Jeff,
While some people write off Sungenis because of his Traditionalism, his work in the area of Catholic apologetics is still fantastic and should be criticized based on its own merit not on whether he has a traditionalist take on the condition of the church today. That’s simply shoddy reasoning.
Anyway, I have this first CASB along with his “Not by…” books. I believe the CASB is a very helpful resource and have learned a great deal from it. There are several textual notes which explain various points from the Greek and Latin, and most of his twenty three (I think that’s the number) “Apologetics Commentaries” are interesting. I especially liked what he wrote on Jesus’ three days and three nights in the earth, the “Brothers and Sisters” of Jesus, the prohibition of divorce and remarriage, and the atonement.
One thing I would say is don’t expect anything new on some topics. For example, if you’ve read Not by Bread Alone, you won’t hear any new arguments in his section on Matthew 26:26. This still leaves about 18 sections of apologetic commentary full of new explosive material. Another thing is that he doesn’t always give you the FULL story on SOME of his Greek arguments. He’ll make it out as if the Catholic position was plain, simple, and obvious and anyone who would just take a loook at the Greek text would know this, but that’s not always the case. So you may wish to take some of what he says with a small grain of salt there. Finally, there are many who would disagree with what he writes in his apologetic commentary on Matthew 1:1. He says that Matthew was probably written in Greek first not Aramaic/Hebrew as many Catholics believe. His argumentation is compelling though not definitive. He also left out some pretty good arguments I’ve heard from Protestant sources that would have bolstered his case. I suppose they went beyond the scope of the book (i.e. pretty in depth).
Anyway, that’s my evaluation of the book. If I had to rate it on a five star scale (like Amazon) I would give it a four. I think there’s some room for improvement, but I think it is definitely worth the price and will be on the look out for his new volume. Hope this was useful.
God Bless
Harold
