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In the Valley of the Shadow: On the Foundations of Religious Belief
TEN YEARS AGO, Harvard professor James Kugel was diagnosed with an aggressive, likely fatal, form of cancer. “I was, of course, disturbed and worried. But the main change in my state of mind was that the background music had suddenly stopped—the music of daily life that’s constantly going, the music of infinite time and possibilities. Now suddenly it was gone, replaced by nothing, just silence. There you are, one little person, sitting in the late summer sun, with only a few things left to do.”
Despite his illness, Kugel was intrigued by this new state of mind and especially the uncanny feeling of human smallness that came with it. There seemed to be something overwhelmingly true about it—and its starkness reminded him of certain themes and motifs he had encountered in his years of studying ancient religions. “This, I remember thinking, was something I should really look into further—if ever I got the chance.”
In the Valley of the Shadow is the result of that search. In this wide-ranging exploration of different aspects of religion—interspersed with his personal reflections on the course of his own illness—Kugel seeks to uncover what he calls “the starting point of religious consciousness,” an ancient “sense of self” and a way of fitting into the world that is quite at odds with the usual one. He tracks these down in accounts written long ago of human meetings with gods and angels, anthropologists’ descriptions of the lives of hunter-gatherers, the role of witchcraft in African societies, first-person narratives of religious conversions, as well as the experimental data assembled by contemporary neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists.
Though this different sense of how we fit into the world has largely disappeared from our own societies, it can still come back to us as a fleeting state of mind, “when you are just sitting on some park bench somewhere; or at a wedding, while everyone else is dancing and jumping around; or else one day standing in your backyard, as the sun streams down through the trees . . . ” Experienced in its fullness, this different way of seeing opens onto a stark, new landscape ordinarily hidden from human eyes.
Kugel’s look at the whole phenomenon of religious beliefs is a rigorously honest, sometimes skeptical, but ultimately deeply moving affirmation of faith in God. One of our generation’s leading biblical scholars has created a powerful meditation on humanity’s place in the world and all that matters most in our lives. Believers and doubters alike will be struck by its combination of objective scholarship and poetic insight, which makes for a single, beautifully crafted consideration of life’s greatest mystery.
Despite his illness, Kugel was intrigued by this new state of mind and especially the uncanny feeling of human smallness that came with it. There seemed to be something overwhelmingly true about it—and its starkness reminded him of certain themes and motifs he had encountered in his years of studying ancient religions. “This, I remember thinking, was something I should really look into further—if ever I got the chance.”
In the Valley of the Shadow is the result of that search. In this wide-ranging exploration of different aspects of religion—interspersed with his personal reflections on the course of his own illness—Kugel seeks to uncover what he calls “the starting point of religious consciousness,” an ancient “sense of self” and a way of fitting into the world that is quite at odds with the usual one. He tracks these down in accounts written long ago of human meetings with gods and angels, anthropologists’ descriptions of the lives of hunter-gatherers, the role of witchcraft in African societies, first-person narratives of religious conversions, as well as the experimental data assembled by contemporary neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists.
Though this different sense of how we fit into the world has largely disappeared from our own societies, it can still come back to us as a fleeting state of mind, “when you are just sitting on some park bench somewhere; or at a wedding, while everyone else is dancing and jumping around; or else one day standing in your backyard, as the sun streams down through the trees . . . ” Experienced in its fullness, this different way of seeing opens onto a stark, new landscape ordinarily hidden from human eyes.
Kugel’s look at the whole phenomenon of religious beliefs is a rigorously honest, sometimes skeptical, but ultimately deeply moving affirmation of faith in God. One of our generation’s leading biblical scholars has created a powerful meditation on humanity’s place in the world and all that matters most in our lives. Believers and doubters alike will be struck by its combination of objective scholarship and poetic insight, which makes for a single, beautifully crafted consideration of life’s greatest mystery.
237 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2011
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July 11, 2013
A friend said to me recently, only half jokingly, "You've got to stop reading those religious books, they're messing up your mind." He could be right, but what's more important than considering speculations about man's place in the universe a lasting concern of all societies, both ancient and modern?
What makes this book particularly interesting though is that the author, a retired Biblical scholar at Harvard, writes out of his personal experience of being diagnosed with an apparently fatal form of cancer. He realizes, "I was, of course, disturbed and worried. But the main chance in my state of mind was that the background music had suddenly stopped - the music of daily life that's constantly going, the music of infinite time and possibilities."
This shift in perspective, that his death is imminent and not to pushed off into a vague future, as most of us persist in doing, results in a different assumption. He writes that this new state of mind leads to thinking about religion, not just as believing in God (or whatever he's called) or "somehow connecting things that happen in daily life to God's divine stewardship of the universe." He doesn't minimize these aspects of religion but what he's interested in is how religion makes a contribution to a person imagining himself fitting into the world.
A person can do it in two ways, either in a sense of "smallness" (which more primitive societies tend to do) or as in a sense of "importance" (advanced societies). Primitive societies see individuals as tiny parts of a whole, whether it be in terms of time (ancestors) or space (the physical world with all of its unexpected convulsions). In our western world, we see the individual as separate and autonomous; we stress independence, individual worth. An outcome of this view in America is the taboo surrounding death. Death spoils the myth of human control over our "self"
Kugel doesn't extol one view over the world - both lead to excesses and distortions - you can be too "big" or too "small" in how you see yourself fitting into the world. Of course, in discussing religion, the practices that flow from a basic outlook are important, and Kugel covers some of these as well.
