F. E. Peters (1927–2020)

A superb book which probably suffers from an excess of ambition: it tries to be a history of events AND of culture/thought, spanning the very *ahem* lively centuries between Alexander's conquests and the "triumph of Christianity." There is almost no way the author can avoid (and he doesn't -- how could he?) a real bona-fide name-a-lanche, where this reader at least was constantly flipping pages back and forth muttering "OK, so Whose-a-la-mapsis was WHOSE daughter again? and WHO demolished show more the Temple of Umphalopatapis?" Unless you have a brain that can immediately seize upon and store for recall names and terms that come fast and keep coming, you'll probably do the same ... but in the end you'll be glad you read this. 800 (or so) VERY packed pages. show less

A very useful resource with one small flaw

This book is of tremendous use to anyone interested in Greek Philosophy. It is a dictionary that also gives (in a rather abbreviated form, naturally) the history of the usage of a given philosophical term. Now, this terse 'history' of the term is confined to the realm of ancient (or non-monotheistic) thought. Thus 'hyle', for example, is defined and discussed not only in Aristotelian terms but also in comparison with its usage in Plato, Stoicism and show more Plotinus too. As indicated, this is done in an extremely abbreviated manner. Now, all Greek terms are transliterated into our Alphabet - which is good; but it would also have been even more helpful if the term appeared written in the Greek alphabet too. Why? This would help students begin to recognize the Greek term whenever it appears in texts. Many specialized studies in Greek philosophy, for example, assume that anyone reading the text is already fully competent in Greek and thus they do not bother to translate or transliterate Greek terms. But I can assure you that this competence is not always the case! Thus, a book like this which was intended to be helpful to students could have been even more helpful by at least once printing the term in Greek next to its transliteration into our alphabet. The perfect spot to have done this would have been the useful 30 page English-Greek Index that ends the book. Also note that since this book is aimed at the 'intermediate student' it was presumed that the reader has "some familiarity with the material it has been judged safe to substitute, in a fairly thorough way, a terminology transliterated directly from the Greek for their English equivalents in a modest effort at lightening the historical baggage." This means that they usually use, for example, 'stoicheion' for 'element' and 'physis' for 'nature'. And this is a good thing. But they still should have shown each term at least once in the original Greek...

That said, this book is a wonderful accessory to the study of Greek philosophical terms made necessary by the fact that the philosophical tradition has, over the many centuries, turned words that were used in ordinary Greek language into technical terms. So this book is also a work of recovery. Of course, this turn towards technical language is not simply a post-classical innovation. In fact, our author insists that "the implication the Socratic-centered Platonic dialogue is still that two reasonably educated citizens can sit down and discuss these matters. Whether this is the truth of the matter or mere literary rhetoric we cannot tell. But no such premiss is visible in Aristotle who insists on a standardized technical usage." So we see, according to our author, that relatively early ordinary Greek terms began taking on resonances that the ordinary Greek would not have known. Where the usual History of Philosophy tells its story through successive schools of thought, this book, though of course not intended as an ordinary history, tells the story of Greek Philosophy through the movement of the meaning (and use) of concepts. The entries, though terse, are cross-referenced and this too I found to be quite useful. Also, and this too was quite useful, citations of the Greek texts are usually given. Thus if one isn't certain of the explanation one can go to the cited text and see its full usage. This book has been an excellent resource for me. Naturally, you will need to supplement this book, which only contains Greek Philosophical Terms, with a copy of Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon. How would I improve this book? First and most importantly, each Greek philosophical term must, at least once, appear in the Greek script. Secondly, some of the entries really do need to be expanded. The historical lexicon itself is only 200 pages. However, these are quibbles, four and a half stars for a very useful book for beginning to intermediate students. Generally, when one is beyond that level of competence, the only opinion one trusts is ones own...

In order to give an idea of the range of this dictionary I close by listing the entries for 'a':

adiaphoron
aer
agathon
agenetos
agnostos
agrapha dogmata
agraphos nomos
aidios
aion
aisthesis
aisthesis koine
aistheton
aither
aition
aletheia
algos
allegoria
alloiosis
analogia
anamnesis
ananke
anaplerosis
apatheia
apeiron
aphairesis
aphthartos
apodeixis
aporia
aponia
aporrhoai
arche
arete
arithmos
arithmos eidetikos
arithmos mathematikos
asymmetron
ataraxia
athanatos
atomon
autarkeia
automaton

Now, note that some of these terms had no information, they simply direct a student to another entry. Thus the 'agraphos nomos' entry only has the accepted translation, 'unwritten law', and then the redirect, 'See nomos'. Of these 41 entries 11 are merely 'redirects' to other entries. The length of the entries varies from 5 lines for apodeixis (pointing out, demonstration, truth) to 7 pages for aisthesis (perception, sensation). While there are several entries almost as terse as the entry for apodeixis, the entry for aisthesis is by far the longest of the above. There is no other entry, in 'a', that even reaches a full 2 pages. The entries for 'a' go from page 3 to page 29. The final entry to our lexicon (zoon: living being animal) concludes on page 201. Note that 'b' only has two entries (boulesis: wish and bouleusis: deliberation) and both are redirects. I have only provided these brief indications because Amazon (ultimately, the publisher) provides no 'Search Inside this Book' feature for this book and so there is no easy way to check its contents... show less

Academic Peters takes a look at the history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam from their beginnings to about the Middle Ages and compares and contrasts them. He begins with a broad historic overview and then investigates what each religion believes about the worship of God, Scripture and tradition, and other topics.

This is the final book that I read for the series of book discussions I ran on the Muslim Journeys bookshelf grant that our library received this year. Unfortunately, I was show more disappointed. While it's extremely useful to be familiar with the parallels and differences between these three major world religions, and helpful to consider them together and the monotheistic believers, this was not the greatest book as an introduction to the topic. Peters writes on the one hand a short introduction and one that's necessarily oversimplified since he's talking about a great variety of believers in general terms. On the other, his text is dense and his vocabulary daunting for a layperson (I had no idea that "exilarch" refers to the leaders of the Jewish community in Babylon after their exile... why he couldn't just say that, I'm sure I don't know). I won't say don't read it, but I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point. show less

This was one of the clearest and most understandable histories of the region of Palestine, and provides an excellent description of the basis of and validity of the claims to historical Jerusalem by the three major religions. Each religion has ruled over the region at various periods of history, and there have been recent claims and counter claims from both Jewish and Muslim groups as to which group has the most legitimate claim on the area. Recent political proposals have been made to show more declare Jerusalem an "international" city, open to all, or to divide the city between east and west sections, one being controlled by Jerusalem, and one half being a Muslim controlled area. If you find yourself undecided as to which of these options is best, you should find this book helpful in making a fair decision. show less