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tittypete's review against another edition
3.0
This is a really long examination of the catholic church’s complicity in anti-semitism. There’s a lot of it. From its beginnings when it was just another Jewish sect, they had to paint the guys who didn’t jive with Jesus as his murderers and deniers of god or whatever. The romans are playing these two groups against each other and stirring up animosity. Then Constantine has a vision of the cross and gets the idea to use it to conquer shit. This is kinda when Christianity becomes more about the death of christ rather than the guys life. So the “you killed our guy” and “you reject our story” vibe permeates and christians take it out on the jews time after time. There are some ok times (the convivencia in spain was an interesting time) and some ok popes but for the most part the jews were the scapegoat for everything from the plague to both corrupt capitalism AND communism. Meanwhile they keep truckin, scattered about and talkin’ torah.
The author is a weird guy. He’s super catholic and inserts his own anecdotes about having the hots for the virgin mary and also his mom. His musings about the big cross the Polacks put up at Auschwitz is what kicks off the book. Then at the end he has some ideas of how to fix the church. The key takeaway is to admit that the church’s doctrine is flawed because it was written by dudes from back in the day with their own agendas.
My final reaction is that all deity-based worship/revelation religions are poisonous bullshit and retard humanity. There might have been some fine ideas put forth by people way back in old timey times but once you bring the magic man in the clouds into it shit gets perverted and we start killing eachother over fairytales. So fucking stupid.
The author is a weird guy. He’s super catholic and inserts his own anecdotes about having the hots for the virgin mary and also his mom. His musings about the big cross the Polacks put up at Auschwitz is what kicks off the book. Then at the end he has some ideas of how to fix the church. The key takeaway is to admit that the church’s doctrine is flawed because it was written by dudes from back in the day with their own agendas.
My final reaction is that all deity-based worship/revelation religions are poisonous bullshit and retard humanity. There might have been some fine ideas put forth by people way back in old timey times but once you bring the magic man in the clouds into it shit gets perverted and we start killing eachother over fairytales. So fucking stupid.
cami19's review against another edition
I was expecting more of a history and not a reflection of the author's relationship with Christianity.
alexctelander's review against another edition
3.0
To the everyday layman, it seems as if the Christians and the Jews have been fighting and disputing with each other for millennia; you wouldn’t be far off in that approximation. But now there is a book available that will solve all these riddles: Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews by James Carroll. Here is a read that will rip to pieces any idea or stereotypes you may have once had.
Carroll begins in the present day, in a small town in Poland where there is a dispute over an erected cross, between the Jews and the Christians. The author then takes us back, deep into the annals of the past, where it all began, guiding us ever so softly along the way. The book is very long, but then with a subject matter like this, you would rather the author be thorough and get everything that ever happened down on paper.
And just as Carroll starts you off in the present day; at the end he takes you back to the present day. You feel as if you have been on a very long journey, through the lives of so may Christian and Jews, that you are one and both of them, you feel almost euphoric that you now know the truth. And for those of you who find this book’s price a little steep, it will published in paperback next April.
Originally published on December 3rd 2001.
For over 500 book reviews, and over 40 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.
Carroll begins in the present day, in a small town in Poland where there is a dispute over an erected cross, between the Jews and the Christians. The author then takes us back, deep into the annals of the past, where it all began, guiding us ever so softly along the way. The book is very long, but then with a subject matter like this, you would rather the author be thorough and get everything that ever happened down on paper.
And just as Carroll starts you off in the present day; at the end he takes you back to the present day. You feel as if you have been on a very long journey, through the lives of so may Christian and Jews, that you are one and both of them, you feel almost euphoric that you now know the truth. And for those of you who find this book’s price a little steep, it will published in paperback next April.
Originally published on December 3rd 2001.
For over 500 book reviews, and over 40 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.
guojing's review against another edition
4.0
The other day I found myself browsing through the reviews for this book and I was struck by something which, at the time, I found somewhat funny: the common complaint that this is a long book. Surely, at only 600 pages (plus index, notes), this book is nowhere near as bad as The Age of Faith which I had just finished reading a few weeks before, coming in at almost 1100 pages. However, the more I strutted along, the more it became apparent to me that the complaint about the length of Constantine's Sword was not a complaint that the book is a total of 616 pages, but rather than the substance of the book could just as easily have filled 308 pages. This is what makes this book a long, long read.