An important one is the idea of "sacrifice", found in many religions. A point he makes is that sacrifices don't always work, any more than modern medicine (doctors are a near equivalent to the "high priests" of religion) provides us with cures to all of our ailments. We go to doctors, sometimes they help us, often they don't, just as ancient sacrifices sometimes appeased the gods, often they didn't. We persist in these practices, though, because they help us psychologically. When modern medicine doesn’t work, something we value (our health) is taken away from us and we are forcibly thrust into a new relationship with how we fit into the world, painful as it always is. We need this new relationship – it is not possible to go on as we did before when we labored under the illusion of near invincibility.
It's not a question, then, of deciding if you are going to be "religious" or not. The conditions for a "religious" outlook will be present at some point in your life. In Kugel's case, forget that he was a Biblical scholar (although this gives him the opportunity to put his experiences into an historical context), he talks about his cancer diagnosis making him aware of what he calls a "starkness" in his consciousness. His mind is free to see and hear what he normally misses, because of the "busyness" of every day life. A real awareness of mortality, the end of our existence can come at any time, but it always acquires a strange and vivid validity at certain times, at night, in our dreams, and his case, a doctor's diagnosis of impending death. This, Kugel insists is the foundation on which any religious consciousness is built. I'd say he's pretty convincing.
What makes this book particularly interesting though is that the author, a retired Biblical scholar at Harvard, writes out of his personal experience of being diagnosed with an apparently fatal form of cancer. He realizes, "I was, of course, disturbed and worried. But the main chance in my state of mind was that the background music had suddenly stopped - the music of daily life that's constantly going, the music of infinite time and possibilities."
This shift in perspective, that his death is imminent and not to pushed off into a vague future, as most of us persist in doing, results in a different assumption. He writes that this new state of mind leads to thinking about religion, not just as believing in God (or whatever he's called) or "somehow connecting things that happen in daily life to God's divine stewardship of the universe." He doesn't minimize these aspects of religion but what he's interested in is how religion makes a contribution to a person imagining himself fitting into the world.
A person can do it in two ways, either in a sense of "smallness" (which more primitive societies tend to do) or as in a sense of "importance" (advanced societies). Primitive societies see individuals as tiny parts of a whole, whether it be in terms of time (ancestors) or space (the physical world with all of its unexpected convulsions). In our western world, we see the individual as separate and autonomous; we stress independence, individual worth. An outcome of this view in America is the taboo surrounding death. Death spoils the myth of human control over our "self"
Kugel doesn't extol one view over the world - both lead to excesses and distortions - you can be too "big" or too "small" in how you see yourself fitting into the world. Of course, in discussing religion, the practices that flow from a basic outlook are important, and Kugel covers some of these as well.
An important one is the idea of "sacrifice", found in many religions. A point he makes is that sacrifices don't always work, any more than modern medicine (doctors are a near equivalent to the "high priests" of religion) provides us with cures to all of our ailments. We go to doctors, sometimes they help us, often they don't, just as ancient sacrifices sometimes appeased the gods, often they didn't. We persist in these practices, though, because they help us psychologically. When modern medicine doesn’t work, something we value (our health) is taken away from us and we are forcibly thrust into a new relationship with how we fit into the world, painful as it always is. We need this new relationship – it is not possible to go on as we did before when we labored under the illusion of near invincibility.
It's not a question, then, of deciding if you are going to be "religious" or not. The conditions for a "religious" outlook will be present at some point in your life. In Kugel's case, forget that he was a Biblical scholar (although this gives him the opportunity to put his experiences into an historical context), he talks about his cancer diagnosis making him aware of what he calls a "starkness" in his consciousness. His mind is free to see and hear what he normally misses, because of the "busyness" of every day life. A real awareness of mortality, the end of our existence can come at any time, but it always acquires a strange and vivid validity at certain times, at night, in our dreams, and his case, a doctor's diagnosis of impending death. This, Kugel insists is the foundation on which any religious consciousness is built. I'd say he's pretty convincing.
August 13, 2016
I said I wasn't going to read any books about DEATH for awhile, and then I go and pick up one titled In the Valley of the Shadow?! This is really Kugel's response to the popular atheists - Dennett, Hitchens, Harris, etc., inspired by his own brush with death (cancer diagnosis): "... and the thought suddenly occurred to me that after this, if I survived, nothing would be the same. But it turns out I was wrong. Things have pretty much returned to what they were before."
I liked the casual-but-exceedingly-careful way Kugel kept stopping say "now I don't want to be misunderstood here . . . ". This was an intentionally non-academic book by a formidable academic, and one thing about the aggressively non-scholarly approach bugged me: the failure to attribute long quotes in the text. How can there be a 15-line inset quotation beginning with: "as one scholar has written" or "as one clinician has eloquently summed up the problem" and then the writer not be named except in the endnotes?! Hate that. I'm sure it was an editor's decision, but I felt insulted on the original writer's behalf.
