Book Review: The Gifts of the Jews

Book Review
"The Gifts of the Jews"
How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels
by: Thomas Cahill
ISBN 0-385-48249-3
Paperback, $14.95
Nan A. Talese/Anchor Books


I bought a copy of "The Gifts of the Jews" because a professor highly recommended it as a moving tribute to the Jewish people. Based on who recommended the book, I expected the book to be respectful of the Biblical record, but I soon found that it wasn't what I expected.

Cahill opens the book with a graphic verbal depiction of the nature of worship and the attitude towards gods in the people and culture in the Fertile Crescent prior to Abram's arrival on the scene. He does a good job of comparing various early literature to discern the difference between various forms of belief, and attitudes toward local deities at the time. He spends more time than I thought was warranted giving a graphic description of the sensual worship rituals of the ziggurats with their priestesses - making his book seem more like a paperback romance than a respectable work of historical research.

As you can tell by now, I was not overly ecstatic about Cahill's presentation of the roots of the Hebrew people. However, what I did appreciate was the credence he gave to the idea of Abraham's belief in his personal covenant God. The "evolution" of the belief in a god that Cahill outlines is a decent perspective to read, in order to understand how Abraham's neighbors would have viewed his insistence on belief in a personal Creator God.

At times, you would almost believe that Cahill was a believer. He seems at times, to have great respect for God. However, he shows no great appreciation for the Biblical record, and thereby blows his "cover" in my mind. This man is no believer. He honors his own intellect above any idea of God.

Cahill lost all credibility with me when he said:

It is no longer possible to believe that every word of the Bible was inspired by God. Fundamentalists still do, but they keep usp such self-delusion only by scrupulously avoiding all forms of scientific inquiry. They must also maintain a tight reign on their own senses, for, even without access to modern biblical criticism, any reader might wonder at the patchwork nature of the scriptures, their conflicting norms and judgements, outright contradictions, and bald errors. But even without resorting to modern scientific methodology or noticing what an inconsistent palimpsest the Hebrew Bible can be, we must reject certain parts of the Bible as unworthy of a God we would be willing to believe in.

When you strip away the camoflague, you see that Thomas Cahill, not God, is the final arbiter. God must be judged by the almight Thomas Cahill. The phrase "a God we would be willing to believe in" implies that we are the final judge of all that is right or wrong.

If God is God, then I do not have the right to set standards for Him. I cannot set a certain standard for God and only believe in Him if He performs to a level that meets my satisfaction! If I am the final judge...then I am God. If I am God, then I can cease my search for Him. I have already found him in the mirror!

While Mr. Cahill is a masterful writer, I cannot recommend this book for anyone who truly desires to honor God, or the Biblical record of His work among His people. I can only recommend it to anyone who seeks to have more fuel to fire their belief in "the almighty in the mirror."

All others....move along...there's noting to see here.