However, the 616 pages work together in a way that 308 could not: they form an eclectic and idiosyncratic syncretism of theology, memoir, and history which at times is very pleasurable to read, though at other times is deadly boring. For instance, I rather enjoyed the first 100 pages, which read essentially like a memoir; he details his childhood, learning about his neighbor being a Jew, moving to Germany with his General father, meeting the Pope. These are the various events which led him not just to become a priest and then abandon that vocation, but to write this book from the perspective which he maintains. He is strongly disturbed by the way the Church has treated the Jews, enabling Hitler to carry out his genocide (with the exception of Jews who have been converted, for whom the Church made a habit of speaking up), enabling France to scapegoat Dreyfus back in the 1890s, and going back much further, enabling even Luther in his perhaps even more vitriolic hatred of the Jews than anything ever voiced by an orthodox Catholic.
The one part of the book which I disliked and would just as gladly see excised is Section 8, wherein he makes his impassioned plea for a liberalizing of the Church. Now, I have no interest whatsoever in how the Church hierarchy deals with itself and its various tentacles; religion is, to me, an outdated concept. However, I found most of that section - not all, for there were still pages as enjoyable as any of the first 500 - to be, in my mind at least, both irrelevant and impractical. I cannot imagine the Church actually acceding its absolutist supremacy one iota, much less to the nth degree to which he urges. His values are so clearly at odds with the Church that the Church would have to become unrecognizable for him to be happy, but that would destroy everything that the Church is. Of course, by not making such reforms, the Church may very well also be destroyed as fewer and fewer people are, like him, able to look at it without feeling ashamed of such an archaic organism, a dinosaur in a world of mammals.
Ultimately, minus Section 8, which would probably received a 2-star rating from me were it to be rated independently, I give the book as a whole a 4-star rating because, despite the relative ease with which he manages to incorporate three disparate elements into one singular entity, the experience of reading the book was challenging and at times painfully drawn out. I am glad that it is over, but I am also glad that I have read it.
However, before I can finish this review, I must make note of one omission which upset me: the use of [b:The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara|998747|The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara|David I. Kertzer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388638660s/998747.jpg|1724393] in the bibliography and faint references to the event, but the very notable lack of a chapter (or several) dedicated to the event. I was looking forward to it until I reached near the end of the book and, wondering how it had not been mentioned beyond a reference to Pius IX kidnapping children, checked the index and found myself unable to find an entry for "Mortara, Edgardo". At least a page would have done, but considering the extreme relevance which it has to the subject as a whole, I cannot but feel that this omission was improper.
Edgardo Mortara was a Jewish boy who had allegedly been secretly baptized by the family's Catholic maid as a baby during a bout of sickness during which the girl feared for his life and unbaptized soul. As per Catholic practice, a Catholic child cannot be raised in the home of a non-Catholic family, and thus Pope Pius IX had him removed around 1859 and raised in the Vatican. After many appeals to have their child returned, the news became international and apparently caused quite a stir in America and Germany. Not, of course, because a Jew had been kidnapped, but because the Pope was responsible: it was not an outcry for the Jews, but an outcry against the evils of Catholicism by antisemitic Protestants. The boy was never returned to his family and ultimately entered the ranks of the clergy. I intend on reading the book linked above sometime soon, if only to make up for the hole in my knowledge of the events thanks to James Carroll's having ignored it.
Thus, while Constantine's Sword is a truly fascinating amalgamation of theology, memoir, and history, it definitely could have expanded a lot on the latter count and excised most of the former; I am content with the quantity of memoir in the book. Thus the 4-star rather than a 5-star rating.
However, the 616 pages work together in a way that 308 could not: they form an eclectic and idiosyncratic syncretism of theology, memoir, and history which at times is very pleasurable to read, though at other times is deadly boring. For instance, I rather enjoyed the first 100 pages, which read essentially like a memoir; he details his childhood, learning about his neighbor being a Jew, moving to Germany with his General father, meeting the Pope. These are the various events which led him not just to become a priest and then abandon that vocation, but to write this book from the perspective which he maintains. He is strongly disturbed by the way the Church has treated the Jews, enabling Hitler to carry out his genocide (with the exception of Jews who have been converted, for whom the Church made a habit of speaking up), enabling France to scapegoat Dreyfus back in the 1890s, and going back much further, enabling even Luther in his perhaps even more vitriolic hatred of the Jews than anything ever voiced by an orthodox Catholic.
