In 2005, Lenn E. Goodman, professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt, was invited to give the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow.(While We're At It)( Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself)(Book review)

First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, April, 2008 by Neuhaus, Richard John

In 2005, Lenn E. Goodman, professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt, was invited to give the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow. This time the format was different. Four scholars--a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, and an agnostic (atheist?)--were asked to deliver two lectures each on the commandment "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Goodman, a very thoughtfully observant Jew, has brought together his lectures, plus his extended commentary on the questions raised, in a book just out from Oxford, Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself.

The book is rich in philosophical and rabbinical wisdom. There is this, for instance, on what is meant by equality before the law. "Thomas Hobbes measures power by the potential for violence. His aim is to quiet the pretensions of...

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