It seems a poorly argued jumble
359173
I've enjoyed reading a great many books about the authorship debate.  I liked Whittemore's Monument a to to.  I found it implausible at first, though very interesting and well argued, and I came to think it was a highly plausible idea.

This book is not so well written, suffers from taking huge quotes from another dubiously written and argued book, which I also regrettably bought.

It is certainly not the place to start in the debate. It seemed to have little new, and that which may be is buried in so much mixed up fact, speculation, cited, incited, credibly cited, incredibly, etc that it feels a complete waste of time to read.

I am sorry to give such a negative review on a subject I find fascinating, but I did not find this book either accessible or enlightening
3840092
The quality of the writing is mediocre and the argumentation is far from flawless. That being said, it definitely gets you thinking.
1809982
Let me be the first to acknowledge, my personal philosophy is judicially conservative.  In the wake of Scalia's death, I wanted to get a refresher and exposition on the theories that were his opposites, and Breyer's book seemed a sensible choice.  But Breyer is neither persuasive nor especially clear.  Conservatives who are trying to understand the "other side's" argument will have little luck here.  I ran across no really new insights, nor any new and coherent ways of explaining why or whether Scalia's "originalism" and "textualism" might be wrong.  I'm sure there's a better source and 'voice' out there somewhere.
  Breyer insists that conservative judges are judicial activists because they, too, sometimes strike down statutes as un-Constitutional.  He fails to distinguish between (a) when a conservative court looks at actual language of the Constitution and determines that -- in a Constitutional system -- when modern statutes and ancient Constitutions conflict, the Constitution wins; and (b) when a liberal court looks at a modern statute that to which those liberal judges object as a matter of principle, and declares it un-Constitutional without regard to whether or not any of the provisions of the Constitution mention or address the controversy in any way.  Breyer is smart than that.  Rather than embrace and defend liberal judicial action, he denies it and (strangely) pretends it's the other side doing it.  This leaves activism without a coherent defender or champion.
1822605
We find in this book the important -sounding observation that  lying is a  "present violation of the  nature of speech." This nugget  from a book that defends a vast tradition that invented casuistry itself.  That is rich. This is a prima facie embarrassment.  But it appears recently that Catholics have become worried about their very famous proximity to diplomatic fudging of all sorts. Thus Robert George has recently come out against "Lying" as if it is a big moral deduction. All the organizations he has been involved with are founded on casuistry. Thus it is the purest falderal for him to present himself as an arbiter of proper decorum on the issue, not to even speak of morality. Those connected with him in his efforts are guilty of exactly these kind of falsehoods. Of course they think they have the higher ground, but their tactics prove otherwise. Methinks the woman protests too much.
4837432
Superfluous to the point of being obtuse. Reading this book is an exercise in patience so extreme one may lose their sanity prior to its completion. Dunning is overbearing in his opinions saying you must consider this or that and do things his way. Perhaps if he were more succinct and clear one might be able to find his way, but I believe he is hiding a lack of understanding through exhaustive verbosity.
2154068
Constantly contradicts itself-
Thought processes are chaotic, at best-
There is no flow from one thought to the next, and there is no conclusion to any of his ideas.

It's as if he wrote everything down as he thought it with no revision at two in the morning. The flow from one idea to another skips major historical aspects (i.e. the Dark Ages), and seems put together haphazardly. Where's the editor? It's something a freshman in college would write, and get a D in the class. Using big words without any real context and fluffing paragraphs up so much that they're like a balloon ready to pop shows no insight or true knowledge of the history of our theology, and is merely a recalling of what little literary history he knows. For example:

Romanticism isn't about "feeling", and there's a difference between intuition and emotion, and Romanticism is all about intuition.
Misuses the term Pedagogical. It means "how to teach," and he's using it "how the worship style has changed"

Some other issues:
"These two modern views of worship"... what two modern views? Why does he never state them?
Too many generalizations. Not all of us are black and white: "Teach salvation or shame the sinner"

It "seems" like it knows what it's talking about, but it's just like a preacher who uses a modern concept incorrectly. Big words only go so far and knowledgeable students will understand that this is an insult to the intellect of the bible professors who use this as a textbook.
713889
Disgrace is a story about a sinful nation that, because of its past sins, cannot feel justified rage at the new injustices that are now being perpetrated on the minority white population. Yes, it's elegant, sparse,  economical, etc. but underneath this whited sepulchre (even the book jacket  is a sparse, clean, white cover) is an ugly reality that the promised myth  of peace and reconciliation isn't happening. The disgrace  lies in the  inability, or refusal, of people like Lurie's daughter to condemn the  outrages of her attackers.  I read the book over 7 months ago, so I'm  working from memory.  Maybe mine is a misreading.  I believe that the  author's restraint and sparse style are a fine stylistic technique, but I  was ultimately left frustrated by the hopelessness that this style  represents.
1813787
Cognitive Dissonance is a ridiculous hypothesis.