"... religion is [...] about fitting into the world and fitting into one's borders. There may indeed be something 'mythic' about it, but it pales before the mythic quality of our own clumsy, modern selves. Here we are, living on a tiny speck of a planet on the outskirts of a cosmic explosion, but that meeting next Thursday afternoon is SO important. Why it is important is wrapped up in the supreme myth that we unwittingly inhabit [...]. But these myths of ours are quite pointless in a moment of privileged insight, when we are enabled to catch a glimpse of what lies beyond our own real being. Such a moment may come at any time, but it is [...] the foundation on which the religious consciousness is built -- though sometimes, I admit, it takes a doctor's diagnosis or a verdict of death to bring it into focus."
I liked the casual-but-exceedingly-careful way Kugel kept stopping say "now I don't want to be misunderstood here . . . ". This was an intentionally non-academic book by a formidable academic, and one thing about the aggressively non-scholarly approach bugged me: the failure to attribute long quotes in the text. How can there be a 15-line inset quotation beginning with: "as one scholar has written" or "as one clinician has eloquently summed up the problem" and then the writer not be named except in the endnotes?! Hate that. I'm sure it was an editor's decision, but I felt insulted on the original writer's behalf.
"... religion is [...] about fitting into the world and fitting into one's borders. There may indeed be something 'mythic' about it, but it pales before the mythic quality of our own clumsy, modern selves. Here we are, living on a tiny speck of a planet on the outskirts of a cosmic explosion, but that meeting next Thursday afternoon is SO important. Why it is important is wrapped up in the supreme myth that we unwittingly inhabit [...]. But these myths of ours are quite pointless in a moment of privileged insight, when we are enabled to catch a glimpse of what lies beyond our own real being. Such a moment may come at any time, but it is [...] the foundation on which the religious consciousness is built -- though sometimes, I admit, it takes a doctor's diagnosis or a verdict of death to bring it into focus."
November 2, 2015
Dr Kugel is a walking dichotomy. On the one hand he is a world renown Bible Scholar fully embracing modern Biblical Criticism. On the other hand he believes that the Bible is (a hazy form of) expressed Divinity - it is Divinely inspired in some way, shape, or form.
Here he tackles different world views of God and death in light of a cancer prognosis suggesting he only has a few months to live.
I really enjoyed his description of the goings-on in his mind when facing this grim news. How he felt small, bounded, music-less. He offers a real window into how someone in his unenviable position feels.
Additionally, the huge range of disparate sources and ideas he brings to try and understand God and death and man's place in this world was fantastic. He discusses evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, language development, anthropology and early tribal behavior, and even my favorite idea about consciousness (the Bicameral Mind) by Julian Jaynes. He brings emotive poetry, a dissection of "Amazing Grace", and why people press elevator buttons incessantly as ways to try and understand God, religion, and his place in the world. And, of course, he discusses the Bible's depiction of God. Actually, the Bible's several different depictions of God since how God was understood seems to change and develop (evolve?) over the course of the Bible.
What I didn't like was how he used a bit of hand-waving to dismiss certain theories or ideas. He tries to sweep some ideas under the rug that he doesn't agree with without a real rigorous reason. It also seemed just a tad repetitive at times.
Overall an enjoyable and relatively quick read from a brilliant mind trying to make sense of his place in the world and God's place as well..
Here he tackles different world views of God and death in light of a cancer prognosis suggesting he only has a few months to live.
I really enjoyed his description of the goings-on in his mind when facing this grim news. How he felt small, bounded, music-less. He offers a real window into how someone in his unenviable position feels.
Additionally, the huge range of disparate sources and ideas he brings to try and understand God and death and man's place in this world was fantastic. He discusses evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, language development, anthropology and early tribal behavior, and even my favorite idea about consciousness (the Bicameral Mind) by Julian Jaynes. He brings emotive poetry, a dissection of "Amazing Grace", and why people press elevator buttons incessantly as ways to try and understand God, religion, and his place in the world. And, of course, he discusses the Bible's depiction of God. Actually, the Bible's several different depictions of God since how God was understood seems to change and develop (evolve?) over the course of the Bible.
What I didn't like was how he used a bit of hand-waving to dismiss certain theories or ideas. He tries to sweep some ideas under the rug that he doesn't agree with without a real rigorous reason. It also seemed just a tad repetitive at times.
Overall an enjoyable and relatively quick read from a brilliant mind trying to make sense of his place in the world and God's place as well..
April 18, 2015
This book might was okay and might have warranted three stars, but my reference point were several other books on the origins of religion that I thought were much better, and to which I gave four stars (The Evolution of God, The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures, Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict, Supernatural Selection).
The author is a religious scholar, and was diagnosed with a serious form of cancer in 2000. I thought the book would be a real melding of these two perspectives - his personal soul-searching enriching and grounding his religious perspective. But his personal experience didn't seem to have much to do with shaping the perspective he outlines in the book. And what that perspective is, in my mind, was said much better in the other books referenced above. In addition, I found Kugel's narrative very indirect and metaphorical, which is not my style. By the end, I wasn't really sure exactly what his message was - it seemed diffuse.
The author is a religious scholar, and was diagnosed with a serious form of cancer in 2000. I thought the book would be a real melding of these two perspectives - his personal soul-searching enriching and grounding his religious perspective. But his personal experience didn't seem to have much to do with shaping the perspective he outlines in the book. And what that perspective is, in my mind, was said much better in the other books referenced above. In addition, I found Kugel's narrative very indirect and metaphorical, which is not my style. By the end, I wasn't really sure exactly what his message was - it seemed diffuse.
