Customer Reviews

Jews, God and History: Revised and Updated Edition

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I had not much luck with finding a really good history of Judaism until I stumbled across this book and bought it on a whim. What I got was what I really wanted: a well-written history of the Jews from ancient times to today.

Two things make this book great. First, Dimont is a good writer, both insightful and entertaining, with occasional flashes of ironic humor. Second, Dimont puts the history of the Jews in the larger context of World History and keeps from a narrower Jewish perspective.

On the one hand, Dimont does not hide his general admiration for the Jews, both for their endurance and their contributions to society that are far out of proportion to their percentage of the populace. On the other hand, for those who believe that Jews have suffered nothing but persecution for thousands of years, Dimont presents a different viewpoint which shows Jews often prospering.

No one will find Dimont fully objective in his history, but they should find that he presents an overall balanced work. Written with both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences in mind, Dimont has put together a wonderful book that is good for both those interested in Jewish history or those interested in Western history in general.

This popular history of the Jewish people succeeds in bringing the four thousand year saga alive for the general reader. The author observes that even though the furniture of the West may be Greek, the house of Western civilization is Jewish. One of the questions examined in this book is: How did the Jewish people survive the disappearance of every civilization in which they lived? The following six eras are discussed in the Preface: the Pagan World, Greco-Roman civilization, Diaspora, Islam, European Middle Ages and the Modern Age. Dimont accepts the psychoanalytic, philosophical and existentialist interpretation of history that holds that ideas motivate mankind and shape history.

Part One: The Portable God, explores the age of paganism, the origin of the Hebrews and of monotheism and the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah, until the coming of the Greeks and the clash of Greek and Hebrew culture. In Part Two: Age Of The Apikorsim, he looks at the survival of Jewish culture and religion under the Greeks, the Roman take-over of the land, the destruction of Jerusalem and the various Jewish revolts until the final banishment from the Holy Land.

Part 3: Moses, Christ and Caesar investigates the birth of Christianity as a Jewish sect, how the religions were separated during the aforementioned wars and revolts and the spread and ultimate triumph of Christianity in Europe. The next section, Invisible World Of The Talmud, explains how Judaism and Jewish identity were preserved in the diaspora by means of Talmudic learning.

In Part 5: Mohammed, Allah and Jehovah, the author covers the rise of Islam and the Arab expansion, the golden era of Jewish scholarship and the end of that period with the Mongol invasion of the Middle East and the Christian reconquest of Spain, whilst the following, The Prince And The Yellow Star, considers the Middle Ages, Crusades, Renaissance and Reformation. It also examines the role of the Jewish people in the feudal age and the origin of Kabalah.

Part 7: On The Horns Of Modern Isms, chronicles the emancipation from the ghetto to the enlightenment when Jews started occupying important positions and became intellectual leaders in Europe. This section looks at Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the United States, Nazism and finally, Zionism and the birth of the State of Israel. In the last part: Cultural Mosaic, Dimont attempts an historical explanation of the incredible survival of this miracle nation.

In his view, the first 2000 years represent that third of the Torah and Talmud which concerns priesthood and sacrifice that preserved the Hebrews from paganism. The second 2000 years had to do with that third of the Torah and Talmud that preserved ethnic identity through ritual while spreading Biblical ideas of humanism. He speculates that the last one third now remains, that part that deals with universal concepts of justice, morality and ethics.

There is an extensive bibliography divided into various sections and an index. Although here and there certain observations in the text have become a little outdated since publication, Jews, God and History remains a magisterial work and a gripping read inhabited by fascinating ideas, personalities, events and historical facts. The style is engaging and accessible throughout. I also recommend A History Of The Jews by Paul Johnson and WorldPerfect by Ken Spiro.

A History of the Jews

WorldPerfect: The Jewish Impact on Civilization

Standing With Israel

Your People Shall Be My People

Epicenter: Why current rumblings in the middle east will change your future

The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City

A book that spans Abraham to Maimonides to Disraeli can't get every detail in, but I still found the book very informative. I found Dimont's interpretation of events enlightening -- for example, in the Middle Ages the ghettoization and ostracization of Jews, in a way, helped the Jews, because they were free from the ludicrous system of Feudalism. Could we consider the Jews the originators of the Free Market system (which is a good thing)? Dimont hints at this.

I also didn't know that the Church was in many ways the *protector* of the Jews (Gregory the Great forbade the forced conversion of Jews), and that it was lay Christians who incited and joined the Anti-Semitic mobs. This makes "sense" in a social psychological way(not to give credence to Jew hatred). You have a bunch of serfs, illiterate, ignorant of their own religion, ignorant of the Tanach/Old Testament (Catholic Church liturgy really builds entirely from the NT), ostensibly owned by their lords, and then you have a bunch of educated, "free" Jews who were different religously from the oppressed Christians. Jealousy, envy, perception of a disruption in the "natural" order, thus Anti-Semitism. The Nazis would pick up on this later, quite literally emphasizing the "natural order", except the Nazis, as Dimont shows, aren't Christian but anti-Christian as well as anti-Jew. Their hatred of Jews had nothing to do w/ "deicide", rather motive that can only be described as Darwinian pagan "Blood and Soil". The Nazis had enough Zyklon-B gas to kill 20 million more, yet only 3 million Jews left in Europe after the evils of the Final Solution. The Nazis were going to go after everyone.

