Detailed item info | Size | | Length: | 850 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in. | | Width: | 6.3 in. | | Thickness: | 2.0 in. | | Weight: | 46.4 oz. |
| | Publisher's Note | Here is the story of the Bible from beginning to end as you've never read it before - told with exciting detail and passionate energy. The Book of God reads like a fine novel, bringing a wise and beautiful rendering of the Bible, retold by master storyteller Walter Wangerin, Jr. Wangerin recreates the high drama, low comedy, gentle humor, and awesome holiness of the Bible story. Imaginative yet meticulously researched, The Book of God offers a sweeping history that stretches across thousands of years and hundreds of lives, in cultures foreign and yet familiar in their common humanity. History and fact take on personality and warmth. Wangerin shows you human hands - Abraham raising the knife over his son Isaac on Mount Moriah, a priest offering incense in the temple at Jerusalem, Joseph the carpenter at work with his tools. He shows you human faces - Moses and Aaron face-to-face with the king of Egypt, Mary smiling like a white rose, and Jesus laughing with a Samaritan woman. Gardens, humble homes, olive groves, palaces, temples, and the hills of Judea shining in the afternoon sun - Wangerin makes the places where the events of the Bible took place come to life in the imagination.
Walter Wangerin, Jr. loves to tell a good story. In his latest book, The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel, he tells the greatest story ever told. The Book of Godis a compelling narrative that tells a collection of Biblestories like a modern bestseller. But it is gripping because it is not fiction, but ages old truth. Ably using fiction techniques of characterization, Wangerin gives readers a new look at Peter and John through the eyes of Jesus. Many of the chapters focus on biblical characters from the famous, like some of the disciples, to the obscure, such as Ehud and Ahikam. Throughout the book, Wangerin is sensitive to the roll of women in the Bible, even devoting separate chapters to Rebekah and Deborah. The Book of Godwill not replace the Bible itself -- it encourages readers to look at the Bible in a fresh and lively new light. Using what might be called literary homiletics, Wangerin organizes his book into eight parts. Beginning with The Ancestorsand concluding with The Messiah,Wangerin tells God's own story with excitement and reverence.
| | Industry reviews | Renowned storyteller Wangerin (Ragman and Other Cries of Faith, HarperSanFrancisco, 1994) here selects portions of the biblical narrative for retelling to a contemporary audence. Ever the raconteur, Wangerin evokes the deep and powerful emotions that motivate all human behavior. Yet rich as these retellings sometimes are, many of his characters lack even the depth with which they are presented in the biblical acccounts. Unfortunately, Wangerin's "novel" reduces the power of the Bible's multidimensional characters to the flatness of much of today's most popular spiritual fiction. Buy only where Wangerin is popular.
Breitman
"This is not the Bible," Wangerin (The Book of the Dun Cow; Miz Lil and the Chronicles of Grace; etc.) says of this newest work. But it is a novel featuring many of the Bible's most dramatic characters. He partitions the whole into eight parts: half focus on personalities (The Ancestors, Kings, Prophets, The Messiah), and half concern themselves with epic themes (The Covenant, The Wars of the Lord, Letters From Exile, The Yearning). Retelling the stories of the Bible in novelized form allows Wangerin to be more selective: no slogging through seemingly endless genealogies or the minutiae of military conflicts for him. Instead, he imagines the finer points of the tension between Sarah and her slave, Hagar; the words Isaac might have used in blessing Jacob; or the drama of Jesus's baptism by his cousin, John. In doing so, he also makes some curious inventions. Does Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, become a justifiably more interesting character, for instance, if he is presented as willingly making nails for the evil ruler Herod to use in crucifixions? For adult readers who are intimidated by the sheer bulk of the Bible, or for those who desire a novelist's different perspective on some very familiar stories, Wangerin is likely to be a welcome voice; for others, however, the novel will feel like an ornate but pale imitation of a great book. (Feb.)
Lopate
|
|
Portions of this page Copyright 1995 - 2009 Muze Inc.  All rights reserved. |
Back to eBay Home
) 
vintage princess new and used books
Print
Report item