September 28, 2012
Have you ever had somebody tell you they can do magic tricks, which at the time sounds intriguing because people rarely boast about their magic capabilities? As the time goes by they talk more and more about their awesome magic abilities so much that your interest is piqued. At this point expectation and hope well within only to have them dashed against the rocks when they turn to you and say here pick a card?
If so, then don't say I didn't warn you because that's the feeling you'll get at the end of this book.
Kugel's main idea he works from is that how we think about God or the gods is very much connected to how we conceive of ourselves. Interestingly enough, he does this through exploring his own confrontation with mortality with his battle with cancer while exploring religious belief. Now at first this seems like a brilliant ploy. Don't be fooled. It begins with an artful tale laced with some wonderful poetry. Then the meat of the book comes to play and just when you think here comes the magic the cards come out and your left thinking "Is that all?"
It isn't a complete bust there are some silver lining nuggets, but it is surrounded with a lot of fluff.
If so, then don't say I didn't warn you because that's the feeling you'll get at the end of this book.
Kugel's main idea he works from is that how we think about God or the gods is very much connected to how we conceive of ourselves. Interestingly enough, he does this through exploring his own confrontation with mortality with his battle with cancer while exploring religious belief. Now at first this seems like a brilliant ploy. Don't be fooled. It begins with an artful tale laced with some wonderful poetry. Then the meat of the book comes to play and just when you think here comes the magic the cards come out and your left thinking "Is that all?"
It isn't a complete bust there are some silver lining nuggets, but it is surrounded with a lot of fluff.
September 23, 2017
I only got 75 pages in. The book was so full of personal anecdote. I thought eventually he would stop talking about himself and start talking about the history of religious belief, but the history parts were only snippets in the beginning and I eventually called it quits.
I read an article about a different book by this author about neuroscience and the ancient Israelite's sense of self. The library didn't have that book so I took this one out. Kugel has some very interesting titles, so it'd be a shame if all his books are so heavy on his personal life.
I read an article about a different book by this author about neuroscience and the ancient Israelite's sense of self. The library didn't have that book so I took this one out. Kugel has some very interesting titles, so it'd be a shame if all his books are so heavy on his personal life.
May 30, 2011
James Kugel is a genuine and highly respected Biblical scholar whose previous books are written in a lucid, accessible style that can't be taken for granted in the writing of scholars. Ten years before the writing of this book he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and this volume shares his personal engagement with mortality, the meaning of life, and the challenge of living it well.
Because it is personal, Kugel embraces more than religion as companions through the valley of the shadow of death. The book is rich with poetry, self-reflection and culture. I am sure I'll read it again.
Because it is personal, Kugel embraces more than religion as companions through the valley of the shadow of death. The book is rich with poetry, self-reflection and culture. I am sure I'll read it again.
October 21, 2015
As a big fan of Kugel's Bible scolarship, I was eager to hear his personal witness of living through cancer. This book was personal, but also deeply scholarly and informed by poetry, philosophy, and literary scholarship - at times to a point where I lost a bit of the personal.
Great read if you have a connection to the author.
Great read if you have a connection to the author.
December 15, 2018
I liked this, didn't love it. I love James Kugel's books, this just wasn't super great for me. But everyone should read Kugel!
October 23, 2019
The book is its best when the author is sharing his personal struggles with illness.
July 26, 2016
In the flow of modern life, we step through life with a rhythmic beat of normalcy. From our daily work, to our family life, we have the background music enveloping our state of mind with a upbeat temp in a seemingly infinite loop. Each day, with the background music played beneath of our consciousness, we make choices and plans, from this week’s grocery list to this year’s work projects. Our state of minds largely pivot around the tangibles of here and now.
Until suddenly the background music stopped, the color bleached into black, white and gray, one is suddenly stuck by the smallness and incongruence of one’s intangibles. Such as a grave illness sneaked up like an insidious thief, and all of our apparent health robbed clean. Also changed is our relationship to our own work, and with other people. This “background-music-stopped” state of mind is the main theme of this book. Our author found himself suddenly facing near-certain death by cancer in his middle fifties.
“It had always been there, the music of daily life that is constantly going, the music of infinite time and possibilities; and now suddenly it is gone, replaced by nothing, just silence.”
Only when we are left in an acutely felt “self-smallness” , we can begin to appreciate the otherwise archaic “starkness” of Biblical reference and contemplation of the spiritual world. Modern life has tamed much of the ominous superstition of the Old, yet it has made death a social taboo and a psychological horror. The “starkness” of modern life suddenly leap upon us when apparent wellness becomes grave illness. Men and women are often left in comfortless modernity, while the God of the Old has more to offer in such state of mind, as we can learn how to fit one’s “smallness” into the world when the infinite time collapses in such moment for one individual.
A few insightful notes from the book:
Page 16: What Koheleth in “catalogue of times” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11), misunderstood by King James Bible version. It should be “although we may be aware of the changing seasons in a human life, we never quite succeed in holding the whole thing together in our minds.”. This segment reminds me of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets in its rumination of one’s time and one’s work in the infinite space and time.