The one part of the book which I disliked and would just as gladly see excised is Section 8, wherein he makes his impassioned plea for a liberalizing of the Church. Now, I have no interest whatsoever in how the Church hierarchy deals with itself and its various tentacles; religion is, to me, an outdated concept. However, I found most of that section - not all, for there were still pages as enjoyable as any of the first 500 - to be, in my mind at least, both irrelevant and impractical. I cannot imagine the Church actually acceding its absolutist supremacy one iota, much less to the nth degree to which he urges. His values are so clearly at odds with the Church that the Church would have to become unrecognizable for him to be happy, but that would destroy everything that the Church is. Of course, by not making such reforms, the Church may very well also be destroyed as fewer and fewer people are, like him, able to look at it without feeling ashamed of such an archaic organism, a dinosaur in a world of mammals.
Ultimately, minus Section 8, which would probably received a 2-star rating from me were it to be rated independently, I give the book as a whole a 4-star rating because, despite the relative ease with which he manages to incorporate three disparate elements into one singular entity, the experience of reading the book was challenging and at times painfully drawn out. I am glad that it is over, but I am also glad that I have read it.
However, before I can finish this review, I must make note of one omission which upset me: the use of [b:The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara|998747|The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara|David I. Kertzer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388638660s/998747.jpg|1724393] in the bibliography and faint references to the event, but the very notable lack of a chapter (or several) dedicated to the event. I was looking forward to it until I reached near the end of the book and, wondering how it had not been mentioned beyond a reference to Pius IX kidnapping children, checked the index and found myself unable to find an entry for "Mortara, Edgardo". At least a page would have done, but considering the extreme relevance which it has to the subject as a whole, I cannot but feel that this omission was improper.
Edgardo Mortara was a Jewish boy who had allegedly been secretly baptized by the family's Catholic maid as a baby during a bout of sickness during which the girl feared for his life and unbaptized soul. As per Catholic practice, a Catholic child cannot be raised in the home of a non-Catholic family, and thus Pope Pius IX had him removed around 1859 and raised in the Vatican. After many appeals to have their child returned, the news became international and apparently caused quite a stir in America and Germany. Not, of course, because a Jew had been kidnapped, but because the Pope was responsible: it was not an outcry for the Jews, but an outcry against the evils of Catholicism by antisemitic Protestants. The boy was never returned to his family and ultimately entered the ranks of the clergy. I intend on reading the book linked above sometime soon, if only to make up for the hole in my knowledge of the events thanks to James Carroll's having ignored it.
Thus, while Constantine's Sword is a truly fascinating amalgamation of theology, memoir, and history, it definitely could have expanded a lot on the latter count and excised most of the former; I am content with the quantity of memoir in the book. Thus the 4-star rather than a 5-star rating.
lirazel's review against another edition
4.5
This book is heavy in every conceivable way: its length, its subject matter, its theological articulation. But it's really good, really important, and I really recommend it.
This book is an outsider's point of view in one sense, and an insider's in another. Carroll is, in one way, telling a history of European Jewry, a community to which he does not belong. On the other hand, he's also telling a history of European Christendom, which he knows intimately. I would like to read a similar book written entirely from a Jewish perspective (I'm sure it's out there--I just haven't gone looking yet), but I think it is truly valuable for a lifelong Catholic to at least attempt a reckoning of the Catholic church's antisemitism.
