PDF Ebook A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson

PDF Ebook A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson

A History Of The Jews, By Paul Johnson. It is the time to improve as well as revitalize your ability, understanding and encounter included some entertainment for you after very long time with monotone things. Operating in the workplace, visiting examine, gaining from test as well as more tasks might be finished and also you should start brand-new points. If you really feel so tired, why do not you try new thing? A quite easy thing? Reviewing A History Of The Jews, By Paul Johnson is just what we offer to you will understand. As well as guide with the title A History Of The Jews, By Paul Johnson is the reference now.

A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson

PDF Ebook A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson

There are so many books that can be candidates to read in this recent period. However, it could be impossible for you to check out and finish them at the same time. To overcome this trouble, you need to choose the first publication and make plans for various other publications to read after completing. If you're so baffled, we recommend you to pick A History Of The Jews, By Paul Johnson as your analysis resource.

After getting such information from us regarding this publication what should you do? Once more, this is a proper publication that is created particularly for you, the individual that likes reading so much. You are the readers with huge interest and you will certainly not give up of a publication. A History Of The Jews, By Paul Johnson actually what you need now. You may not be odd with this title of the book, may not you? It is not the time that you will certainly surrender to finish. You could complete it whenever you want.

This is not about how much this e-book A History Of The Jews, By Paul Johnson prices; it is not also about what sort of e-book you actually love to read. It has to do with just what you can take and also receive from reading this A History Of The Jews, By Paul Johnson You can choose to pick other book; yet, it matters not if you try to make this e-book A History Of The Jews, By Paul Johnson as your reading option. You will not regret it. This soft documents book A History Of The Jews, By Paul Johnson could be your buddy all the same.

Imagine that you are sitting forgeting something terrific and also natural; you can hold your device and also sit to read A History Of The Jews, By Paul Johnson This is not only regarding the vacations. This time will additionally maintain you to always boost your expertise as well as impact making much better future. When you actually enable to make use of the moment for whatever beneficial, your life has actually been grown flawlessly. It is among the characteristic that you can get by reading this book. Only a few part of the charitable benefits to take by reading book.

Amazon.com Review

Paul Johnson says that writing A History of the Jews was like writing a history of the world "seen from the viewpoint of a learned and intelligent victim." Johnson's history begins with the Bible and ends with the establishment of the State of Israel. Throughout, Johnson's history is driven by a philosophical interest: "The Jews," he writes, "stand right at the centre of the perennial attempt to give human life the dignity of a purpose. Does their own history suggest that such attempts are worth making? Or does it reveal their essential futility?" Johnson's history is lucid, thorough, and--as one would expect of almost any project with such a broad scope--a little wrong-headed. By the end of the book, readers will be grateful for Johnson's questioning of the Jews' confidence in their cosmic significance. However, readers may also be a little annoyed by his energetic inquiries as to whether this significance was man-made or providentially provided. Either way, it's a given: for a historian of Israel, this should adequately settle the question. Johnson's 600-page history is probably the best we've got by a living gentile--which is no small accomplishment at all. --Michael Joseph Gross

Read more

Review

"A marvelous book . . . This is history: richly textured, provocative and wise." -- -- The Plain Dealer"A tour de force...A remarkable achievement." -- -- Aruthur Hertzberg, The New York Times Book Review"An absorbing, provocativem well-writen, often moving book, an insightful and impassioned blend of history and myth, story and interpretation." -- -- Merle Rubin, Christian Science Monitor"An extraordinary amount of useful information." -- -- New York Review of Books

Read more

See all Editorial Reviews

Product details

Paperback: 656 pages

Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1st US edition (September 14, 1988)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0060915331

ISBN-13: 978-0060915339

Product Dimensions:

5.3 x 1.5 x 8 inches

Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.2 out of 5 stars

271 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#18,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Interesting, thorough, and thoughtful history of the Jewish People, particularly because the author is not Jewish. Johnson starts his story by calling the Jews the " most tenaceous people in history." He ascribes to the Jews the "willingness to ask the difficult question", a major reason Christian dogma bogs down, according to the author.I have a point of disagreement with the author. He describes in Jesus' life a point where Jesus "stopped being a Jew". I disagree. Jesus never stopped considering himself a Jew. This thinking occurred well after his death, and is something many educated Christians reject. They acknowledge Jesus' Jewishness.

I read reviews on other books on the history of the Jews before selecting this book. This book may be like reading a college textbook, but as Paul Johnson tells, the Jewish race is the only race who has a written record that goes back to first recorded time. Johnson had written an excellent history of God and His chosen people. This ancient religious race as the author relates has spent much of her time in captivity, emancipation, ghetto, or the holocaust, yet never has lost its language, rituals, and rabbinical traditions. Yet, even today the Jews are despised and hated and Muslims wants to annihilate them. It would do these people well to learn Jewish history as well as the Bible.

Where else can you find the complete history of the Jewish people? I have be interested in the Jewish people for years and finally pulled the trigger and downloaded this book to my Kindle. It is definitely an academic read. (Many of the words I didn't know the Webster dictionary didn't have!) It is slow go and easy to get lost as I am not familiar with the old testament. Nonetheless, a fascinating read. Next I want to read Mr. Johnson's take on the American people.

GREAT BOOK FOR JEWS AND EVERYONE TOO. IT IS LIKE ---EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT JEWS BUT DIDN'T WANT TO ASK! WELL WRITTEN! MIKE

Given as a Christmas gift to a man who misunderstood the Jews.I pray he now has a better idea of what the Jews went through in 4000 years to survive as a people who have given the world brilliant scientists, politicians, authors, musicians, television and radiocomics, and many brilliant physicians, to name a few areas where the Jewish people excelled through hard word and belief in their own genius and talents. Highly recommended author and topic.