Page 34: the “sense of self” changes over time, making the old porous communal experience of life (and thus death) into the new hard-shelled cell of modern self. Through grave illness, spiritual growth happens “perhaps it all has to do with a certain sense — in a privileged moments, a physical bodily sense — of what one’s own self really consists of, and where it leaves off.” We had actually very little control of our bodily function and how sensory inputs are process by our brain. How much confidence we can call “self” as the material stuff encapsulated in this skin?
Page 53: the baseline religious consciousness comes from the great, looming Outside, a God Undifferentiated. Our modern mind is protected from the big Outside but it cracks through in moments.
Page 55: “Et en Arcadia ego” (Death said, even in Arcadia, I am). Is there a neurological base for religious consciousness? Is there a “God Spot”, an intriguing implication from V.S. Ramachandran’s
research. Whether such experience is engendered by a “malfunction”, a diseased state of the brain, or a glimpse of untapped locus of transcendence, is a matter of debate.
Page 62: Life as body on rent. “The soul was God’s pikkadon (Jewish sage word for “deposit”) entrusted for the human being for the duration of his life, but never really the person’s possession, since it was in any case slated to return to its rightful Owner after death.”
In summary, the modern world has “enlarged” human life to the level of excessive inflatedness. We are ill-equipped to cope with life’s inevitable demise and what does it mean to lead a meaningful life, and prepare for a meaningful death. This artificial “largeness” packaged in a impermeable hard-shell of “me self”, can only break through when we suddenly, and often unwillingly into a stark place where our own very “smallness”, disconnected encapsulated “me self”, out cold and naked in the immense, indifferent, unmovable Outside. Without a readiness to understand the non-self, the Outside, and to gain a mountain-top view of one’s position in time and space, we are left in our own anguish of not able to fit one’s life into the world as a whole.
(Page 205 has a beautiful paragraph to illustrate the purpose of viewing one’s life in the bigger scope of religious contemplation.)
November 12, 2013
I highly recommend "In the Valley of the Shadow". It is a lovely, honest, and sincere book about the origins of religious belief. It is also a book informed (1) by the fine and wide-ranging mind of the author, James Kugel, who is a professor of Hebrew literature at Harvard University; (2) by the author's life-long seriousness about the subject; and (3) by his personal circumstances. It is hard to imagine a better combination as context for the creation of an intense meditation on religion.
JK was motivated to write this book by a 2000 diagnosis of a then likely terminal illness. He says that, when the diagnosis was communicated to him, "the music stopped". By this, I think he means all of the activities, perceptions, and thoughts that are compatible with our living sense that we will never die suddenly ceased. He describes the sudden "smallness" that he felt.
JK goes on to wonder, speculate, meditate --- always in the most informed manner --- whether this life "without music" and this "smallness" are the original sensations of religious belief as manifested almost universally in human societies. That is, whether the silence and smallness represent our ancestors' wordless sense of the Outside in the midst of their lives of instability and continual risk. From this point, JK explores the notion of the self and human mentality in view of anthropological, ethnographic, and neurological studies.
JK also discusses one of the great questions of religion --- that is, the problem of evil. There is a fascinating discourse on how polytheism and monotheism might determine our concepts of fairness and justice. But, more importantly, JK does not shy away from the hard issues --- Does God create evil? Or do we? Why do we ascribe justice and fairness to the divine when the world can be so awful?
Throughout, JK quotes the Bible, especially the Psalms, and poetry (as well as scholarly studies) and discusses them with an intelligent and compassionate voice. JK does not reach conclusions (although he does believe that the current atheist polemics and mechanistic science lack depth and humanity). Rather, the joy and delight of this book is to take the journey into the investigation of the origins of belief with a companion like JK whose integrity, whose face, comes through every page.
JK was motivated to write this book by a 2000 diagnosis of a then likely terminal illness. He says that, when the diagnosis was communicated to him, "the music stopped". By this, I think he means all of the activities, perceptions, and thoughts that are compatible with our living sense that we will never die suddenly ceased. He describes the sudden "smallness" that he felt.
JK goes on to wonder, speculate, meditate --- always in the most informed manner --- whether this life "without music" and this "smallness" are the original sensations of religious belief as manifested almost universally in human societies. That is, whether the silence and smallness represent our ancestors' wordless sense of the Outside in the midst of their lives of instability and continual risk. From this point, JK explores the notion of the self and human mentality in view of anthropological, ethnographic, and neurological studies.
JK also discusses one of the great questions of religion --- that is, the problem of evil. There is a fascinating discourse on how polytheism and monotheism might determine our concepts of fairness and justice. But, more importantly, JK does not shy away from the hard issues --- Does God create evil? Or do we? Why do we ascribe justice and fairness to the divine when the world can be so awful?
Throughout, JK quotes the Bible, especially the Psalms, and poetry (as well as scholarly studies) and discusses them with an intelligent and compassionate voice. JK does not reach conclusions (although he does believe that the current atheist polemics and mechanistic science lack depth and humanity). Rather, the joy and delight of this book is to take the journey into the investigation of the origins of belief with a companion like JK whose integrity, whose face, comes through every page.
