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 Book Reviews
Below are my latest book reviews at Amazon.
All My Reviews

What Happened at Vatican II by John W. O'Malley
 
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent overview of an important event, November 6, 2009
John O'Malley's "What Happened at Vatican II" is an excellent and well-written overview for anyone interested in learning what happened behind the scenes at Vatican II. As someone who has taken a graduate-level course on Vatican II, I did not expect to learn much new information from this book, but I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of O'M...More


Encountering the Mystery: Understanding Orthodox Christianity Today by Bartholomew I Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
 
3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Political, not prophetic, February 22, 2009
I am not an Orthodox Christian, but I have a deep interest in Eastern Christianity, and high respect for His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew. As such, I was eagerly anticipating r...More


What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? by N. T. Wright
 
5.0 out of 5 stars A readable treatment of the "New Perspective", February 3, 2009
For almost 500 years, Protestants and Catholics have been locked into a debate on "what Paul really said," especially in how it relates to justification. For over 100 years, scholars have been attempting to reinterpret "what Paul really said" with wildly divergent results, most of which have more to do with their personal ideologies than the thought of th...More


Marcus by Michael Edward Giesler
 
4.0 out of 5 stars Become immersed in the 2nd Century, January 27, 2009
"Marcus" is another fine fictional book by Fr. Michael E. Giesler. It is the sequel to his book "Junia" (and I would recommend reading Junia first), and follows the story of Marcus, the philosopher brother of Junia.

"Marcus" picks up shortly after the death of Junia and details the slow conversion of Marcus to the Christian Faith. It begins with Marcus being saved by a stranger, who he then befriends. Marcus is struck by the different lifestyle of this strang...More


Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Encyclopedia for Children by Ann Ball
 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, comprehensive book for children, January 27, 2009
The "Catholic Encyclopedia for Children" is a perfect book for teaching children the Catholic Faith. The title "Encyclopedia" might be misleading, however, as this is no dry tome, but a lively storybook perfect for children ages 4-12 (read-alo...More


In Conversation with God: Meditations for Each Day of the Year, Vol. 1: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany by Francis Fernandez
 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect devotional companion, January 12, 2009
Volume 1 of "In Conversation with God" is a beautiful way to draw closer to Christ during the Advent and Christmas seasons. For each day in these liturgical seasons, starting with the 1st Sunday of Ad...More


Matthew (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) by Stanley Hauerwas
 
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A "novel" commentary, January 11, 2009
The first thing one must do to truly appreciate this work is to recognize that it is not just a "commentary," but a "theological commentary." This is an important distinction, and makes all the difference in properly utilizing this book. When I first received it, ...More


Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity by Larry W. Hurtado
 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Magisterial study of the origins of Christ-worship, January 4, 2009
This is the most impressive book I've read in a long time.

In "Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity" Larry Hurtado studies the figure of Jesus Christ in the life of the earliest Church. The conventiona...More


The Gospel of Jesus: The Pastoral Relevance of the Synoptic Problem by William Reuben Farmer
 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The actual implications of a scholarly theory, December 22, 2008
Since the 19th century, no scholarly theory in the realm of biblical studies has been more accepted than the "two-source" hypothesis. This is the hypothesis that posits that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke used the Gospel of Mark and a conjectured documents dubbed "Q" (fr...More


Junia: The Fictional Life and Death of an Early Christian by Michael Edward Giesler
 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, December 15, 2008
This is a marvelous little story that contains quite a lot of depth for its small size. Ultimately, it is a tale that graphically illustrates Tertullian's famous phrase, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."

Junia...More


Helena (Loyola Classics) by Evelyn Waugh
 
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Who knew the fourth century was so humorous?, December 15, 2008
This book is not exactly what one might expect from historical fiction. Most books of that genre spill much ink filling in extra details of important historical events. Waugh, however, has a different purpose: he would like the reader to view sainthood in a different light by seeing the p...More


In the Beginning...: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall (Resourcement) by Pope Benedict XVI
 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Beyond the typical debates, December 12, 2008
This short book is a series of four homilies given by Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) in the early 1980's, plus a short essay later added by the author. In these homilies, Cardinal...More


Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic by Francis Beckwith
 
38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A modern "Apologia Pro Vita Sua", December 10, 2008
When Dr. Francis Beckwith announced that he was stepping down as President of the Evangelical Theological Society and returning to the Catholic Church of his youth, it caused quite a stir. Catholic and Evangelical blogs alike parsed every word and...More


Paul of Tarsus by Josef Holzner
 
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive treatment of St. Paul, December 9, 2008
A favorite genre of Catholic authors through the years has been biographies or fictionalized historical novels on the saints. You can find a plethora of works on St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius Loyola or even St. Maximilian Kolbe. Thus, I find it odd that so few biographies or novels exist on those considered the foundation of the Church - the apostles. It is true t...More


The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 5: Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture (since 1700) by Jaroslav Pelikan
 
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Valiant attempt to cover a fragmented period, December 8, 2008
This fifth volume in Jaroslav Pelikan's monumental work, "The Christian Tradition," was likely the hardest for Pelikan to write. After all, following the breaku...More


The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 4: Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300-1700) by Jaroslav Pelikan
 
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Understand the foundations of the Reformation, December 1, 2008
Jaroslav Pelikan's fourth installment in "The Christian Tradition" deals with the period of Church history that most impacts the modern Western Christian: ...More


The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 3: The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300) by Jaroslav Pelikan
 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Immerse yourself in the Middle Ages, November 25, 2008
Jaroslav Pelikan's third volume in "The Christian Tradition" series, entitled "The Growth of Medieval Theology" covers the development of doctrine in Western Christianity du...More


The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 2: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700) by Jaroslav Pelikan
 
5.0 out of 5 stars A forgotten history is revealed, November 24, 2008
One of the greatest deficiencies of most studies of Christian history is the lack of depth when it comes to the Eastern churches. Typically, these churches simply play minor, usually antagonistical, roles in the great events in Western Christendom. However, this is a distortion of the rich history they have in their own ri...More


The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) by Jaroslav Pelikan
 
5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading, November 22, 2008
It would be hard to overestimate the depth of scholarship or importance of Jaroslav Pelikan's "The Christian Tradition" series. Written from the early 1970's through the late 1980's, this 5-volume series is the definitive standard on that elusive, and sometimes controversial, subject: the development of Christian doctrine.

Fo...More


The Perfect Joy of Saint Francis by Felix Timmermans
 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Hands-down the best biography of St. Francis, November 21, 2008
I have read a number of biographies of St. Francis, including:

"Saint Francis" by Nikos Kazantzakis
"Saint Francis of Assisi" by Ivan Gorby
"God's Fool" by Julien Green
"Saint Francis of Assisi" by G.K. Chesterton
"The Life of St. Francis" by St. Bonaventure
More
About Me

Later this year Our Sunday Visitor will be publishing my book Who Is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew, a series of reflections on the titles given to Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.

I began my study of the Catholic faith in 1991 as an Evangelical Protestant, converting to the Catholic Church in 1993.

I serve as head of evangelization at St. John Neumann parish in Gaithersburg, MD, and am cofounder of Little Flowers Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to assist Catholic families seeking to adopt special-needs children.

All content © Eric Sammons