Caroll does not flinch from the Church's culpability in pogroms, ghettos, the Shoah, all the many, many ways in which European Jewry suffered at the hands of Christians in the name of their cross--I almost want to say that 'culpability' is too weak a word here. In fact, he explicitly states that attempts to "exonerate 'the Church as such,' or even to reduce the Church's failure to what it did not do between 1933 and 1945, are so evasive and, finally, immoral." He is saying: "We did this," which is more than the Catholic church (or the Church universal) has ever said. Another example quote: "When 'the Church as such,' as opposed to its 'sinful members,' is absolved of any guilt in relation to Nazism, and when what Christian failures there were are reduced to sins of omission, as if the only crime were silence, then the real meaning of this history is being deflected. However modern Nazism was, it planted its roots in the soil of age-old Church attitudes and a nearly unbroken chain of Church-sponsored acts of Jew hatred. However pagan Nazism was, it drew its substance from groundwater poisoned by the Church's most solemnly held ideology--it's theology." [emphasis in original]
This is certainly a historically-grounded book, but it's as interested in theological history as it is in social and political history. Carroll is explicit in exploring the connections between theology, Catholic teachings, clerical voices, papal positions, etc. on the lived reality of Jewish people in Catholic Europe. This book needed to be written by someone who understood the theology just as much as he understood the history; thankfully, it was. He is unafraid to say, outright, "When you teach [x], it is unsurprising that people will commit [y] act, even if you're telling them not to commit that act." Carroll also frequently contrasts the more mainstream antisemitic Catholic voices with alternative voices that ended up being drowned out by history. (I was particularly taken by his chapter on Abelard.) He is intent upon showing that both theology and history could have gone a different way if only different theology was pursued, and that that different theology was there and ready to be used, but was instead rejected. He ties antisemitism specifically to an obsession with the cross of Jesus as the central focus of Christian theology as opposed to the life of Jesus (or the incarnation, or the resurrection, or anything else); this is a deeply important point, but not one I've seen articulated in any Christian writing I've ever read. (I would not be at all surprised if Jewish writers had written about this at length.)
Another interesting throughline is the relationship between papal authority (culminating in Vatican I and the claim of infallibility) and the pope's relationship with Jews. That was not something I anticipated, and I was surprised to find that it came up again and again. I appreciate also Carroll's perspective as a Catholic who is adamantly opposed to the infallibility claim. Honestly, the book goes into all sorts of directions of Church history and theological development that I would never have anticipated, proving, once again, how deeply tied to everything about Western Christianity antisemitism is.
Carroll's understanding of antisemitism as the original sin of Christendom reminds me very much of the understanding of racism and slavery as the original sins of the United States. The latter is coming to be more and more central to any dialogues about American history; the former, unfortunately, still gets overlooked too much of the time. Carroll sees the antisemitism of (specifically Catholic, European) Christianty as snowballing over the centuries, all of it leading to the Shoah. He is quick to reiterate that this snowballing was not inevitable but that it happened because of a series of choices that Christian leaders made and that the laity (mostly) then acted on.
The last few chapters are dedicated to the intellectual and theological work it would take to drain the antisemitism out of the Church. Carroll envisions a Vatican III (which he's written about in other context elsewhere, including about opening the priesthood to marriage and allowing the ordination of women so obviously I'm a big fan) that would do this work and outlines what areas should be focused on. This section would actually stand on its own outside the context of a book on the Church's antisemitism, but that only goes to prove how deeply-rooted that antisemitism is in the worldview the Church has adopted over the past two thousand years. (I love reading anyone attacking neo-Platonism in Christianity, so I ate this up.)
Carroll also tries, to a limited degree, to trace how Jewish theology reacted to antisemitism. I appreciate that--it's an incredibly interesting topic, and he wants to make sure that readers don't forget that Jewish people weren't just sitting around, passively letting things happen to them--but though he clearly has studied a great deal and draws on a lot of sources, this is one of the weaker parts of the book. That said, he always writes about the Jewish perspective with compassion and respect; in fact, he writes about it so admiringly that it's kind of a wonder to me that he hasn't converted. He seems to have far more respect for Jewish faith traditions than Catholic ones and writes about them very beautifully, if narrowly. (I guess it's the Protestant in me that got to the end of the book and said, "Well, damn, dude, why are you still Catholic???")
Carroll frequently uses his own experiences (mostly as an Army brat growing up in the Rhineland, then as a young Catholic priest) as a frame for the book. This tendency in nonfiction frequently frustrates me (I nearly always find the subject of the book vastly more interesting than the story of how the writer pursued that subject), but I find it less annoying here than usual, probably because Carroll is just such a good writer. I'm torn about its use, though. On the one hand, making the ties between antisemitism and Catholicism explicit through the story of one individual man is fairly effective; on the other hand, the book is already so long that it might have benefited from removing that stuff, just so the text could be shorter and not as intimidating to people. I worry that the sheer length of the book is off-putting and that people will be discouraged from reading it, when I think it's an incredibly important book.