November 27, 2011
When the author, then a professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard, was diagnosed with an aggressive likely fatal, form of cancer in 2000, he described the change in his state of mind as "the background music had suddenly stopped -- the music of daily life that's constantly going, the music of infinite time and possibilities now suddenly was gone, replaced by nothing , just silence. There you are, one little person, sitting in the late summer sun, with only a few things left to do".
Page 12
Every poem has its secret nerves
Page 34
I should make it clear that in mentioning such things, I am not seeking to endorse their worldview, and certainly not to attribute any reality to necromancy and similar practices. The dead are dead, not doubt about it.
Page 43
Religion, it used to be said ... simply reflected an innate human love of the irrational (the same force that leads people today to believe in UFOs and extrasensory perception).
Page 48
Infants are not born with a linguistic "blank slate" at all. Rather, their brains come prefitted with an area for absorbing linguistic information -- not just absorbing it, but actualy sorting the bits of speech they first hear into preestablished categories. That's how they learn to speak in what would otherwise appear to be an impossibily short period of time: they have been programmed in advance to help them make sense of those odd noises emanating from the big faces leaning over their cribs.
Page 106
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) "To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter."
Page 152
Why not opt for that most straightforward of answers, the unqualified assertion that evil also comes from God? Monotheism itself would hardly be threatened by such an answer; the fearsome Creator of all is responsible -- don't ask why. It is not that such an asertion is entirely absent from the Bible:
See then that I, I am He; there is no god beside Me.
I kill and I give life; I wound and I also heal, and no one can escape My power. (Deuteronomy 32:39)
Come, let us turn to the Lord, for the One who attacks also heals, the One who wounds also bandages. (Hosea 6:1)
But such assertions are rare. Somehow, the Bible usualy prefers to ignore the logical consequences of monotheism in favor of the assertion that God is basically good.
Page 12
Every poem has its secret nerves
Page 34
I should make it clear that in mentioning such things, I am not seeking to endorse their worldview, and certainly not to attribute any reality to necromancy and similar practices. The dead are dead, not doubt about it.
Page 43
Religion, it used to be said ... simply reflected an innate human love of the irrational (the same force that leads people today to believe in UFOs and extrasensory perception).
Page 48
Infants are not born with a linguistic "blank slate" at all. Rather, their brains come prefitted with an area for absorbing linguistic information -- not just absorbing it, but actualy sorting the bits of speech they first hear into preestablished categories. That's how they learn to speak in what would otherwise appear to be an impossibily short period of time: they have been programmed in advance to help them make sense of those odd noises emanating from the big faces leaning over their cribs.
Page 106
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) "To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter."
Page 152
Why not opt for that most straightforward of answers, the unqualified assertion that evil also comes from God? Monotheism itself would hardly be threatened by such an answer; the fearsome Creator of all is responsible -- don't ask why. It is not that such an asertion is entirely absent from the Bible:
See then that I, I am He; there is no god beside Me.
I kill and I give life; I wound and I also heal, and no one can escape My power. (Deuteronomy 32:39)
Come, let us turn to the Lord, for the One who attacks also heals, the One who wounds also bandages. (Hosea 6:1)
But such assertions are rare. Somehow, the Bible usualy prefers to ignore the logical consequences of monotheism in favor of the assertion that God is basically good.
June 29, 2015
At the beginning and end of this personal reflection on mortality and religion the author's experience coming to grips with, fighting and overcoming cancer gives the reader a glimpse inside the curtain of one man's self reflection about mortality during what might have been the end of his life. He describes with intensity and (from my family's experience) accuracy how the world suddenly changes with a diagnosis that could be fatal. For example, when he gets the bad news he describes how "the music of the world around" him simply stops. The everyday noise (both literal and in the sense of the daily noise in our own heads) just seems to stop. He describes "a sense of smallness - of being able to fit inside one's borders, without drifting off int the great world around." When he writes of these experiences and perceptions, "In the Valley of the Shadow" is immensely powerful.
Yet, I was left wanting more of his personal insights. After the first chapter or two, Kugel turns to a review of religious thought and how it evolved in ways that created the kind of internal self awareness and intellectual struggle with mortality that each of us face today. While some of this background and history is interesting, I find it far less compelling than his own personal story.
Late in the book we learn that his recovery was in many ways miraculous. But we don't hear much about how this affects his own thoughts on mortality or whether he learned any lessons from his personal experience that can be useful to all of us.
It is a good book; at points, a powerful book. But don't look here for lessons on living (or dying).
Yet, I was left wanting more of his personal insights. After the first chapter or two, Kugel turns to a review of religious thought and how it evolved in ways that created the kind of internal self awareness and intellectual struggle with mortality that each of us face today. While some of this background and history is interesting, I find it far less compelling than his own personal story.
Late in the book we learn that his recovery was in many ways miraculous. But we don't hear much about how this affects his own thoughts on mortality or whether he learned any lessons from his personal experience that can be useful to all of us.
It is a good book; at points, a powerful book. But don't look here for lessons on living (or dying).
June 9, 2011
Kugel, a scholar of Hebrew scripture and of the Dead Sea Scrolls, addresses the question of the foundation of religious belief. He bases his comments on his scholarly investigations but also on his own life experience. He accepts that the strongest beliefs are the ones of which we are unaware. (Chew on that!)
