Desire Of The Everlasting Hills: The World Before And After Jesus (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
Review: Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Gifts of the Jews, Sailing the Wine Dark Sea, Desire of the Everlasting Hills, Heretics and HeroestThe Hinges of History is a series including the above books plus Mysteries of the Middle Ages and a volume yet to be published. I am treating them together because, as one might expect, they share many strengths and weaknesses of the author, Thomas Cahill.tHeretics and Heroes was the first book I read, it being a gift, and, therefore, required reading. It covers the period including the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, a period with which I had nodding acquaintance. I was overwhelmed at the apparent scholarship of the author. I especially appreciated the discussions of art, a subject with which I am fairly ignorant. The writing is superb: it reads like a novel. Inspired by it, I read a couple of books on the period and its persons, especially Erasmus, all to my benefit, but not necessarily to the benefit of Thomas Cahill. However, I enjoyed Heroes so much that I determined to read the others in the series.tNext I read How the Irish Saved Civilization, a decidedly less engaging work. Having some knowledge of the subject, I found this slender work very enjoyable—Cahill writes very well—but unconvincing. The copious quotations recalled to mind the copious quotations in Heroes. He did not prove his point to me, nor did he make a plausible case for salvific Irish.tThe Gifts of the Jews continued the bravura elegance and style of Cahill, but, having substantial knowledge of Jewish history, religion, and customs, I found the work lacking. Much of the work comprises quotations from the Hebrew Bible, with extrapolations of the text into possible meanings, but without meaningful comment on the validity of the quoted text: where did it come from? how was it developed? when was it written? by whom? what were its sources? Further, apparent contradictions in extrapolated meanings were not discussed.tSailing the Wine Dark Sea had a distinct advantage over How the Irish Saved Civilization and The Gifts of the Jews: the now-expected extensive quotations reflected elegant Greek writers who had something to say. Again, Cahill’s filler flashed the style and brilliance I had come to expect from him. He, correctly, let them speak.t The Desire of the Everlasting Hills disappointed me in the extreme, probably because I know this subject very well. I kept making marginal notes as to the unfounded conclusions of the author based upon a text not validated by common sense historical standards, all the time admiring his use of very extensive quotations and brilliant style as superb technique. (After all, I read five of his works.) The deficiency of this work will be apparent to anyone who has read the New Testament seriously enough to consult scholarly opinion which may differ from personally held beliefs.tI cannot recommend Cahill’s books highly enough for elegance, style, and entrepreneurship. Cahill is a storyteller par excellence. Storytellers, however, long ago evolved into historians, a breed which developed a formal discipline rigorous enough to characterize it as a science. This may be a loss to literature, but not to science. Read Cahill as a storyteller. You will very likely enjoy his writing.Mr. Graziano is the author of From the Cross to the Church: the Emergence of the Church from the Chaos of the Crucifixion.
I liked this book, a lot. Some things I would, personally, look into more or word differently, but overall, I learned a lot and feel this is an amazing book (as so far I've enjoyed all Cahill's books in this series). Examples of things you'll find: 1) A reference to Reynold Price's translation of Mary the Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses on Easter Sunday: Entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting on the right dressed in a white robe and they were much stunned. But he said to them "Don't be stunned. Are you looking for Jesus the crucified Nazarene? He was raised. He isn't here. Look, the place where they laid him. But go tell his disciples and Peter 'He's going ahead of you to Galilee. There you'll see him as he told you.' " Going out they fled the tomb--they were shuddering and wild--and they told no one nothing for they were afraid. (p110)I love that phrase: "they were shuddering and wild". What a great way to phrase someone who's just experienced a Resurrection.2) Cahill points out that when Jesus called Paul twice: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?", he was in unique company: "Only a few men had heaven ever addressed by name--and always with their name spoken twice: 'Abraham, Abraham';'Moses, Moses.' God himself was telling his child that his road was a mistaken one and giving him a new direction." (113) -- I found that fact quite interesting.3) P213 has this summarizing quote: "For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation is possible". Again, interesting.4) Cahill gets C.S. Lewisian in his prose on p247: It is ironic that some Christians make such a fuss about the elements of the Eucharist--bowing before them, kneeling in adoration, because Christ is present in them--but have never bothered to heed these solemn words about the presence of Christ in every individual who is in need. Jesus told us only once (at the Last Supper) that he would be present in the Bread and Wine, but he tells us repeatedly in the gospels that he is always present in the Poor and Afflicted--to whom we should all bow and kneel. It is perverse that some Christians make such a fuss about the bound text of God's Word, carrying it processionally, holding it with reverence, never allowing it to touch the ground, but have never considered seriously the text of Matthew 25, in the light of which we would always catch God's Needy before they hit the ground. Ironic. Perverse. Strong words. And sobering.5)Finishing this brief review, the book also contains a quote from the following Gerald Manley Hopkins poem, (and I offer no commentary here), which I'll quote in full:As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came. Í say móre: the just man justices; Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not hisTo the Father through the features of men’s faces.
