In the previous entry, I presented
my list of “1000 pages that I think everyone should read”. Please send me your own lists as well. In this entry, I’d like to go into a bit more
detail about why I chose the 7 books I chose.
“Ecclesiastes”,
written by Solomon
I don’t
imagine that a lot of Christians would choose Ecclesiastes on any of their
lists of “Books of the Bible to read.” I
struggled myself as to whether to include it because, to be honest, my later
selection by Tolstoy is essentially an expanded, more intense version of
Ecclesiastes. But, if Solomon really was
the wisest man ever to live, as the Bible claims, then it seems worth reading
something he wrote. Even given that,
most people would have picked Proverbs and even Song of Solomon over
Ecclesiastes. But Proverbs is a “middle”
book in my mind: it presents kind of the
middle of the road thinking. I prefer to
go to the extremes and get to the point.
I always want to quickly run ahead and find out where a line of thinking
is going to lead me. The reductio ad absurdum really appeals to
me. Ecclesiastes is the extreme of
thinking “if I remove God, what’s the point?”
Some people think that the Bible is outdated and out of step with the
times. To that I say: read
Ecclesiastes! Besides, it is by far the
shortest book on my list, so it’s a simple read.
“Gospel of John”,
written by Apostle John
Some will say
“why should everyone read that fairy tale?” and others will say “why just John
– why not the whole Bible or at least the whole New Testament?” Well, first of all, the whole Bible is more
than 1000 pages by any normal-sized page count, so that wouldn’t fit my
criteria. But, more importantly, I
focused on the part of the challenge that ways “…everyone should read.” I think that most of the Bible is written for
those who already believe. I definitely think that every Christian
should read the whole Bible – in fact I think they should keep reading it over
and over. But not much of the Bible is
really written for “everyone”, in my opinion.
But the Gospel of John was specifically written to describe and present
Jesus to the masses. Certainly, if
everyone wants to read the whole Bible, that is fine – that’s great, really…but
I’m pretty sure everyone does
not! But I think – and again, this is
just my opinion in answer to the question – I think everyone should read the
Gospel of John.
The Gospel of
John is, in many ways, one of the most attacked books of the Bible (I suppose
outside of Genesis). But, the bottom
line is that it is either: true and the
most important book in the world, or it is a false and intentionally deceptive
book. I think everyone should be forced
to make their own decision about it, and I don’t know any other way to decide
between those two extremes other than to read it for yourself.
“Epistle to the
Romans”, written by Apostle Paul
There are two
reasons I chose Romans. First, it most
clearly lays out the basic principles of Christian beliefs. The first eight chapters, in particular,
present the logical progression of Christian thinking. I think everyone should understand that
progression, whether they agree with it or not, and so I put it on my
list. Over the ages since it was
written, this book has been the most instrumental to many Christian thinkers. If you were to make a list of the most important
books ever written, Romans would surely be on any reasonable list.
The second
reason I put Romans on this list is because it is so unassailable in terms of
its history. Is there any scholar who
doesn’t believe that Paul wrote this book somewhere in the 60’s AD? People frequently argue about the Gospels and
who wrote them and when they were written (especially John’s Gospel), but you
don’t see arguments about Romans.
Everyone agrees that this is what Paul wrote. Because of that, I got interested in a line
of arguing I called “Paul in 4D” that I put somewhere on this site
<*here*>.
Finally, this
is a short book as well. Just read it.
“Penseés”, written by
Blaise Pascal
I did not
come across this book until I was in my 40s, and it was like a lightening bolt. I have talked about this book elsewhere
<*here*>. Pascal was a
contemporary of Descartes (a little younger) and Newton (a little older). I think he might be smarter than either one
of them! Unfortunately, he died quite
young and never finished this book. So,
what you really have in Pensees is a collection of some fairly finished
thoughts, some completely unfinished thoughts, and everything in between. That makes it harder to read than most – it’s
more like reading a series of very short essays than a cohesive book. Maybe just think of it as reading a
blog! The thing is, it was written in
the mid-1600s, and is as relevant to today as you can imagine. I don’t agree with all of what Pascal wrote,
but there are some passages there that are just spectacularly deep and
important. It’s well worth the effort to
read.
“A Confession”,
written by Leo Tolstoy
No, not “War
and Peace” – it’s too long for this list anyway! “A Confession” is Tolstoy’s brutally honest
view of his life up to that point. It is
his summary of the meaning of life. I
hesitated to include this for “everyone” to read because it can be taken as
extremely depressing. If you are
depressed before you read this, it might push you over the edge. However, in my opinion, the antidote for this
book is the Gospel of John, which is also on my list, so you should be reading
both. If you’re depressed already, maybe
you should read John first…then Tolstoy…then maybe John again!
“Miracles”, written
by C.S. Lewis
I knew that I
had to include at least one of CS Lewis’ works in my list. He was a fantastically clear and accessible
writer, in my opinion. His book “Mere
Christianity” is certainly the most well-known of his non-fiction work. Of course his allegorical “Narnia Tales” are
certainly very well-known as well, but I don’t think any fiction should be on a
list that “everyone should read”.
This book is
not about whether miracles have
happened, but rather it is about whether they could happen. As I have said
elsewhere in this blog, I think that very fundamental issue has to be settled
first for every person. Is that door
locked or unlocked? I don’t know of many
books that directly address this very fundamental issue. Maybe, if you know of one, you should put it
on your list. I’ll definitely read it.
I think this
book is probably the most difficult to read from a purely academic
standpoint. By that I mean that, for
many, it’s the kind of book you can’t read all at once and you may have to
re-read some passages to understand the point he is making. But the issue is so critical that it is worth
the effort.
“Being Mortal”,
written by Atul Gawande
I think this
is the longest of all the books I chose and it is certainly the most
recent. This book is less than ten years
old. It is also probably much more
relevant to Western cultures, and especially the U.S. than anything else on my
list. So, should everyone read it? Maybe I
stretched it a bit with this one. But if
you are alive today and you live in the U.S., I think you should read this
book. It is about how we practice medicine
with those who are elderly and dying. At
some point I will do a more proper review of this book in this blog. But it was a book that really got me to
thinking and one that I just had to talk about as I was reading through
it. It is very relevant to today.
So, now you have my reasons for the books I picked. I might change my mind tomorrow – who knows! Anyway, as I said before, I’d be very
interested in hearing any such lists that others might have! Please share them.