He demonstrates the fact that it is not reality that changes over time, but our mentalities change over time. How we understand ourselves as human beings changes down the ages, and it is the perception in which we live in a particular age that affects our understanding of reality. "Here we are, living on a tiny speck of a planet on the outskirts of a cosmic explosion, but that meeting next Thursday afternoon is so important. Why it is important is wrapped up in the supreme myth that we unwittingly inhabit... But these myths of ours are quite pointless in a moment of privileged insight, when we are able to catch a glimpse of what lies beyond our own real being. Such a moment may come at anytime, but it is ... the foundation on which the religious consciousness is built."
Religion is an openness to that which cannot be seen by the eyes or heard by the ears.
I found this very readable book an honest, hard look at what this man found important in the face of his own serious illness. He looks, not in desperation, but cooly and appraisingly. Solid stuff on which to meditate.
He demonstrates the fact that it is not reality that changes over time, but our mentalities change over time. How we understand ourselves as human beings changes down the ages, and it is the perception in which we live in a particular age that affects our understanding of reality. "Here we are, living on a tiny speck of a planet on the outskirts of a cosmic explosion, but that meeting next Thursday afternoon is so important. Why it is important is wrapped up in the supreme myth that we unwittingly inhabit... But these myths of ours are quite pointless in a moment of privileged insight, when we are able to catch a glimpse of what lies beyond our own real being. Such a moment may come at anytime, but it is ... the foundation on which the religious consciousness is built."
Religion is an openness to that which cannot be seen by the eyes or heard by the ears.
I found this very readable book an honest, hard look at what this man found important in the face of his own serious illness. He looks, not in desperation, but cooly and appraisingly. Solid stuff on which to meditate.
May 27, 2011
I read this book slowly, over the last part of the semester and beginning of the summer, only several pages at a time--but I'm glad I did it this way. Kugel offers many thoughts on life, expounding a sort of wandering tour of his personal philosophy, with digressions to discuss many related subjects. At the core of the book is the theme that the subtitle suggests, "the foundations of religious belief," which Kugel explores by way of anecdotes, his own research interests, and a wide array of other knowledge that comes to bear on the issues at hand. Thus, he draws on concepts from science, anthropology, literature, sociology, psychology (just to name a few) to draw out his thoughts. What comes out of all of this is a line drawn from ancient religions up through our own time, questioning just why people believe what they do--not just what we traditionally think of as "religion," but belief in general: in gods, in magic, even in science.
Overall, the book is a pleasure to take in, and one on which to think over time. Kugel's wide-ranging knowledge mixed with an anecdotal style are interwoven well, and this is perhaps what gives the book its greatest quality: not heavy scholarship or personal memoir, but somewhere between the two. The result is a series of enjoyable reflections on what makes us human and how this affects each of our perspectives.
Overall, the book is a pleasure to take in, and one on which to think over time. Kugel's wide-ranging knowledge mixed with an anecdotal style are interwoven well, and this is perhaps what gives the book its greatest quality: not heavy scholarship or personal memoir, but somewhere between the two. The result is a series of enjoyable reflections on what makes us human and how this affects each of our perspectives.
December 29, 2012
When Kugel became very ill, the background music/buzz of daily living suddenly stopped, and he experienced a sense of smallness. Kugel hypothesizes that ancient people understood "their own being was essentially small, dwarfed by all that was outside them . . . ." Modern theologians may say: "Man is very big, and God is very far away." "For centuries we were small, dwarfed by gods and ancestors and a throbbing world of animate and inanimate beings all around us, each with its personal claim to existence no less valid than our own . . . . [O]ur brains are still designed for this old way of seeing ourselves." Kugel thinks that "the sense of smallness and discreteness, of fitting into a much larger world . . . made religious perception possible . . . ."
When Kugel was facing death, his "world was much more basic, down to fundamental: holding on, the utter reality of it . . . . Ideas about God seemed a funny luxury. . . . [He was] trying to live among the great elements of the present, wife and children, afternoon suns, the starkness of the late-autumn afternoon sun."
The book vividly describes Kugel's brush with death and his experience of an ancient, palpable sense of connection to the vast whole of God's creation.
When Kugel was facing death, his "world was much more basic, down to fundamental: holding on, the utter reality of it . . . . Ideas about God seemed a funny luxury. . . . [He was] trying to live among the great elements of the present, wife and children, afternoon suns, the starkness of the late-autumn afternoon sun."
The book vividly describes Kugel's brush with death and his experience of an ancient, palpable sense of connection to the vast whole of God's creation.
May 5, 2016
Kugel, a professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard, was diagnosed with incurable cancer. He was treated, and against all hope, cured. His disease, and its treatment, moved him to reflect on the meaning and utility of religion, confronted as he was with a prediction of imminent death. This book captures the paths of his thought with specific focus on the origins of religion and the contradictions inherent in trying to believe in God. Kugel is, not surprisingly, extremely well-read and very thoughtful. He focuses on the importance of Self in the development of man's religious beliefs, a useful construct. It's an interesting discussion, and Kugel's arguments and examples are instructive and clearly set forth in a graceful, accessible style. Again not surprisingly, though, if you're looking for an answer to the question of how an omniscient and just God can permit so many horrific things to happen, you won't find it here. The best Kugel can offer (as many have done) is that the believer can't do much better than to realize that there's no way for little people to make any sense out of God's work. But, if you want a satisfying essay on the roots of religion, this book may be for you.
