with statistics or jargon. I don’t know that this book had a lot to say about originality but it definitely had much to say about leadership, persuasion, influence, etc. If nothing else, it’s worth reading to be armed with the term “strategic procrastination.”
Review: Unseen Realm
Unseen Realm by Michael S. Heiser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book has been around for over a year now and I finally got around to reading it. I wish I had read it earlier. It is definitely a book you want to have on your shelf. Heiser deals with the realm of the supernatural and, for lack of a better term, a whole heap of odd passages in the Bible. He’s certainly right that modern Christians tend to just ignore or deal faintly with those passages. They are hard to skip over though when you have them collected and focused on as Heiser does in this book.
I certainly didn’t agree with all his conclusions but I appreciate the work he has done in writing this book and I am thankful for it. His view of God’s sovereignty, predestination, and human freewill had me scratching my head numerous times. At times, he seemed to be saying that God was reacting or making plans as different events unfolded.
He seems quick to fill in the “gaps” (things the Bible does not say anything about) with apocryphal and other extra-biblical writings. He didn’t seem to make much distinction there between inspired Scripture and non-inspired writings. For that matter, Heiser’s view of inspiration wasn’t clear to me. I recognize the Bible was written by different authors over a long period of time, but the inspiration was the one Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-21) and the requirement for interpretation is the same Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:12-14).
Heiser refers often to the ancient near east mythopoeia and asserts the biblical writers borrowed from them. One example would be the cloud riding imagery used to describe Yahweh in the Old Testament. Similar attributes are ascribed to Baal in the pagan mythologies that pre-date the writing of the biblical text, but I don’t see why that demands the biblical writers borrowed the descriptions of Baal and applied them to Yahweh. It’s a proverbial chicken-and-egg problem. The date of the writings doesn’t matter because Yahweh is before all and eternally existing, which means his attributes are from before the foundation of the world. It’s much more reasonable that the Baal myths are mimicking Yahweh and the biblical text restores the right meaning.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but these views would seem to necessitate that someone be an ANE scholar before they could ever interpret the Bible correctly. Furthermore, I’m not convinced that anyone knows what an ancient Jew thought or that that could be the only key to proper biblical interpretation. Paul preached the Old Testament to the Graeco-Roman world and said that the Scriptures were for us (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 9:10; 10:11).
Heiser’s eschatology is unclear, but he readily states he’s not trying to systematize eschatology. I mention this because it highlights an important point in approaching this book. This is not a theological work. It is an academic and scholarly work in a specialized field of study. He also makes clear he is not writing the final word but merely a beginning in this study. I have not listed all my disagreements with this book but rather mentioned a few things I think are important in approaching this book. I believe Heiser has done us a great service in writing this book and I am thankful for it and I recommend it for careful study.
Review: Jesus Christ Is Lord
Jesus Christ Is Lord by Ron Crisp
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Ron Crisp has given us a brief and helpful book on the mediatorial lordship of Jesus Christ. The value of his contribution to this study is the clarity and precision he brings to it. The author draws out the distinction between the ontological lordship and mediatorial lordship of Jesus Christ. He obviously focuses on the latter. Jesus’ mediatorial lordship has to do with his humanity, being the last Adam, the second man, and the greater David. This lordship exclusively belongs to the Son of Man in connection with his birth, life, death, and resurrection.
Crisp is right that the lordship of Jesus has been subjected to misunderstanding, imprecision, and fuzzy thinking by many. What does it mean to say, Jesus is Lord? This book will help you with that question. He is also right that this aspect of Christ’s lordship hasn’t received much attention. Hopefully, this book will help spark some change in that regard.
The book ends with some practical application of this doctrinal truth and reality. He touches briefly on the issue of lordship salvation and the faulty teaching that man can make Jesus lord. I recommend this book highly.