The editor could have been a little more heavy-handed, too. It's a pretty repetitive book in a lot of ways; surely they could have cut out fifty or a hundred pages just of the repeated stuff? On the other hand: that very repetition does a really good job of making the reader realize how ubiquitous this stuff was. How the same actions repeated themselves over and over again. How the story of Christendom's feelings about Jews is indeed one story, whether you're looking at Constantine or at Hitler. It's one seamless robe.
I think this book needs to be paired with books on the topic written by Jewish writers--for all its length, it's insufficient on its own--but I do think it's an invaluable and admirable contribution to a reckoning that needs to happen.
This book is an outsider's point of view in one sense, and an insider's in another. Carroll is, in one way, telling a history of European Jewry, a community to which he does not belong. On the other hand, he's also telling a history of European Christendom, which he knows intimately. I would like to read a similar book written entirely from a Jewish perspective (I'm sure it's out there--I just haven't gone looking yet), but I think it is truly valuable for a lifelong Catholic to at least attempt a reckoning of the Catholic church's antisemitism.
Caroll does not flinch from the Church's culpability in pogroms, ghettos, the Shoah, all the many, many ways in which European Jewry suffered at the hands of Christians in the name of their cross--I almost want to say that 'culpability' is too weak a word here. In fact, he explicitly states that attempts to "exonerate 'the Church as such,' or even to reduce the Church's failure to what it did not do between 1933 and 1945, are so evasive and, finally, immoral." He is saying: "We did this," which is more than the Catholic church (or the Church universal) has ever said. Another example quote: "When 'the Church as such,' as opposed to its 'sinful members,' is absolved of any guilt in relation to Nazism, and when what Christian failures there were are reduced to sins of omission, as if the only crime were silence, then the real meaning of this history is being deflected. However modern Nazism was, it planted its roots in the soil of age-old Church attitudes and a nearly unbroken chain of Church-sponsored acts of Jew hatred. However pagan Nazism was, it drew its substance from groundwater poisoned by the Church's most solemnly held ideology--it's theology." [emphasis in original]
This is certainly a historically-grounded book, but it's as interested in theological history as it is in social and political history. Carroll is explicit in exploring the connections between theology, Catholic teachings, clerical voices, papal positions, etc. on the lived reality of Jewish people in Catholic Europe. This book needed to be written by someone who understood the theology just as much as he understood the history; thankfully, it was. He is unafraid to say, outright, "When you teach [x], it is unsurprising that people will commit [y] act, even if you're telling them not to commit that act." Carroll also frequently contrasts the more mainstream antisemitic Catholic voices with alternative voices that ended up being drowned out by history. (I was particularly taken by his chapter on Abelard.) He is intent upon showing that both theology and history could have gone a different way if only different theology was pursued, and that that different theology was there and ready to be used, but was instead rejected. He ties antisemitism specifically to an obsession with the cross of Jesus as the central focus of Christian theology as opposed to the life of Jesus (or the incarnation, or the resurrection, or anything else); this is a deeply important point, but not one I've seen articulated in any Christian writing I've ever read. (I would not be at all surprised if Jewish writers had written about this at length.)
Another interesting throughline is the relationship between papal authority (culminating in Vatican I and the claim of infallibility) and the pope's relationship with Jews. That was not something I anticipated, and I was surprised to find that it came up again and again. I appreciate also Carroll's perspective as a Catholic who is adamantly opposed to the infallibility claim. Honestly, the book goes into all sorts of directions of Church history and theological development that I would never have anticipated, proving, once again, how deeply tied to everything about Western Christianity antisemitism is.
Carroll's understanding of antisemitism as the original sin of Christendom reminds me very much of the understanding of racism and slavery as the original sins of the United States. The latter is coming to be more and more central to any dialogues about American history; the former, unfortunately, still gets overlooked too much of the time. Carroll sees the antisemitism of (specifically Catholic, European) Christianty as snowballing over the centuries, all of it leading to the Shoah. He is quick to reiterate that this snowballing was not inevitable but that it happened because of a series of choices that Christian leaders made and that the laity (mostly) then acted on.