I also liked the tidbits Dimont throws in: Germans during WWII had a higher suicide rate than Jews in the concentration camps. Amazing! What spirit pulses through the seed of Abraham! This book reaffirmed my faith in the Creator. This is an excellent book for Christians to read, so that all Christians may understand and appreciate the history of our Jewish brethren.

Max Dimont's "Jews, God, and History" is a now well-known summary of the subject. As has been pointed out by many previous reviewers, this book is appropriately acclaimed for being readable, helpfully condensed, and free of scholarly obfuscation. His collection of the facts of Jewish history is accessible in ways that more detailed and research-based works are not. One could quickly use an outline of the book to keep the chronology straight and get immediate access to greater detail when needed. He summarizes the key events and issues of Jewish history in a manner that can act as an introduction to more detailed works.

Unlike more scholarly works, he is honest about his advocacy. He advocates a universal rationalism, on the model of Spinoza, rather than a philosophy based on revelation or authority. He minimizes the effects of Christianity and Islam. He is unabashed in his citation of the beneficial effects of Jewish innovations. His roll call of influential Jewish individuals (pp. 328-372) is a mini-encyclopedia in itself. He advocates a non-supernatural approach to history, so he accepts historical and psychological rather than theistic explanations. His secular approach may make the book more accessible to a larger audience.

Dimont's assets are as monumental as are his liabilities, with three areas of particular weakness. First, the title is a misnomer. The book contains a lot about the Jews, a lot about history, and little or nothing about God. It therefore has the paradoxical effect of portraying the uniquely Jewish theology as unnecessary to understanding Jewish history.

Second, Dimont states that whether God is or is not involved in history is irrelevant to the story of the Jews. "It makes no difference whether it was Abraham who projected this experience onto an imaginary Jehovah or a real Jehovah who proposed it to Abraham."

Lastly, Dimont's book contains numerous historical inaccuracies, unsupported theological speculations, and personal prejudices. The following are examples:

"Moses is to Judaism what Jesus is to Christianity." On the contrary, most Jewish authorities cite Abraham as Judaism's founding father, and Moses as neither divine nor a cosmic savior.

"In its early days Christianity, too, was embraced mainly by slaves." This is historically inaccurate because none of the 12 disciples were slaves, the early priests and bishops could not have also been slaves, and the Roman homeowners who held early Christian services in their homes could not have been both homeowners and slaves.

"It makes no difference whether Moses was a Jew or not." The evidence of Jewish scripture states the opposite.

Dimont refers to the Maccabean revolt "as the world's first religious war." However, religious holy war was practiced during time of Saul, centuries before the Maccabees

The author cited two events which led to the downfall of Rome: the growth of Christianity and the migration of the Huns. Historians have shown that the growth of Christianity helped the Roman emperor Constantine solidify his power and build up the Roman Empire. In addition, the growth of Christianity strengthened the Eastern Roman Empire until the 15th century.

The author claims that "Christianity existed at least two hundred years before Jesus". He bases his opinion on the Dead Sea Scrolls' description of the Essene Community. How is it possible that Christianity existed prior to Jesus' birth?

"Nothing he [Jesus] preached, taught, or said was in contradiction to what other Jewish prophets, rabbis, or sects said or taught." On the contrary, Jesus' controversial practices of working on the Sabbath, eating with gentile sinners, and claiming to be able to absolve sins incurred the wrath of local Jewish religious authorities.

"[St. Paul] had repeated hallucinations." Historical evidence indicates that Paul's visions and intuitions were no different from those of other important religious leaders throughout history.

"From a historical viewpoint it makes no difference whether Christ actually appeared to Paul or whether Paul had a hallucinative experience." However, it does make a difference whether historical evidence indicates that Paul had visions of Jesus as the eternal Christ or whether he was a madman experiencing hallucinations, which are contrary to observable fact and equivalent to psychosis.

"Jesus had taught that one learned to love God by loving man." Evidence of the New Testament states the reverse.

"Islam had succeeded where Christianity had failed." Dimont explains that by the 7th century Islam had spread its influence throughout the Mediterranean world. However, Christianity had already become the official religion of the Roman Empire, two centuries before the time of Mohammed.

"It may be that Nietzsche did not advocate what he wrote." To the contrary, Nietzsche never printed any retractions and consistently maintained and published the same point of view from early adulthood throughout his life.

Can't add much more to the reviews except my own experience with it. I read this book 10 or more years ago, but I remember vividly how well it explained Jewish history, and to a large degree, our world today. I heard it recommended by a preacher and found it for about a dollar at a used book store. It really opened my eyes.

The author seemed to be very level-headed, i.e. he had no bones to pick, no political motive, no desire to influence anybody for any reason. It is an entertaining as well as very instructive book. It is very well written and easy to read, in fact, I remember reading about half the book at my first sitting, which is remarkable for me because I am a very slow reader.

