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Title: The Hidden Face of God by Richard E. Friedman ISBN: 0-06-062258-X Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Pub. Date: 13 December, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.27 (11 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: No cheap solutions here!
Comment: The theory of the disappearance of God is thought provoking. The first and second mystery (parts) are convincing. Friedman knows what he is talking about. He has a careful and critical approach. He writes in an illuminative way and this book is a pleasure to read. The third mystery about Kabbala and the Big Bang is not convincing. The question about the relation between reality and reason seems to be answered in a way HEGEL (in his time) would haven been very satisfied with. The theory of the Big Bang and the Big Crunch is presented in the form of an exitus-reditus scheme, already familiar to Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae. But there is one difference here: Thomas was fully aware of the fact that this universe never will be able to return 'in Deum' and come to its fulfillment by its own. The vessels are broken and they cannot be repaired. Human beings are at the most able to a fragmentary 'Tikkun'. That is why this universe is in need for redemption by grace. Creation is in need of redemption, as 'gratia perfecit naturam'! Recent history has confronted us with an evil that is overwhelming and radical. From a human (!) perspective any redemptive Tukkun of that rupture is unthinkable. Unless one is willing to neglect the 'nature of evil'. The vessels are broken and they cannot be repaired without any 're-creation'. This means that this universe needs a new 'impulse from above', a redemptive impulse. Instead of the euforism that we are on our way back to heaven, the most of us are left with not much more than just an openness, only a desire for redemption. The statement that God is dead and gone may motivate some to turn their back to Him, others will resist this idea, but will refuse to let any 'kosmological theory' (as a religieus perversion of natural science) take His place. Friedman learned us that the purpose of the disappearance of God could be the creation of grown up and responsible people. Any 'kosmological theory', in that perspective, would be a relapse into the religious childhood and naivity, that God would like to free us from. The paradox in this book shows up: Friedman's eufory in the third part of his book about the kosmological theory of the Big Crunch seems to be nothing else but a regression in a remythologisation of reality. The proposed Tikkun of the Universe is too evident, too natural, and the theoretical argument for it is too simple and too cheap. If Friendman would permit me to give him any advice, it would be to read the first two mysteries again and consider the truth of the third mystery in their light.
Rating: 5
Summary: A compelling theological mystery
Comment: In THE HIDDEN FACE OF GOD, Richard Elliot Friedman tackles three interrelated mysteries. The first mystery concerns the disappearance of God in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. Using God's words to Moses ("I shall hide my face from them. I shall see what their end will be.") as a touchstone, Friedman traces the distance travelled from the early pages of the Old Testament where God manifests Himself directly to people, to the book of Esther which does not even mention God. Then he turns to the struggle with God, reminding us that "Israel" - the name God gives to Jacob - means "one who fights with God". Turning conventional wisdom on its head, Friedman points out that while God was a matter of belief for later biblical generations (as for us), when God regularly appeared to his prophets and people - remember that God was present to the whole Hebrew people day and night for 40 years while they wandered in the wilderness! - when there was no need to "believe" because God was right before their eyes, they chose to argue, rebel and disobey. I had never noticed this obvious fact before: that major prophets argue with God in the Old Testament and even make suggestions as to how He might conduct Himself vis-a-vis humans. Even more astonishing is that God usually takes their advice! Friedman concludes his discussion of this first mystery with a chapter on the twin developments of rabbinical Judaism and Christianity as they relate to the concept of "divine hiddenness".
The second mystery concerns Nietzsche's descent into madness, a passage from Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT and the 'death of God' in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For Friedman, this moment represents our species' coming of age. A force "erupted" in Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, he says, a force which had been "gradually surfacing" for 2000 years. This force was "the power to pronounce openly what the sacred texts of the Jews and Christians contained but did not say systematically". But if "God is dead" (not the same as saying that God doesn't exist, Friedman wisely points out), what about morality?
The answer to this question, posits Friedman, might be found in the third mystery, which he calls "Big Bang and Kabbalah". This part of the book delves into cosmology and the evolution of consciousness. The first two mysteries are brought to bear on the questions of human destiny. We are at a crossroads, Friedman says, "at which all of our lives are really at stake". But there is a way forward. For a hint of it, I recommend you read this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Hidden Face of God reveals Friedman's word view
Comment: If all politics is local then all religion may well be biographical. This putative maxim is very much on display in this interesing intriguing work in which Richard Friedman departs from his usual fare of biblical exegis to the related -- but different -- area of theological speculation. Through his other books, Who Wrote the Bible, The Bible with Sources Revealed to name a couple we find a confident scholarly Friedman wielding his knowledge of biblical Hebrew and text analysis to lock pick the secrets of the Bible. He can rightly be regarded as nothing less than the expert on source theory. This skill shows itself in the development of this book wherein Friedman tackles three interesting problems in turn. The first, his discovery of the "disappearance" of God from Torah is by far the most confidently written. As can be seen by reading the Bible shorn of the New Testament, one sees a biblical story wherein the characters have progressively less and less interaction with God. In the beginning God ordains creation itself and causes Adam and Eve live in His garden. After the expulsion, Noah is spared the destruction of His world. After the flood, Abraham receives His call and Moses saves his nation. So from creation, to the destruction of a global deluge to the saving of people we observe a definite pattern of less human contact with God. Friedman's second problem stems from his analysis of the "God is dead" craze wherein this loss of contact came to find home in the now passe assertion that "God is dead." Friedman's third interesting problem relates to the similarity between contemporary notions of the origin of the universe and Kabbalah. It is at this point Friedman's theology reflects the hearty benefits of good education. While it is true that Kabbalah as a system is richly variated in its delicate calculus the resultant similarities between it and the search for the origins of the universe are well...coincidental. While it is true that science has its necessary and beneficial aspects in the way it uniquely informs us of our origins, in and of itself it does nothing to compel us toward or away from one ideoligical conclusion or the other. To use Friedman's term, "tikkun" (repair) may have its imperative, but that imperative stands not at the pinacle of some history of the universe but rather as an act of necessity between humans seeking minimal adverse interactions. A good idea has its own power. Therefore, doing good has a power all its own just as understanding the origins of the Bible has a power all its own just as understanding the physical origins of the universe has a power all its own.
If we are to gain a peek at that elusive, hidden face of God it seems we are all now destined to do so in our own way.
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Title: Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard E. Friedman ISBN: 0060630353 Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Pub. Date: 07 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Hidden Book in the Bible by Richard E. Friedman ISBN: 0060630043 Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Commentary on the Torah by Richard E. Friedman ISBN: 0060507179 Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Bible with Sources Revealed by Richard E. Friedman ISBN: 0060530693 Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Pub. Date: 25 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Who Wrote the New Testament? : The Making of the Christian Myth by Burton L. Mack ISBN: 0060655186 Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Pub. Date: 06 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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