The last few chapters are dedicated to the intellectual and theological work it would take to drain the antisemitism out of the Church. Carroll envisions a Vatican III (which he's written about in other context elsewhere, including about opening the priesthood to marriage and allowing the ordination of women so obviously I'm a big fan) that would do this work and outlines what areas should be focused on. This section would actually stand on its own outside the context of a book on the Church's antisemitism, but that only goes to prove how deeply-rooted that antisemitism is in the worldview the Church has adopted over the past two thousand years. (I love reading anyone attacking neo-Platonism in Christianity, so I ate this up.)
Carroll also tries, to a limited degree, to trace how Jewish theology reacted to antisemitism. I appreciate that--it's an incredibly interesting topic, and he wants to make sure that readers don't forget that Jewish people weren't just sitting around, passively letting things happen to them--but though he clearly has studied a great deal and draws on a lot of sources, this is one of the weaker parts of the book. That said, he always writes about the Jewish perspective with compassion and respect; in fact, he writes about it so admiringly that it's kind of a wonder to me that he hasn't converted. He seems to have far more respect for Jewish faith traditions than Catholic ones and writes about them very beautifully, if narrowly. (I guess it's the Protestant in me that got to the end of the book and said, "Well, damn, dude, why are you still Catholic???")
Carroll frequently uses his own experiences (mostly as an Army brat growing up in the Rhineland, then as a young Catholic priest) as a frame for the book. This tendency in nonfiction frequently frustrates me (I nearly always find the subject of the book vastly more interesting than the story of how the writer pursued that subject), but I find it less annoying here than usual, probably because Carroll is just such a good writer. I'm torn about its use, though. On the one hand, making the ties between antisemitism and Catholicism explicit through the story of one individual man is fairly effective; on the other hand, the book is already so long that it might have benefited from removing that stuff, just so the text could be shorter and not as intimidating to people. I worry that the sheer length of the book is off-putting and that people will be discouraged from reading it, when I think it's an incredibly important book.
The editor could have been a little more heavy-handed, too. It's a pretty repetitive book in a lot of ways; surely they could have cut out fifty or a hundred pages just of the repeated stuff? On the other hand: that very repetition does a really good job of making the reader realize how ubiquitous this stuff was. How the same actions repeated themselves over and over again. How the story of Christendom's feelings about Jews is indeed one story, whether you're looking at Constantine or at Hitler. It's one seamless robe.
I think this book needs to be paired with books on the topic written by Jewish writers--for all its length, it's insufficient on its own--but I do think it's an invaluable and admirable contribution to a reckoning that needs to happen.
christhedoll's review against another edition
5.0
When I hear conservatives, or anyone, say 'Judeo-Christian...' it makes me kind of ill. For me it started a little slow because he kept talking about how this affected his life. I wanted to know the history. But you get there.
jjweisman's review
4.0
May be too academic for some tastes. Compelling attempts to show points at which the two traditions hardened and softened their divides.
alexctelander's review
3.0
To the everyday layman, it seems as if the Christians and the Jews have been fighting and disputing with each other for millennia; you wouldn’t be far off in that approximation. But now there is a book available that will solve all these riddles: Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews by James Carroll. Here is a read that will rip to pieces any idea or stereotypes you may have once had.
Carroll begins in the present day, in a small town in Poland where there is a dispute over an erected cross, between the Jews and the Christians. The author then takes us back, deep into the annals of the past, where it all began, guiding us ever so softly along the way. The book is very long, but then with a subject matter like this, you would rather the author be thorough and get everything that ever happened down on paper.
And just as Carroll starts you off in the present day; at the end he takes you back to the present day. You feel as if you have been on a very long journey, through the lives of so may Christian and Jews, that you are one and both of them, you feel almost euphoric that you now know the truth. And for those of you who find this book’s price a little steep, it will published in paperback next April.
Originally published on December 3rd 2001.
For over 500 book reviews, and over 40 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.
Carroll begins in the present day, in a small town in Poland where there is a dispute over an erected cross, between the Jews and the Christians. The author then takes us back, deep into the annals of the past, where it all began, guiding us ever so softly along the way. The book is very long, but then with a subject matter like this, you would rather the author be thorough and get everything that ever happened down on paper.
And just as Carroll starts you off in the present day; at the end he takes you back to the present day. You feel as if you have been on a very long journey, through the lives of so may Christian and Jews, that you are one and both of them, you feel almost euphoric that you now know the truth. And for those of you who find this book’s price a little steep, it will published in paperback next April.
Originally published on December 3rd 2001.
For over 500 book reviews, and over 40 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.
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