Unabridged Audiobook
It was a bit heavy on Jesuit history but our narrator is a Jesuit astronomer so what might one expect? What I liked about this series of lectures is that it created a sense of place for Galileo. It is virtually impossible to understand the going’s on and the conflict between Galileo and the church without a discussion of the history, the culture and the politics of the world back the . I feel having the ‘insider’ knowledge of a Catholic prelate was invaluable to gaining an understanding of the event. It’s much like trying to understand Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man without insight into the Catholic Church in Ireland. Really can’t be done. I did disagree with him regarding the conflict between religion and science however. He claims there wasn’t a fundamental conflict and that the church was actually progressive. I tend to agree with Joseph Campbell the famed mythology and professor of comparative religion who said the conflict between science and religion isn’t really between science and religion but a conflict between the science of 2000BCE and the science of 2000 CE. Of course, back then it would have been the science of 1632. It was a good listen, nonetheless.
He may be a sharp astronomer but he doesn’t understand the Bible…. Better stick to history, which drew me to this book. Too bad.
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