Psychology of Jesus: A Study of the Development of His Self-Consciousness Book

Mind=blown.

I had to read a few chapters of this for a class I'm taking, but I ended up devouring the whole thing because I enjoyed it so much. A few things that were great:

-There is a LOT packed into this little book. Lawrence touches on theories of reality, consciousness, feminism, artificial intelligence, & mysticism just to name a few. And he accomplishes this is such a way that is faithful to the theories at hand and their complexities and contradictions against one another without positing any as 'better' or 'worse' . . . just things to think about.

-This book is much more about philosophy than it is about the Matrix series. In fact, I've only seen the first two Matrix films and I was able to get through this book without any problems. The various themes in the plot of the movies serve as the anchor Lawrence uses to demonstrate any given concept, but it is clear throughout the book that the films themselves are not what's at stake. Rather, they are a reference point.

Lastly, this book was not written for an academic. It is accessible enough to be suitable for somebody completely new to philosophy, but rich enough for the interested-yet-not-down-to-read-Kant-in-the-original types like myself. It also did not read like your standard Intro to Philosophy course, wherein you are struggling to understand the relevancy of some of the outdated concepts to your own life. Lawerence utilizes what is useful from the 'old' (so to speak), but references plenty of the new. In short, it felt like a very modern, accessible, and relevant approach to philosophy.