May 7, 2014
I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to understand from this book.
For some the model of the vanity of all religions is simply the need to do something in the face of seeming impotence.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Some philosophical arguments are illegitimate because they try to say what cannot be said.
"To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.
"fearing the gods" as used in the Bible generally means to respect fairness and common decency.
Many studies of religion begin with the premise that once we understand the neuroscience and evolutionary biology behind religious ideas, we can move on free of delusion. But this is akin to suggesting that once we understand human courtship behavior, we can stop the nonsense of falling in love. If a sense of the Great Unknown really is a basic aspect of human nature, we can hardly expect it to go away simply because we have explained its origins.
Religion is first of all about fitting into the world and fitting into one's borders.
For some the model of the vanity of all religions is simply the need to do something in the face of seeming impotence.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Some philosophical arguments are illegitimate because they try to say what cannot be said.
"To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.
"fearing the gods" as used in the Bible generally means to respect fairness and common decency.
Many studies of religion begin with the premise that once we understand the neuroscience and evolutionary biology behind religious ideas, we can move on free of delusion. But this is akin to suggesting that once we understand human courtship behavior, we can stop the nonsense of falling in love. If a sense of the Great Unknown really is a basic aspect of human nature, we can hardly expect it to go away simply because we have explained its origins.
Religion is first of all about fitting into the world and fitting into one's borders.
April 2, 2011
I really enjoyed this intelligent, thoughtful, well-researched and engaging approach to the question of "why do we have religion?", written with such a secular analytic perspective that I was surprised to learn the author was an Orthodox Jew...albeit one who had recently survived a brush with cancer. An anthropological and textual examination of why and how humans turn to a belief in "something greater", and it's not just because we're stupid or uneducated. Indeed, it's not even, says the author, because our ancestors were particularly dim...they too noted the disconnect between God as envisioned in religion, and how the world actually worked. How and why some people believe anyway, and how and why they have changed and adapted in these beliefs, is the subject of this book. The agnostics and the religious alike will appreciate this.
April 16, 2014
A lucid and gentle memoir of life in the shadow of death. Written by a well-respected professor of Hebrew Bible who inhabits the middle spaces between orthodoxy and the secular academy, this is an attempt to think about some of the lived valences of religious life. Overall the book succeeds reasonably well, although Kugel's strengths are more visible in biblical scholarship than in memoir. The difficulty of writing these memoirs reflects, I think, the extent to which life in open awareness of physical extinction troubles us deep within our souls and commonly defies words. While I hail from a different tradition than Dr. Kugel, I find myself deeply sympathetic to his approach to living a religious life with full commitment and eyes wide open.
October 3, 2011
James Kugel is a respected Bible scholar, who has written a number of popular-scholarly works, many of which I've read & have gotten a lot out of. This book is different - a personal story of how he dealt with a serious cancer diagnosis some 10 years ago. (At that time, doctors gave him the sterotypical "two years to live," which turned out to be overpessimistic.) Anyway, this book explores some aspects of religious belief that he thought about in response to his situation at that time. He's an excellent & thoughtful writer.
March 17, 2011
This is a work that I will read over again. He does look at where religious believes may come from and its history but the most interesting part of the book is his description of how it felt for him to be 'in the valley of the shadow' - he was diagnosed with a fatal cancer and for reasons unknown he survived now 10 years. This is not the typical 'survivor story' He describes how when this happened, the background noise of his life just disappeared and how small he felt alone.
I would recommend to anyone with an interest in understanding the human condition.
I would recommend to anyone with an interest in understanding the human condition.
March 31, 2013
Having had my own brush with death via recurrent cancer, I was interested in comparing my experience with that of Kugel. This book was not what I expected. The book essentially is a history of religion as per cultures in the past and how they believed in a higher being(s) as regards their own place in the world, and the ways in which these beliefs have changed over time. Kugel's book is also a defense of religion and a belief in a higher being. The content is worth reading, although it's more of a history of religious beliefs and not so much about Kugel and his experiences.
October 31, 2013
Kugel challenges some of the latest neuro-evolutionary theories about the origins of religion - specifically the idea that we imagine a controlling deity because we are wired to see agency whether agency is present or not. He traces religious belief to the experience of pre-settled humankind, to a sense of smallness that necessarily accompanied life so unprotected. The times before, as Louis CK has it, we got out of the food chain. Buy his thesis or not, this is a very interesting read, as Kugel thinks clearly and deeply and is beautifully erudite, personal, and expressive.
January 4, 2015
After facing his mortality with a serious bout with cancer, this esteemed scholar uses his inner experience to explore insights into what may be the origin of religious experience, beginning with the experience of smallness and starkness. Interesting but disjointed. Brings in many interesting quotes and sources, but ultimately it is very difficult to put together.
March 8, 2011
First half is interesting, and then it gets .....nowhere, or too focused on Judaism and Christianity. There's a wealth of material speculating on beliefs from eastern religions, the book would had been more "complete" IMO.
June 6, 2011
this was too personal and not what I was hoping for. I never completely understood his experience with the cancer death sentence that he was writing the book to explain - and I read over half of it.
Want to Read
March 1, 2011This NYT review prompted me to add this to list.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/boo...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/boo...
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