Based on my limited experience, it is one of the best, most readable books on the subject you will find.

This book was recommended to my by an internet friend. It is far outside of my usual area of reading. I did not think that I would understand the book, much less enjoy the read. Just how interesting would Jewish history be to a Christian? I was very wrong in my assumptions. This book turned out to be a real page- turner. I couldn't put it down. When I was in high school, many years ago, I could never figure out what made the Jewish kids so smart. They seemed to be the grade leaders in every school in the city. This great book answered that question and many others that I have always had about the Jewish people and religion. In my opinion, every adult, Muslim, Christian, Jew, or whatever religion, should read this book. The way you look at the world will be forever changed!

This book truly reviews the glorious history of the Jews. I couldn't put it down. The facts and the fiction that have been discussed and written about over the centuries were touched on with great passion and research. This book makes me proud to be a part of the Jewish people.

This is a good (entertaining in parts) history. It is a passionate book. However, it was first published in 1962 and it hasn't aged well in the company of modern Jewish historiography. Dimont tends to make connections between events and draw inferences which, in the absence of footnotes, sometimes appear as almost wild generalisations. Often he pounces on one or two people or events as encompassing a totality of explanations for hisotrical trends. For example, the influence of Alfred Rosenberg on the Nazis is undoubtedly exaggerated in the book. The book lacks the socio-political sophistication of modern works but, allowing for the cold war context after WWII, it is still worth reading with some reservations.

This fact-filled book [review based on the 1962 edition] offers so much! One might be surprised to learn that the Karaite revolt was quite similar to the later Protestant Reformation (pp. 204-208), that the Hasmonean John Hyrcanus had converted the Idumeans and the Galileans to Judaism by force (p. 91, 98), and that some Jews burned Maimonides' works even before Christians ever burned a single copy of the Talmud. (p. 182, 240) Thereafter, many more unauthorized copies of the New Testament went up in flames than Talmuds, while Jewish translations of the Old Testament were never burned by Christians. (p. 240)

Ironically, early laws restricting Jewish life were commonly modeled after similar Old Testament and Talmudic laws that restricted non-Jews (p. 219), and the later Inquisition's authority for executing heretics (BTW rarely Jews, except Marranos: p. 226, 315) was based directly upon Deuteronomy 17:2-5. (p. 224) Jews generally chose to live apart from gentiles (p. 251, 254). Compulsory ghettoization didn't occur until much later, and then only in specific locations (p. 251, 255).

Dimont focuses on Jewish achievements and privileges (e. g., most medieval Jews were freer than most gentiles: p. 303), and puts pre-Nazi European Jewish sufferings in perspective: "It must not be supposed that the majority of Christians hated the Jews. Quite the contrary. Only a small segment were Jew-baiters. When left to themselves, Jew and Christian lived peacefully side by side...It must also be remembered that the ritual-murder charges, the Host-desecration libels, and pogroms took place over a period of seven hundred years and over an entire continent. By and large, most of the ghettos and shtetls were not affected by pogroms or general maraudings." (p. 258)

Compulsory ghettoization, and accusations of ritual murder, Host-desecration, well-poisoning, etc., didn't begin until about 1100 AD (p. 220), and usually were the most common and extreme in Germany and Austria. (pp. 239, 242, 246-247, 251, 254, 255) The first expulsion of Jews from a nation wasn't until 1290--from England (p. 229) The Crusaders, whose ranks included not only the devout but also criminally-minded adventurers, were equal-opportunity killers of Jews and non-Jews. (p. 220-221) Compulsory wearing of the yellow badge didn't begin until 1215 (p. 220) and didn't apply to Jews living in the shtetl. (p. 257)

Dimont (pp. 377-378) gives details on the anti-Christian character of Nazism, and rejects the emphasis upon "unequal victims": "If the Christian reader dismisses what had happened in Germany as something which affected a few million Jews only, he has not merely shown his contempt for the 7 million Christians but has betrayed his Christian heritage as well. And, if the Jewish reader forgets the 7 million Christians murdered by the Nazis, then he has not merely let 5 million Jews die in vain but has betrayed his Jewish heritage of compassion and justice." (p. 388)

Unfortunately, Dimont repeats Polonophobic whoppers--the "Polish nonhelp" to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the later "well-armed" Warsaw Polish insurgents (p. 384), and--even more unbelievable-- "Poles turning over" 2.8 million Jews to the Germans for extermination. (p. 386)

As for non-Jewish victims, Dimont writes: "The chilling reality is that when the Russians overran the concentration camps in Poland they found enough Zyklon B crystals to kill 20 million people. Yet there were no more than 3 million Jews left in Europe. The ratio of contemplated mass killing was no longer 1.4 Christians for every Jew, but 5.3 Christians for every Jew. Nazi future plans called for the killing of 10 million non-Germanic people every year." (p. 388).

As an anti-religionist wanting to learn more about the world's religions, I came away from this book with awe, respect and wonder at the extraordinary history of an historic people. This little book is stunning in its breadth and depth. This book is always in front of me, tattered and abused, but thoroughly used!