THE GIFTS OF THE JEWS

Cahill, author of HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION, uses the Hebrew Bible as the backdrop for Jewish contributions to Western civilization. The Jews, Cahill contends, have given us morality, individualism, conscience, freedom, progress, history and hope. While Cahill's insights are brilliant and poetic, he makes a number of monolithic leaps, and his scholarship is dubious. His pronouncements, which come across as pompous, are made worse by Richard M. Davidson's supercilious reading. Davidson reads with trained precision, but his pace is slow, and the emotions don't ring true. Cahill's Bible translations jump back and forth between King James style and modern interpretations, and Davidson's attempts at pronouncing Hebrew names will curdle any scholar's blood. This is an important book, but not in this edition. S.E.S. © AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 99]