Review of Leonard Levy: Blasphemy

Abstract

This review offers a sympathetic reading of Leonard Levy’s massive historical study of “Blasphemy: Verbal Offenses Against the Sacred Voices from Moses to Salman Rushdie.” Levy spotlights the crime of blasphemy and the injustice of its implementation, showing clearly sympathy with the victims of blasphemy, but not valorizing all of them as he tended to do in his previous works. He also makes clear that today’s sweeping free speech protections of virtually all forms of anti-religious rhetoric has had the ironic effect of making America not only a free society but also a “numb society” that is “beyond outrage”.

Keywords: Blasphemy, Leonard, Levy, Religion, Free Speech