Socrates Archives - Bob on Books

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Baby, It’s Cold Outside!

Both in central Ohio, where I live, and in many parts of the U.S. we’ve seen some of the coldest weather we’ve had in recent years. From some observations, I’m convinced that humans, and especially bibliophiles, have a hibernation instinct when it gets cold.

Last Saturday, ahead of the cold stretch, we stopped into our local Barnes & Noble while waiting for a take out order from the restaurant next door. The place was packed, with a long line at the cash register! I did not see any special promotion going on. Instead, I concluded that people were loading up on books to read when they were hunkered down in sub-zero cold.

It probably was a good idea. We had several days of school cancellations because of the cold. I go for daily walks, and usually generate my own heat. But that was barely the case this past week even with extra layers.

How inviting, then, to sit down in my favorite chair with a hot cup of coffee and just savor some good theology in the morning and lose myself in a mystery in the evening. While reading is an all-weather activity, I do think there is something especially comforting about a thick book, a warm comforter, and a hot drink beside my favorite chair on those cold days and colder nights! Although I can’t explain it, I can’t help but wonder if storing up that TBR pile beside our reading chair is the form that hibernation takes for booklovers!

Five Articles Worth Reading

Unfortunately, it’s not been cold everywhere. Los Angeles is burning, resulting in displacement and ruin for thousands, including some friends. One of the most referenced articles in discussions about the fires is one written in 1995 by Mike Davis, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn,” reprinted in this 2018 Longreads post. He explores the clash between the native ecology and the decision to build in a firebelt.

Francesca Wade reviews Randall Fuller’s BRIGHT CIRCLE: Five Remarkable Women in the Age of Transcendentalism, in “You Know Emerson and Thoreau. Why Not Their Female Counterparts?” We’ve heard of the men. The book and review introduce us to the women in that circle.

At age 50, Leo Tolstoy struggled with the question, “What will come from my whole life?” He was strongly tempted to commit suicide. In a review of Open Socrates by Agnes Callard, Tim Clare explores how Socrates found a way through “:the Tolstoy problem.”

In “Laugh a Little: Why We All Should Be Telling More Jokes,” Allison Wood Brooks explains why we all could use more humor in our lives. The article is an excerpt from her book, Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves.

Finally, in an age of digital streaming, there is a resurgence of vinyl. I can attest to this. I participate in a Facebook group of over 20,000 enthusiasts of classical music on vinyl. In “A Phenomenology of Spotify and Vinyl,” Dolan Clay thinks Heidegger can help us understand what is going on.

Quote of the Week

Edith Wharton was born on January 23, 1862. I think there is a lot of wisdom in this observation:

“If only we’d stop trying to be happy we’d have a pretty good time.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I got my hat trick of championship ball caps for Ohio State (see below). There is a story for the good sports writer in this team’s season. Seniors chose not to go pro. A transfer quarterback bonded with the team. After a devastating loss to arch-rival Michigan that had people crying for the coach’s firing, the team pulled itself together to beat four top ten ranked teams. I love a good sports read. I hope someone writes it.

My Buckeye Champions ball caps from 2002, 2014, and 2024. “©Bob Trube, 2025.

Timothy P. Carney’s Family Unfriendly is a thought-provoking read. He explores why the birth-rates in the U.S. and other Western countries have tanked. He argues that we have created a “family unfriendly” culture. Carney looks at communities of large families and explores the relation of faith, being around other large families. And he considers allowing, not forcing women (or men) to choose stay at home parenting, and even how we configure our neighborhoods.

We all have blind spots. I’m reading a book on the theme of love in the parables, the subtext of which is a rather uncharitable polemic against Christian orthodoxy through most of history across the major branches of the church. I wonder if the author is aware of this contradiction. But I also wonder about my own blind spots–the places where I try to remove a speck from someone else’s eye, unaware of the log in my own.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Ed Uszynski, Untangling Critical Race Theory.

Tuesday: Jacques Maritain, An Essay on Christian Philosophy.

Wednesday: William Kent Krueger, Red Knife.

Thursday: Michael Licona, Jesus, Contradicted.

Friday: Ellis Peters, A Rare Benedictine.

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for January 19-25, 2025!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

When Athens Met Jerusalem, John Mark Reynolds. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009.

Summary: The Christian message advanced in a Greco-Roman World prepared in many ways by both the failure of the Homeric gods and the classic philosophers. This book explores the intellectual antecedents to the gospel in pre-Socratic, Socratic, Platonic and Aristotelian thought, culminating when Jerusalem meets Athens when Paul preaches on Mars Hill.

In the third century, the Christian Tertullian asked the questions, “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? what between heretics and Christians?” For many Christians, this has been the last word on the matter and they have decided there is little or nothing of value in studying the Greek philosophers of the Classical tradition preceding the advent of Christianity.

John Mark Reynolds would argue to the contrary pointing out both how Greek philosophy prepared the way for the gospel as it groped for something beyond the gods of Homer and tried to explain why there is cosmos rather than chaos. It gave us the humility of wisdom in Socrates who knew that he didn’t know. It gave us the dilemma of the cave and the question of what is the really real. It gave us the Aristotelian mean in ethics and the cultivation of virtue. And yet it failed to deliver Greece from the power hungry Alexander, the decay of its civilization, its lapse back into pagan deities and gnostic mysteries that failed to illumine and give hope. It prepared the way for the Apostle Paul to appear on Mars Hill to speak of the “unknown God” who has revealed himself scandalously in the resurrection of his son.

The book is a useful and sympathetic survey of classical thought. Reynolds begins with the pre-Socratic philosophers in chapter 1, Socrates in chapter 2, Plato in chapters 3-7, Aristotle, the pupil of Plato in chapters 8 and 9, and finishes with the neo-Platonists, Epicureans, and Stoics in chapter 10. The end of chapter ten concludes with the preaching of Paul addressing a culture, prepared by this lineage.

If I had any criticism, it would be that this book is long on Athens and short on Jerusalem. Perhaps Reynolds felt that this is all he could do in a book of this length. Yet it seems that the whole book intentionally builds toward the intersection of Athens and Jerusalem. Reynolds spoke of giving us a whirlwind tour through the classical Greeks. I think he could possibly have given us a tighter summary and explored more of the engagement between Greek philosophy and Christian theology. Clearly this has shaped Western Christianity to the present, but the shape and critique of that engagement is sparse in this book. It is clear that Reynolds is more favorable to the Greek philosophers than either Tertullian or many moderns. Perhaps it is because he so loves his subject matter of the Greek philosophers. A more in depth discussion of that engagement could have been a valuable contribution.

This is a useful secondary text for students, particularly Christian students, reading the classics. Reynolds provides helpful context and commentary and helps show the relevance of the questions these philosophers were asking as well as the thought world Christians encountered as the gospel established a beachhead in Europe during the missionary journeys of Paul. It also serves as a helpful review for some of us who read these classics many years ago and need a “brush up.”