Reviews

Commentary on Rabbi Leonard I. Beerman - Jack Miles provides commentary on the life of Rabbi Leonard I. Beerman after a sermon titled "Why the Prophets are Important," from the collection The Eternal Dissident, published May 11, 2018.

Augustine's Confessions: A New Translation - Jack Miles wrote the Foreword to Peter Constantine's masterful and elegant rendering of the first-ever autobiography, published January 23, 2018. Visit the Forewords page to order it.

Mel Gibson's Passion - Review of The Passion of the Christ, a Mel Gibson film. A shorter version of this article appeared as part of BeliefNet's special edition on the film in March 2004. This version was published on this site on January 25, 2005.

Was Jesus American? - Review of Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession by Richard Wightman Fox and American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, by Stephen Prothero. Written for The Jerusalem Post, April 9, 2004.

Comments on Walter Wink - Review of The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of Man. A paper delivered on November 24, 2002 in Toronto, Canada at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. 8 pages. Later published in Cross Currents, Summer 2003.

The Limits of Power - Review of The Unconquerable World, by Jonathan Schell. Written for The New York Observer, May 14, 2003.

Introduction to a Discussion of El Nińo - with John Adams, Esa-Peka Salonen, and Peter Sellars. Moderated by Miles, this is the introduction to a discussion of the musical work, given on March 8, 2003, in Beckman Auditorium at the California Institute of Technology.

Our Lady of the Freeways - Is Los Angeles's new cathedral worth the price? From Commonweal, February 28, 2003. A review essay on the Catheral of Our Lady of the Angels: Where the Church & City Gather.

The Good Booklets - Review of The Pocket Canons. Written for National Review, December 31, 1999.

Casting Genesis - George Segal's Biblical Sculptures. A review of Segal's scupltures, written for Bible Review in April 2000. Based on a lecture delivered on May 1, 1997, during an exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, which brought together for the first time give of George Segal's biblical works.

The Ghost of a Christmas Past - Review of Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos. Written for The New York Times Book Review, December 10, 1995.

Asking the Bible for More - Reviews of various books on the Tanakh. Unpublished work by Jack Miles. A long essay review on five works: Alicia Susan Ostriker's The Nakedness of the Fathers, Out of the Garden edited by Christina Buchmann and Celina Spiegel, King Solomon's Garden and The Poet's Book of Psalms, both edited by Laurance Wieder, and Modern Poems on the Bible, edited by David Curzon. Written in 1995.

The Book of B: Bloom, Bathsheba and the Book - Review of The Book of J by David Rosenberg and Harold Bloom. Written for Commonweal, November 9, 1990. Bloom had declared the "J" writer to be a woman, thinking himself daring. But Miles argues he should have named J as Bathsheba herself. Bloom later did just that in his book The Western Canon, but lacked the nerve to name the author of the idea, calling Miles only "a shrewd reviewer."