Download or read book Surpassing Wonder written by Donald H. Akenson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2001-09-29 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elegant and inventive, Surpassing Wonder uncovers how the ancient Hebrew scriptures, the Christian New Testament, and the Talmuds of the Rabbis are related and how, collectively, they make up the core of Western consciousness. Donald Harman Akenson provides an incisive critique of how religious scholars have distorted the holy books and argues that it was actually the inventor of the Hebrew scriptures who shaped our concept of narrative history—thereby founding Western culture.