Cahill, Thomas. The Gifts of the Jews. How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels. (The Hinges of History, vol. 2.) New York, NY: Doubleday, 1998. pp. 291. ISBN 3-385-48248-5

Summary

Cahill gained notariety with the publication of the bestseller How the Irish Saved Civilization, the first volume of The Hinges of History. One's first impression is that this volume is simply the retelling of the stories of the Patriarchs and Monarchs of the Hebrew Bible. From the table of contents:

I. The Temple in the Moonlight: The Primeval Religious Experience
II. The Journey in the Dark: The Unaccountable Innovation
III. Egypt: From Slavery to Freedom
IV. Sinai: From Death to Life
V. Canaan: From Tribe to Nation

One's second impression is that the author is making a case for the reality of divine intervention in the lives of the progenitors of the Jews:

Without the Jews, we would see the world through different eyes, hear with different ears, even feel with different feelings. (p.3)

Beginning with Sumer, Cahill traces the development of religious ideas from the cyclical worldview of the ancients on to Abraham, the Exodus experience, David, Solomon and the story of the Divided Monarchy. and showing how many "modern" Western ideas are direct decendents of the ideas presented in the Hebrew Bible.

The Jews gave us the Outside and the Inside—our outlook and our inner life. We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words, in fact—new, adventure, surprise; unique, individual, person, vocation; time, history, future; freedom, progress, spirit; faith,  hope, justice—are the gifts of the Jews. (p. 241)

There is a concise summary of Cahill's interpretation of Jewish history found on pages 237–241. In the chapter "Notes and Sources" there is an excellent reading list for the general reader.

Critique

It all leads one to think the author might actually be suggesting that God spoke in reality to Abraham, and that this intervention explains the radical change in worldview that follows. But in the very next chapter Cahill reverses himself.

But even without resorting to modern scientific methodology or noticing what an inconsistent palimpsest the Hebrew Bible can be, we must reject certain parts of the Bible as unworthy of a God we would be willing to believe in. (p. 245)

Cahill wants it both ways. He wants to keep one foot in the world of skepticism, but he wants a faith in something Real. He follows in the footsteps of Schleiermacher: man creates the kind of God he wants to believe in; God isn't really out there, but man has a "feeling" inside of what God "ought" to be. The last sentence of the book is the proof of Cahill's theology: "For without justice, there is no God." He "feels" for the poor and oppressed, and that is what life ought to be about and hence his conception of God. I can only wonder what God thinks about being limited to only one attribute.

Conclusion

So, apart from a very entertaining narration of the Bible stories, there's not much here that is new. Cahill believes there is something important about the history of the Jews; but whatever it was that caused Abraham and the nation that grew out of him to radically depart from the Sumerian worldview, it was not the Creator of the universe, because He didn't exist until Abraham thought him up.