Surpassing wonder

Surpassing Wonder illuminates the ancient Hebrew scriptures, the Christian "New Testament," and the Talmuds of the Rabbis. Donald Harman Akenson takes a radical historical look at these founding documents. Studying them and the surrounding scholarship, Akenson has arrived at a new - and galvanizing - understanding. He argues persuasively that these founding texts are best understood if they are each regarded as having been written by one author-editor.

He then brings the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds into clear focus, as no other writer has done. Using images that range from tractor mechanics to Winnie-the-Pooh, Akenson explains how Western civilization was created not by the Greeks of Athens or the patricians of Rome but by the desert worshippers of Yahweh.