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Life and death in the Bible
The power of God for Christians and Jews by Kevin JMadigan and Jon D Levenson
Reviewed by Spengler
Theology was dethroned as queen of the sciences two centuries ago. This splendid book supports the case for restoration. How are we to make sense of a world in which the raw issues of life and death - secular society’s failure to endure life, and traditional society’s embrace of death - overthrow the trifling calculus of political science? The world has buried Karl Marx’s economic man and Sigmund Freud’s libidinous man, and the shovel is ready for Martin Heidegger’s “authentic” man. Levenson and Madigan show instead Biblical man in his confrontation with death, and in so doing hold up a mirror to us.
Resurrection is among a handful of recent theological texts that radically affect our view of the world, including works by Michael
Wsychogrod [1] and Fergus Kerr [2], as well as a new translation of Franz Rosenzweig’s chief work [3]. It is doubly remarkable as the joint effort of a Jewish and a Christian scholar.
Life and death to the ancient Hebrews were a moral conditions more than medical one, the authors explain. Enslavement and looming cultural extinction were felt as the grave, as was childlessness. National redemption and the covenantal promise of continuity of Abraham’s line were a restoration of life, a resurrection in the earliest stirring of Hebrew religious sensibility. The modern materialist view of life and death, the authors remind us, has little in common with the way in which ancient readers of the Bible understood existence.
One might go farther, and assert that the Biblical understanding of life and death still prevails today among most of the world’s six billion souls. The materialism of modern political science sadly misjudges the demands of the human heart. Nations are willing to fight to the death because their national life already has become a living death, in just the way the Bible saw it. In their hearts they already have gone down to Sheol, and the world holds no greater terror for them than what they live each day.

atimes.com

Amitabh Bachchan plans a memorial for his father
London (PTI): Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan plans a memorial for his late father Harivansh Rai Bachchan, a distinguished Hindi poet whose contribution to literature, the actor feels “cannot be ever challenged”.
“We want to do things in his memory, be it in the field of remembrance, research or in any other field but we will do it,” 65-year-old Bachchan, who was here in connection with the launch of his forthcoming film ‘Bhoothnath’ on Sunday in an interview.
Declining to give details of the scheme, the ace actor said: “Yes, you will know about it. But his (Harivansh Rai’s) contribution to literature cannot be ever challenged”.
Harivansh Rai was a distinguished Hindi poet of ‘Chhayavaad’ (romantic upsurge) literary movement in early 20th century and was best known for his collection of poems ‘Madhushala’.
Bachchan said he derived his strength from his family, especially parents. “Yes, our parents have been our life and strength. They shall remain with us… I think of them and remember them every step of my day.”
Responding to the recent tirade launched against him by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena Chief Raj Thackeray, Bachchan said, “It is a free country. Everyone has a right to say and feel what they like. I must follow the law of the land and I must follow the Constitution. I must follow my conscience. That is what I have been doing.”
Talking about opening a school after his daughter-in-law Aishwarya in Uttar Pradesh, he said, “A promise to the people of the region was made a year ago. We kept our promise and have laid the foundation stone for the school. It will now be built and become operational. I will be involved in funding the construction and will be part of the administration through a trust.”

hindu.com