Making Moral Choices in a world full of options. By Scott Rae This book is the companion guide to Chuck Colson’s video series with the same title. It is an exploration of moral development based upon a natural law approach. As well as being a guide to live and have a worldview in todays culture. As a work on ethics and morality, it begins by illustrating how society got to its current situations through worldly examples including business, crime, pornography, and the media. The book makes a case for objective morality, which Christians believe is grounded in the Scriptures, with a call for individuals as well as society to return to an ethical and cultural foundation. Thus the book is a call for a revolution in ethics and virtue in our society. While the initial plan was for the book to sit alongside the video, you can easily read the book without viewing the videos. The question for the reader and for society, is our society fine, or is it in a state of moral decay? If it is a problem, how serious is it? May people, including Christians that I speak to do not see the issue as being a priority in today’s society. Scott Rae tackles the tough questions head on, with a fresh degree of honesty. He argues with sound principles, revealing a firm foundation of ethical, medical and Biblical knowledge and understanding. The book has plenty of real life, real world examples and succeeds in getting people to think about the ethical behaviours in society.
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By Irving Finkel I had to question whether this book was another to capitalise on Russell Crowe’s new movie Noah, or whether it was a genuine academic text. While there will be some cross promotion with the movie, it does not take long to determine that The Ark before Noah is a purely academic text. To call it dry would be a complement. It is in fact an investigation into the ark and more specifically an ancient clay tablet, called cuneiform. The book centres on the tablet and how it provides a new interpretation of the Noah's Ark story. The tablet that actually describes animals entering an ark "two by two". There is no doubting the excitement that the author Dr Irving Finkel's has for cuneiform, and his research to show that the flood story is real, and documented prior to the Biblical recount. The tablet confirms the Biblical account of the flood, but apart from the discovery and interpretation of the cuneiform tablet it doesn’t provide any new information or interpretation. There is a rather long and tedious recount of the author’s background and academic history. Apart from establishing his credentials it serves no purpose at all, and is quickly skipped over. You would need to be either a keen historian or flood fanatic to read through the entire book. by Larry Stone I was excited to have the opportunity to review this book. It had been a while since I had looked at anything on Noah and the ark, and I was generally interested in seeing a perspective and current thoughts. Regardless of beliefs about the fact or fiction of Noah, I was disappointed in the book. It raised questions, which it never answered. It appeared as a series of notes on the topic that needed checking for validity and editing. The points it raises in the book are valid, and some of the questions that go unanswered have been satisfactory explained in the past. Larry Stone, the author, may have made better use of his time with further research particularly in scholarly texts and rewriting in layman’s terms, thus providing some answers with a basis of validity. Many would claim that the book was hurried put together and published in time for the Russel Crowe movie “Noah”. The book attempts to answer questions like how Noah build the boat, how he feed the animals, whether all the animals of just representatives of species were included, and how Noah dealt with tonnes of animal waste daily. Then there is the chapters on various Noah related theme parks around the world and the sell job of convincing the reader to visit one. Finally the book discusses the next world disaster and how mankind, as well as animals and plants will survive it. Having read material better researched and written in the past, I tend to believe the literal story of Noah and the Ark. Larry Stone’s book Noah: The Real Story, would not have convinced me, and would have left me with more questions than answers. I would have enjoyed the book a lot more if it had answered questions, and been better edited. |
AuthorHeath has degrees in Ministry and Leadership. He has written several articles on Christianity. Archives
December 2014
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