FRANCE AUTHOR · CHURCH HISTORY · HISTORY
Ernest Renan
Also known as: Ernest Rénan, E. Renan
Joseph Ernest Renan (27 February 1823 – 2 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar and critic. He wrote influential and pioneering historical works on the origins of early Christianity, and espoused popular political theories especially concerning nationalism and national identity. Renan is credited as being among the first scholars to advance the Khazar theory, which helds that Ashkenazi Jews were descendants of the Khazars, Turkic peoples who had adopted Jewish religion and migrated to Western Europe following the collapse of their khanate. Source: [Ernest Renan]( on Wikipedia
LET us look each other in the face.
— from Der Antichrist
Most acclaimed
Saint Paul
"Pier Paolo Pasolini's screenplay of an unfinished film about St. Paul is a key addition to the existing bibliography around St. Paul and to a proliferating trend in literature centered on the current turn to religion in philosophy and critical theory. Authors such as Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek and Giorgio Agamben have all taken part in these discussions. Pasolini's screenplay, however, looks nothing like a sober philosophical treatise on religion, faith or St. Paul; instead, it is a remarkably exciting text, relentless in both its sacralization and profaning of filmic reality"--
The Song of songs
This elliptical story of nineteenth-century shtetl Europe is narrated by Shimek whose older brother drowned, leaving an orphaned daughter. This baby niece - Buzie - who is raised as Shimek's sister, becomes at first an audience for his magical tales; then his companion on journeys through Edenic woods and fields; and, at last, the love of his life. This love, first frustrated by Shimek's inability to speak his heart, is finally and ironically shattered on a fine point of Jewish tradition: Though an uncle may marry his niece, Shimek and Buzie have been raised as brother and sister. Shimek's tribute from the Biblical Song of Songs - "my sister, my bride" - becomes a mocking taboo. . Told in four parts, gorgeously written and translated, framed by the periodic cycle of the natural world, and magically decorated with a dozen specially commissioned paintings, this edition of The Song of Songs brings to compassionate life two of the most memorable star-crossed lovers in modern literature.
The book of Job
"The illustrations from the Book of Job were designed and engraved by William Blake in the last years of his life. They represent the culmination of his career as illustrator, engraver, and interpreter of the Bible. Their appeal to the eye is immediate, and their dialogue with the mind is enduring. This edition contains all twenty-two of the illustrations along with the complete authorized version of the Book of Job, and a new introduction which will be of interest to both newcomers and old admirers of Blake's work." -- Cover page 4.