Religion-Philosophy – Page 7 – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation

By Scott J. Pearson | May 24, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

Dante’s Divine Comedy is famously organized into three sections: hell (inferno), then purgatory, and finally paradise. The first section (hell) is generally considered the greatest of the three, and Robert Pinsky attempts to re-translate the verses in this edition. Dante intentionally wrote the Divine Comedy in the Italian of commoners (instead of the Latin of scholars) so that the masses could read it. Therefore, it is appropriate for Pinsky to translate the Inferno in a…

Spiritual Quests: The Art and Craft of Religious Writing

By Scott J. Pearson | May 12, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

This book is the manicured transcript of an event in New York City in the 1980s. This seminar featured six prominent writers influenced by different faith traditions. They spoke on how their religious beliefs/practices changed the way they wrote. By commenting on a practice as timeless as writing, this account captures much of religious writers’ sentiments towards their craft. All of these six speeches were interesting. They covered faith traditions as disparate as Roman Catholicism,…

Fiction-Stories History Poetry Religion-Philosophy

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

By Scott J. Pearson | April 12, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

Dante’s famous The Divine Comedy lies at the intersection of art and theology. I love artful renditions of theology. Further, it is known as the best work of poetry ever to grace the language of Italian. Therefore, I decided to look for a good translation. I’ve enjoyed Longfellow’s poetry in the past, and when I saw that he undertook an adaptation, I chose to give it a go. Unfortunately, Longfellow seemed to stick a little…

Religion-Philosophy Society

Christianity and Culture by TS Eliot

By Scott J. Pearson | January 18, 2020January 18, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

I first read these essays while a senior at college. Now, about twenty years later, I reread them in a study on the English poet TS Eliot. Eliot uses language very carefully, as any poet should, but he is a poet approaching the world of an anthropologist. Further, he writes in an era (pre- and post-World-War-II) in which European culture was pulled apart at the seams and remade again. Eliot himself is an American transplant…

Fiction-Stories Religion-Philosophy

The Power and the Glory

By Scott J. Pearson | December 13, 2019December 13, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

I picked up this highly regarded work because I like books that put an interesting spin on meaning-of-life issues and religion in general. I had heard that this book was ranked as one of the greatest 100 books written in English in the twentieth century. It did not disappoint. The author Greene was a Englishman who travelled in Mexico – the setting of this novel. He wrote about a “whisky priest” – an alcoholic. The…

History Religion-Philosophy

Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Revealing the Jewish Roots of Christianity

By Scott J. Pearson | October 26, 2019October 26, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

Review courtesy The Englewood Review, where it is originally published. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946-47 provided scholars of religion something new and unique to talk about. For millennia, scholars tried to work on the relationship between Judeo-Christian beliefs and Greek academics. The Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrated a dynamic ascetic community from the Hebrew tradition in Jesus’ time. In so doing, it overturned what had become a consensus position that Jesus represented…

Biography-Memoir Fiction-Stories Religion-Philosophy

Review: The Damascus Road: A Novel of St. Paul

By Scott J. Pearson | July 19, 2019July 19, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

I reviewed this novel earlier in this blog. I also wrote a lengthier review at the Englewood Review of Books that was just published. I’d be honored if you checked it out!

Biography-Memoir History Religion-Philosophy

Review: Jesus: The Human Face of God

By Scott J. Pearson | June 12, 2019June 12, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

Anyone who attempts to biography Jesus is bound to fail. An author is bound to project herself or himself onto the narrative. That’s why all theology eventually turns into autobiography. In Parini’s work, clearly, both the object (Jesus of Nazareth) and the subject (Parini the author) are worth learning from, and the reader can find much to aspire to. Much of late twentieth and early twenty-first century studies on the Jesus of history devolve into…

Biography-Memoir Religion-Philosophy

Review: The Damascus Road

By Scott J. Pearson | May 19, 2019May 27, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

A Novel of Saint Paulby Jay PariniCopyright (c) 2019.ISBN13: 9780385522786Page count: 349Genre: Historical Fiction, Religious Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to hear an honest account of Saint Paul’s life? I mean, one can only glean so much from the theology of the New Testament; I’m left wondering: What would Paul say if I had a beer with him? Jay Parini, a Guggenheim Fellow, pursues creative writing in the form of poetry, biography,…

Fiction-Stories Religion-Philosophy

The Scarlet Letter

By Scott J. Pearson | December 16, 2018 by Scott J. Pearson

by Nathaniel HawthorneWritten 1850. I originally read this book in high school. I reread it now, with two more decades of life experience. I’ve lived among Christians who revere the Puritan era. I’ve experienced social shunning. I’m a male living in the #MeToo era where one sin of sexual harassment can lead to career demise. In all of these situations, however, I side with Hawthorne’s sympathies towards those who bear the brunt of social shunning.…