A great following of 'all' the issues addressed in the Bible from Adm forward. The changes in Prophetic leaders to king type leadership. From the Israelites to the Jews founding.

This is a very good book by Paul Johnson. It gives a great history and background on the Jews and gave me the knowledge I needed.

From time to time I teach theology to church school teachers, parish ministers and volunteers. And I usually preface my remarks with the advice that if one has not embraced the Hebrew Scriptures, one does not know Christ. Jesus was a Jew till he drew his last tortured breath [not a "marginal Jew," pace John Meier.] However, having read Paul Johnson's sweeping history of Judaism, I would go one step further and say that whatever one's faith, even in the absence of faith, we cannot understand the human experience without a long and reflective immersion into the historical experience of the children of Abraham.There were 2.2 billion Christians and 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide as of 2010. Jews number 13.5 million at this juncture, but a major thesis of this work is precisely that what has always been a tiny religious community numerically has exerted influence far beyond its numbers. One reason, of course, is that all three traditions look to Abraham as a type of father in faith. A more nuanced reason is that the identities of Christianity and Islam have been [and continue to be] shaped by Jewish example, in ways that both are reluctant to acknowledge and have at times actually fought to suppress.Johnson explains the demographics of the Middle East that produced Abraham, a historical being whose unique insight into the all powerful and single nature of one supreme deity begot the dominant structure of faith for much of the world. His brief analysis of the Hebrew Scripture canon is brilliant, and he underscores two critical points usually overlooked. The first is his observation that the "Diaspora" or scattering of the Jews began much earlier than the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. It began, in fact, in 538 B.C.E when Cyrus released the Jews from the Babylonian captivity. Not everyone went home, and many went elsewhere to cultivate a synagogue model of faith life instead of the temple/priesthood.Why this division? The answer rests in Johnson's analysis of Isaiah, specifically the third portion or "Trito-Isaiah" written during and after the Babylonian exile. Isaiah, in this treatment, becomes the father of the modern individual conscience. Practically speaking, Trito-Isaiah marked the end of kingly political identity and priestly power. The observance of the Torah or Law was no longer "everybody's responsibility" but became "my responsibility." Such a theology inspired "The Suffering Servant" [Isaiah 53] and the consequent belief that exemplary holiness and humility was Israel's gift toward which the world would eventually come and receive. [Isaiah 60, proclaimed in Christian Churches on the Feast of the Epiphany]The destruction of Jerusalem finally rendered the Jewish people to a state of absolute homelessness that in many ways survives to this day. As people of the Book, Jews maintained throughout their history a religious cosmology that made isolation a virtue as they maintained small community/synagogue based life around much of the known world. Pagans, as a rule, saw Jewish separateness as a type of snobbery that invited antagonism. The enmity of Christians was of a different sort, the hatred of men for those who were who were once dear brothers and shared a common faith bloodline.Johnson observes that Jews have had to live at the whim or mercy of local or regional governments, which of necessity facilitated the skill of accommodation and the ability to transfer belongings quickly in the face of persecution and exile, often in the form of jewelry, precious metals, and later in cash and commodities; hence the association of Jews with "money changing." Thus the genesis of slurs of dissembling and money-lending took root, among countless others. Always a numerical and religious minority, and cursed in the Christian scriptures, so to speak, Jews became convenient scapegoats during times of plagues and disasters. With the notable exception of England, and later the American colonies, life for Jews was hard and demeaning. Johnson traces the development of the Jewish ghetto, the extreme segregation from Christian life in Europe's major cities.Given its reverence of sacred books and orthodox commentary, Judaism was for much of its history unscientific and did not seek major philosophical exchanges with its neighbors. Only Moses Maimonides [1135-1204] attempted to engage Judaism in any sort of extracurricular dialogue. This isolation would be harder to maintain with the advent of the Enlightenment, which prompted the one true schism of Jewish theology: the struggle to maintain historical continuity and purity [the Orthodox way] versus the logic of dialogue and expansive exchange with the modern world [the Reformed way]. The eruption of Jewish genius into modern day business [e.g., the House of Rothschild] and scholarship [Leibniz, Marx, Freud, Einstein] was a mixed blessing for Jews, as anti-Semitic paranoia over supposed Jewish dominance fueled the European atmosphere for the horror of Hitler's Final Solution.Despite his professional objectivity, Johnson himself marvels at the depth of personal faith in the countless victims of Nazi death camps. They died, he reports, in the confidence that their grim fates were in some mysterious way God's plan for his chosen ones to become that "light to the nations" proclaimed in Isaiah 60. The post-War response of intensified Zionism and the establishment of modern day Israel have created new sufferings for the Jewish conscience. Having lived for over two millennia as suffering servants, the demands of statehood and national security--including responsibility for an atomic arsenal--have sorely tested Isaiah's vision of faith with the previously discarded Davidic-Solomon paradigm of strength.It is most unfortunate that present Arab-Israeli political conflicts have distracted outsiders from the majestic history of Jewish faith. In a curious way Jews have lived what Christians profess: Christ's model of the Suffering Servant bearing the sins of the world. Is it this embarrassing fact that has poisoned Christianity to the degree that as late as the 1960's the Catholic liturgy referred to Jews as "perfidious?" Is Christian-Jewish dialogue today a matter of redressing old wrongs, or a matter of Christianity finding itself?

A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson PDF
A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson EPub
A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson Doc
A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson iBooks
A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson rtf
A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson Mobipocket
A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson Kindle

A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson PDF

A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson PDF

A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson PDF

A History of the Jews, by Paul Johnson PDF