In the Valley of the Shadow: On the Foundations of Religious Belief

by James L. Kugel Narrated by George K. Wilson

Overview

When James L. Kugel, one of the world's leading biblical scholars, was diagnosed with an aggressive, likely fatal form of cancer, he said, "I was, of course, disturbed and worried. But the main change in my state of mind was that the background music suddenly stopped. Now I was just down to myself, one little person, sitting in the late summer sun, with only a few things left to do." He recognized that same feeling of smallness expressed in many early religious writings, and in the months that followed, he began a journey of discovery, reexamining the most basic questions about the origins of religion and its universality, which had taken on immediate and vital importance for him.



Weaving reflections on his own struggle-the love of his family became "as tangible as bread"-with the writings of anthropologists, neuroscientists, and poets, he leads listeners from prehistoric religious practices to the religious doubts of modern times via an amazing array of topics: the eerie starkness of medieval cathedral architecture; the "looming Outside" revealed in African witchcraft; biblical encounters with angels; gospel album covers; and-through it all-the peculiar "sense of smallness" that, he argues, characterizes how all humans used to conceive of themselves.



Kugel's look at the whole phenomenon of religion is rigorously honest, often funny, sometimes skeptical, but ultimately a deeply moving affirmation of faith in God. Believers and doubters alike will be struck by its combination of objective scholarship and poetic insight-a beautifully crafted consideration of life's greatest mystery.

Editorial Reviews

Judith Shulevitz

Kugel has the great critic's knack for making difficult poetry seem much easier than it is, and he could have written a perfectly lovely book using illness to explain literature and vice versa. Indeed, he has done that, but that's only part of what he has done…Where Kugel is really brilliant…is in teasing out of his own brush with death, as well as out of religious texts and artifacts, an account of what intimations of God feel like.
—The New York Times

From the Publisher

A powerful hybrid of memoir, scholarship, and speculation…an unflinching look at that greatest of mysteries, our own death.” —Commonweal

New York Times Book Review

Kugel has the great critic’s knack for making difficult poetry seem much easier than it is…When he talks openly about his new, chagrined grasp of his all-too-human condition, he adds something raw and beautiful to his exegetical prowess.”

Seattle Times

Rich with original, exciting ideas…[In the Valley of the Shadow] is about a man’s sense of wonder as he ponders being a self-contained being in a vast universe.”

The New York Times

Propounds a stark and challenging thesis, namely that contemporary Bible readers are confronted with two radically different ways of approaching Scripture and that both approaches are impressive and admirable—-and fundamentally incompatible. Professor Kugel is a rare master of both approaches.... The journey is fascinating.

America Magazine

"Kugel has always worn his great erudition not just lightly but alluringly, anda memoir/polemic frees him as never before."

The Seattle Times

"Rich with original, exciting ideas...[In the Valley of the Shadow] is about a man's sense of wonder as he ponders being a self-contained being in a vast universe."

Winnipeg Free Press

"[Kugel] is a powerful academic mind...a captivating miscellany of sweetness, hope, information, scholarship, sobriety, uncertainty and humour...His elegant prose, his extreme literary competence, and his tone — not at all maudlin — together make watching him tenaciously pursuing the fleeting a welcome pleasure."

The New York Times Book Review

Praise for In the Valley of the Shadow:

"Kugel has the great critic's knack for making difficult poetry seem much easier than it is...When he talks openly about his new, chagrined grasp of his all-too-human condition, he adds something raw and beautiful to his exegetical prowess."

The New York TimesBook Review

Praise for In the Valley of the Shadow:

"Kugel has the great critic's knack for making difficult poetry seem much easier than it is...When he talks openly about his new, chagrined grasp of his all-too-human condition, he adds something raw and beautiful to his exegetical prowess."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170721238
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	02/23/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged

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