It's plausible that reviewers who thinks this book's premise is persuasive are all exhibiting cognitive dissonance.
41965
Obvious from the disclaimer, the Publisher is confused or perhaps more correctly, delusional. I say confused because the Publisher has mistaken our constitution for a series of 'loosely enforced guidelines', rather than the historic law of the land that continues to be the accepted wisdom. That the work is a product of it's time is inarguable in that it suggests that only the rules of political convenience and self service should be allowed any purchase or voice going forward. I likewise suggest that there are any number of resources for responsible consideration of our constitution, and that such resources are preferred to this Publishers bewildering insult to American intellectual and philosophical interests.
3335055
it kind of talks in circles. might have made a better blog
1238417
While it is good to use the Whitehead concept of an occasion of activity as an analytic device for interpretation of experiments, sad to say Epperson and Zafiris have not come to grips with the basic fallacy of the famous Bell argumentation. They uncritically accept the Bell argumentation and so their book is largely drivel, dressed up in fancy language and very technical theorizing. I am sorry to report this, but I think it best to speak plainly about such an important matter.
3697058
It is just that though, a collection of disparate speeches. So it's a bit difficult to get through as it feels somewhat disjointed. But that is also seemingly part of the point about "practice".
3193984
Trobischs intent, to assess the cohesion of the New Testament material speculating on the nature of its first edition, is commendable, but this effort has serious flaws.  First of which is that he does not sufficiently establish a connection from the evidence to his conclusions.
He starts our reasonably enough. He looks at the special treatment of Godly terms by shorthand, a practice used in the Old Testament and carried on by the New Testament scribes, a method of notation called Nomina Sacra.  This indicates the early scribes regarded Christ as divine, by abbreviating His name as one would use the Tetragram (JHWH) for Jehovah.  He then looks at the titles of the N.T. books and how they indicate a unity with each other.  He then reflects on the importance of the narration of Acts in the identity of names and in the sequence of event in the N.T. So far so good.
But then, he constructs a theory that goes beyond the data.  He places the disagreement between Paul and Peter as the definitive purpose for the New Testaments broader composition.  This leads him to expand the amount of material which he regards as redactive. He does this to such a degree, that it would require a detailed rewrite of the entire text by the early editors of the first edition of the New Testament.  This would leave an enormous footprint in the both the papyri record and the witness of the early Church fathers.  There is no evidence for this.  There is plenty of evidence against it in the variant readings.
Throughout his analysis, Trobisch asserts that he is using a reader-centric approach to the material. He does this in a manner that reflects modern consumer, market driven, motivations to the formation of a unified edition of the New Testament.  I don't dismiss that approach, provided it be done with some maturity and balance.  However Trobisch is so heavy handed with this form of deconstructive criticism that his results become anachronistic  and divorced from the New Testaments historical and sociological context.  The members of the early Christian church were indeed consumers of the books, but nowhere near the manner in which affluent Romans purchased editions of Cicero for the villa libraries.
632134
I've been hard of hearing since birth and have worn hearing aids in both ears for 40 years thus far and plan to wear them for another 40 or 50 years, luck be with me. ;)  Maybe I'm not the preferred audience for this book, but even so, some of the ideas written in this book are simply incorrect and at times, baffling. For example, on page 6: "A hearing aid is a visible sign of an impairment has long been associated with aging and mental retardation." ?? Aging, yes, I agree, but mental retardation? I've never heard of that so-called "long-held" association.  Perhaps the people who see the hearing aid and do not understand what it's used for could possibly be called mentally retarded, but I digress. Other reviewers have pointed out that "hearing impaired" is considered an offensive term, but she does admit to not being particularly concerned with political correctness. I also disagreed with her insistence that hearing aids have to be expensive. No, they don't and there is no good reason that there are no longer affordable hearing aids available in the United States other than greed. In any case, I grew impatient with the author's attitude and I also found it strange. The author has no problems going gray and accepting her age in that way, but she can't wear her implant with a fancy dress because by doing so, she's admitting she has hearing loss and is *old*?  Is that logical? Not to me. I guess I don't understand any of it because all I've ever known is that I want to hear as much as I can, so bring on the gadgets!! If I have to wear a huge sign on my back that says "HARD OF HEARING PERSON HERE!!" in order to qualify, so be it.  I guess that makes me "mentally retarded." :)
4133330
In the ongoing debate between the abstract and the arbitrary, this release subscribes to the latter.  I don't have an issue with randomness per se, but I think there has to be some sort of aesthetic to knit things together, otherwise it just sounds like a hurried exercise in cut-and-paste.  Definitely not for me.
4082776
IMO the chapters are not cohesive.  The material seems to be presented in a illogical sequence to me.  This is the 14th edition so it seems to me that they just chopped up and rearranged from some previous edition but the outcome made this book more confusing.
3320861
I think it is poorly put together and not very effective as a cold wrap.