Reviews for Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture

The average rating for Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-02-20 00:00:00 David Villa I was pretty excited to start reading this book, and while I found the contents really interesting, I do think that the cover was a bit misleading. I took the liberty of mocking up an alternate cover which I think would better convey the contents: Rant mode on. The Temple Its Ministry and Services as They Were in the Time of Jesus Christ starts with a brief introduction where Edersheim mentions that his studies of Temple protocol and practice strengthened his Christian faith and convinced him more than ever that Jesus was the messiah, etc. And that's fine, and if that had been the end of it I wouldn't be writing this now, but obviously it wasn't the end. He repeatedly brings up how such and such practice was just a prefigurement of the messiah's coming after which it became meaningless, or talks about the rabbis' punctiliousness when describing the way they determined ritual practice, or uses phrases like "last real Passover" when talking about the Last Supper or "the real Temple" (emphasis in original) when referring to Jesus or talking about "if Jewish tradition may be trusted," which is perfectly reasonable in terms of historical analysis but becomes pretty loaded in the context of the rest of the book. I didn't read this to get a load of anti-Semitic supersessionist crap or hear about how the "old" law has passed away or read the screed at the end of every chapter about how Jesus roolz, Moses droolz. Unfortunately, that is what I got. And sure, the book was published in 1874 and what can I expect, really, but that doesn't make it more enjoyable to read. And something I found pretty funny is how he'll cite other scholars and say something like "Dr. SoAndSo claims that the bull was slaughtered after the prayer was said, but it's obvious from A and B that the bull was slaughtered before the prayer!" Punctiliousness, what what? I guess it's okay in historical research but a terrible crime in religious practice! I really want to rant here about how some Christian writers and Western culture in general--and Western culture is heavily influenced by Christianity--treat worrying about the specifics of ritual practice and behavior as quaint or bizarre or pedantic when compared to simple honest belief, when the truth is that the former is how the vast majority of humans through the vast majority of history have related to their gods and the latter is historically only confined to an extremely small number of sects...but that was kind of the rant right there, wasn't it? That was definitely another part of the book that bothered me, and it's especially evident toward the end when Edersheim starts talking about specific cleansing rituals like the red heifer. Admittedly, it's not like it's just Rabbinic Judaism he takes digs at. He makes a couple swipes at Catholics (sorry, "the Romish Church") too for being focused on ritual over faith--whatever that means--and it seems like every single time he brings up the Karaites, it's to explain how they got things wrong. It was especially annoying because the book is extremely detailed and filled with information, but his attitude inclines me to look at everything with suspicion. Not just because he uses citations from the Gospels as objective proof of events happening when the Gospels were at least partially political documents (the Romans going to a subject population for permission to kill a dissident, especially a Roman who was later recalled to Rome for his brutal treatment of the populace? Please), but because I looked up some of the neat details and I couldn't find much independent confirmation. There's a note about the offering boxes at the Temple being shaped like trumpets, thus leading to a lot of the imagery later in the Tanakh, but I looked around online and most of the places I found seemed to use this book as a source, or at least similar enough wording to make me doubt its independent veracity. There's a lot of detail about Passover, which I found particularly interesting considering the time of year I read the book. Like how originally the last part of the meal eaten was the Paschal lamb, but now that the sacrifices can't be performed it's been replaced with the afikomen. Or how the "Bread of Affliction" isn't actually afflicting, because it's not commemorating a sad occasion, since the reason it is unleavened is because the Israelites couldn't wait for it to rise because they were escaping slavery. Though insert debate about the historicity of the Exodus account here. Sukkot, aka the Feast of Tabernacles, which is certainly a more impressive name in English, is called out as the most important festival of the year because it was a harvest festival in an agricultural society. I had heard this before, but it's nice to see independent confirmation, and it's good to call out for modern readers considering how important the High Holy Days are in the modern ritual calendar. There's a really fascinating note about the possibility that public worship, as distinct from offering sacrifices, was a post-Exilic institution driven by the need to maintain cultural continuity in the face of a hostile or indifferent surrounding culture, but sadly it's not developed at all. I'd definitely read a book about how the Babylonian captivity changed Judaism, and you know, I think I'll go find one. I debated between giving this book two or three stars, and eventually settled on 2.5 rounded up to 3. There is a lot of good information about Temple practice and ritual here, but Edersheim's constant attempts to put a messianic spin on everything lend a sour taste to a text that could have been a lot more objective. If that grates on you less than it did on me, I expect you'll enjoy The Temple Its Ministry just fine.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-02-29 00:00:00 Kristin Currey Enlightening. Helpful in understanding the Temple system especially in how it related to the ministry and sacrifice of our Lord.