angry

Max Weber's Ancient Judaism is the worst piece of writing I have read this entire year. Yet, in order to write a short, three page paper, I am not only forced to read it, but to squeeze the text for meaning. His rationalization of the bizarre stories found in the Jewish Bible are elaborate rereadings based out of psychology, sociology, and economics. Such rereadings might be interesting if his rereadings weren't so hard to stomach, challenging the mythic-bizarreness of the original texts with a new plain, naturalistic-bizarreness. His 'scientific' writing is about as believable as Sigmund Freud's.

I am convinced Max suffered from intellectual insecurity when he wrote this text; that, or he was a pompous asshole. Ancient Judaism is an extremely reader-unfriendly text. Perhaps it is the translation. I hope it is the translation. But, most likely, it is not. For one, Max feels the need to accompany every point he makes about Jewish society with three clarifying points taken from other societies, namely those of India and other Asiatic countries, which might be ok if his examples weren't incredibly obscure such that only a scholar would get them (!!!) WTF. I might understand if he was Indian or Chinese, BUT he was a freaking German.
THE END
back to my papers....
so many...
so behind...
help.