Religions in Four Dimensions: Existential and Aesthetic, Historical and Comparative

by Walter Kaufmann

Well produced, copiously illustrated scholarly tome covering all major world religions. Well over 200 illustrations including 183 in color, photos by the author. Includes a bibliography.
Prologue
Ancient Israel
Ancient Iran
The Jews since Jeremiah: exile & return
The New Testament
Post-Biblical Christianity
Muhammad & the Koran
Islam after Muhammad
Ancient India
Hinduism: caste, the Gita & Gandhi
The third face of India
Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism
From Ceylon to Japan
Judaism, Christianity, Islam & the arts
Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism & the arts
Epilogue: Landscape & religion
Acknowledgment
Note on the Translations
Note on Transliteration
Bibliography
Index
Notes on the Pictures
Chronology

Genres: Philosophy, Religion, History, Nonfiction

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Walter Arnold Kaufmann was a German-American philosopher, translator, and poet. A prolific author, he wrote extensively on a broad range of subjects, such as authenticity and death, moral philosophy and existentialism, theism and atheism, Christianity and Judaism, as well as philosophy and literature. He served for over 30 years as a Professor at Princeton University.

He is renowned as a scholar and translator of Nietzsche. He also wrote a 1965 book on Hegel, and a translation of most of Goethe's Faust.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dad gave me this book as my reward for finishing Grinnell College with a religion major. His choice of Kaufmann was apt as I very much liked Kaufmann at the time, both as a translator of Nietzsche and as a philosopher. His choice of this particular book by Kaufmann was less happy because this is basically a much-illustrated coffee table book. The author does know his stuff about subcontinental religions however.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have not read this book, but was referred to it by Corngold's new bio of Kaufmann. (I have read the majority of Kaufmann's books and own three.)

Per Corngold, it sounds like this book sux, and is full of special pleading for Judaism's uniqueness, and untruths about that.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Kaufmann presents a well reasoned and impassioned examination of major world religions in this book. While I don't see eye to eye on all of his assessments, his beautiful photography and his takes on religion are still relevant nearly 50 years later.

[Carlos · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was really disappointed with this book. Kaufmann starts the book amazingly well. He explains the importance of seeing religions as evolving institutions of human character, with members whose actions not always align with its precepts and which did not form in a vacuum of social-historical context. The first section, dealing with Judaism, was equally good. He goes on to explain the cultural and historical context in which it formed and the way it evolved through time. Although Kaufmann does get side-tracked in a discussion of the creation of the modern state of Israel and an overtly apologetic explanation of Israel’s foreign wars, it is only in the subsequent sections that the reader notices a stark contrast with the way every other religion is treated. Starting with Christianity and continuing until the end of the book, Kaufmann’s tone changes from apologetic to overtly critical. He judiciously points out all the ways in which the ideas espoused by these religions are antithetical to our modern values. Although Kaufmann does give a historical context and evolutionary path for these religions, he never fails to highlight the ways in which people have read into them whatever the current virtues are and ignore what he sees as blatant problems with their philosophy. Let me make something clear, I am an atheist and have no problem criticizing religions. However, I found Kaufmann’s change of tone so off-putting that I could not help but take an apologetic posture for the rest of book. Especially since anyone who is familiar with the Old Testament will not fail to notice its genocidal, xenophobic, self-important and altogether aberrant content, content which is almost completely minimized by the same author who manages to finds faults in the Buddhist philosophy of non-violence.

[Bjm Index]

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