Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch

by George Bernard Shaw and Bernard Shaw

Book Overview

Back to Methuselah (A Metabiological Pentateuch) by George Bernard Shaw consists of a preface (An Infidel Half Century) and a series of five plays: In the Beginning: B.C. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden),... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140480110
• ISBN13: 9780140480115
• Release Date: April 1972
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 317 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An enlightening read!

Back to Methuselah, by Bernard Shaw, was an excellent read. The preface of the book deals with mankind's thoughts, institutions, and most sacred beliefs. Shaw gives a history of the different beliefs regarding the nature of man and the universe. He reveals his own mental struggles and evolution. He portrays the church and its followers as idolaters. This is because they worship god as a portrait of man, a devious and condemning one at that. He is right in saying that their superstitions and legends actually deter people from the divine. This is because when a rational educated man, as he puts it, understands science, he will condemn religion and believe in no god. But, as Shaw exclaims, an irreligious man is no good at all, and may be even worse for the human race. The irreligious man stems from Darwin. Shaw tells the history of Darwin and claims that he never intended on creating such a material reality as evolution. Darwin was merely adding observations of the material realm to the current scientific knowledge. It is the misinterpretation of his work that has led to the faction known as evolutionism. Darwin is not even the founder of the theory of evolution. Lamarck first conceived it. He first proposed Creative Evolution. Which basically says that beings will change. Shaw also gets into politics. He reveals how man's ignorance caused by the legends of religions and evolution have created havoc for mankind. They have created wars because of material greed and religious fanaticism. Both have missed the "Big Picture" altogether. The rest of the book is several comedic plays where Shaw tries to display creative evolution and both mankind's history and future. The opening play takes place in the Garden of Eden. Here is where man began. Adam and Eve are very ignorant creatures playing in the garden. This all changes when Adam discovers a dead fawn and thus death. They learn from the snake about the possibilities of their imagination and their existence. They were once other animals and willed their way to where they were now. The snake puts new words and realities in their heads, and they begin to create a new reality by pure will alone. The snake is not evil. They learn to eat and take in the energy of the land. Adam and Eve fear living for eternity and recapitulate another. Their children are unlike them in the sense that they eat meat and kill. This causes the animals to be scared and build defenses against them. Then murder takes place, and it is all down hill from there. History pretty much goes the way it did in our books where greed and power rule the land. The next play takes place after the First World War. Here, we see the politics of the day and the theory of creative evolution is envisioned in The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas. The two brothers have the theory that until man can live three hundred years man will continue to suffer. This is because man can n