What do You think about Desire Of The Everlasting Hills: The World Before And After Jesus (2001)?
Cahill's history writing doesn't make the cut among scholars, probably for the same reason that reading him is so enjoyable: he is a good storyteller in a discipline sorely lacking them. Nevertheless, this book left me wanting. After an interesting but cursory glance at the world and value systems that preceded Jesus, Cahill approaches this mysterious figure through the lenses of the principle gospel authors. It's a good read for anyone wanting an introduction to the gospels, but Cahill's message is quaint and even ham-handed: Jesus focused far more on taking care of the poor and needy than on religious procedure, even "casually forgiving" sexual sins. True enough, but how many times must that be repeated, almost desperately, by Jesus apologists? One of Cahill's more interesting observations is that disciples of the Jesus Movement, as he calls it, couldn't bring themselves to depict the crucifixion in art until the third century. Their messiah had died in the most shameful, destructively humiliating way imaginable. It reminds me of Paul Fryer's poignant, excellent, controversial (and inaccurately named) "Pieta" in which Jesus is portrayed dead from the electric chair. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/cultu... As usual with these types of books, the faithful will find truth in Cahill's reassuring prose yet skeptics will remain unsatisfied. But perhaps that's because there isn't much left to say about the elusive superstar from a backwater of the Roman Empire.
—Matt
So this one would’ve been good, had I not been a Christian. I guess. There was a lot of liberal theology in here and a lot of trying to say that parts of the Bible were written later than they claim to be. This always bothers me since we actually have a lot of very early manuscripts.Overall not worth it. I already knew everything except this one thing: before Jesus there was no rooting for the underdog. Those who were weak like women, children, slaves, the poor, and defeated nations, these were all losers unworthy of pity or help in the eyes of most people in society at the time. You wanted to root for the winner and watch him kill the loser in the arena. Jesus' life and teachings reversed this.
—Jennifer
[T]his book is part of a series on cultural impact. And the great question about Jesus must always be: Did he make a difference? Is our world--in the century that began with the Turkish genocide against the Armenians, reached its nadir with the "scientific" holocaust of six million Jews (and five million others), not to speak of the slaughter by their own governments of Russians and Chinese in the scores of millions, and now comes to its end with genocides in central Africa and "ethnic cleansings" in the Balkans that are still, horribly enough "in progress"--is our world any better than the one inhabited by the Celts and Romans of twenty-four centuries ago? Did the values preached by Jesus influence the Anglican Queen Elizabeth or her opponent the Catholic Earl O'Neill? Did she ever shudder at the carnage of her battlefields? Did he, even once, as he surveyed the hacked limbs, the gouged eyes, the grisly dying, ever wonder if there was another way? Do Christian values have any influence on the actions of Christians who on both sides of the English/Irish divide have continued to "fight the old fight again"? Did the life and death of Jesus make any difference to the denizens of first-century TransTiberim? Does he make any difference to the residents of today's Trastevere?These are hard questions; some will no doubt label them unfair. But they must be posed at the outset. For if this Jesus, this figure professedly central to our whole culture, has had no effect, he has no place in a history of cultural effects. (8-9)As we now stand at the entrance to the third millennium since Jesus, we can look back over the horrors of Christian history, never doubting for an instant that if Christians had put kindness ahead of devotion to good order, theological correctness, and our own justifications--if we had followed in the humble footsteps of a heretical Samaritan who was willing to wash someone else's wounds, rather than in the self-regarding steps of the priest and the immaculate steps of the levite--the world we inhabit would be a very different one. (185)
—Jason
