No Gods But One

On the face of it, Deuteronomy seems to be a book filled with triumph — the pronouncement of the commandments, the end of the Israelites’ long exile, the coming of the Promised Land.

But Daniel Berrigan here turns a searching eye toward this text and finds its darker side. Moses, the people’s leader for forty years, is denied entrance to the land he dreamt about. The people desperately create a golden calf to worship even as God is giving Moses the two tablets. The Promised Land, full of mi...