2 out of 4 stars
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In the non-fiction book, The Broken Gift: Harmonizing the Biblical and Scientific Accounts of Human Origins, Daniel Friedmann attempts to reconcile science and religion with regards to the appearance of humans and their early history. Friedmann analyzes the biblical story of Genesis, providing references to a number of prominent religious scholars and connects parts of the story with associated scientific research into evolution and the fossil record.
In the introduction, Friedmann is clear about personal biases that are reflected in his work, namely his Jewish faith and familiarity with The Torah and his training as a physicist. These biases are reflected throughout the book in the sources used as well as the scientific concepts referenced to connect the dots between the Biblical and the scientific.
Friedmann is clearly passionate about his subject and has thoroughly researched both the science and religion in preparation for writing the book. I appreciated several instances where he brought up a point that I had never thought about.
Unfortunately, I had a number of issues with the book. The intended audience for The Broken Gift is unclear. The initial chapters contain very basic explanations of scientific and religious concepts to cater to both the non-scientific and the non-religious. Unfortunately, I felt that the basic scientific concepts introduced in the early chapters did not tie in with arguments made to connect the science and the religion in later chapters. Once the reader reaches the chapters where Friedmann begins to lay out his arguments, high level physics concepts are referenced that would not be familiar to readers without a background in science. By eliminating the early material that does not provide a building block for the later chapters, the book could have been shortened significantly. Because of those early chapters, I felt that I was halfway through the book before I found where Friedmann began presenting his arguments.
Another issue was the frequency with which chapters would touch on a concept only to state that it would be covered in later chapters. Those references are unnecessary if the division of material was more streamlined to where one chapter flows into the next in a logical fashion.
A final issue was the information buried within the cited references at the end of each chapter that explained some of the points being made within the chapter. In many cases, that information made the points much clearer and should have been included within the main body of the chapter.
I would give The Broken Gift a 2 out of 4 because while the arguments presented were thought provoking, I don't think the book as it is currently written will appeal to a wide range of people. I think the book is best suited to those with an interest in Christian religious scholarship.
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The Broken Gift: Harmonizing the Biblical and scientific accounts of human origins
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However, the author made it as BOTD, so congratulations to him on that!
