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Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses (P.S.)
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List Price: $14.95
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Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 200
EAN: 9780060838638
ISBN: 0060838639
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 496
Publication Date: 2005-08-01
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: 2005-08-02
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial Reviews:
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Both a heart-racing adventure and an uplifting quest, Walking the Bible describes one man's epic odyssey—by foot, jeep, rowboat, and camel—through the greatest stories ever told. From crossing the Red Sea to climbing Mt. Sinai to touching the burning bush, Bruce Feiler's inspiring journey will forever change your view to some of history's most storied events.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Walking the Bible
Comment: This is an incredible companion to the book everyone should have both. They give you a new and wonderful prospective of the Bible and Gods Holy word. It truly brings it all alive. Once you see the places you have a new way of looking at what you read in the Bible you see the places and they become alive and more real that you ever thought they could be.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Walking the Bible - Lite
Comment: I started the book with enthusiasm and debated whether I'd give it four or five stars. Finishing the last page, the question was whether to give it three or four. Now that I've had a couple of weeks' for digestion, it's with generousity I give it three. The book should be titled Walking the Bible - Lite. Feiler says he read a room of books in preparation for his trek. Maybe so, but what he passes along is superficial. The book has a great premise. Many of the people he meets along the way and their cultures are fascinating. But, he never gets below the surface. Feiler's breezy writing style is easy to read, but sometimes less is more. Not everything needs a simile. Comparing a jagged mountain range to the edge of his just opened tuna can? Yikes! Much of the book deals with Feiler's gee whiz moments of spiritual awakening, connecting to his roots. I'm sure for him the experiences were profound. For me they're neither profound nor interesting.
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Summary: The Old Testament comes to life!!!
Comment: This is a dynamic journey that was a true hearted pleasure to read. Bruce Feiler reenacts and covers the terrain of Abraham, Noah, (Mt Ararat) Isaac and Jacob and brings these places back to life as in the time of the Torah. If you enjoy the Old Testament this book will not disappoint.
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Summary: Taking Steps
Comment: Feiler, Bruce. "Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land through the Five Books of Moses", Harper Perennial, 2001.
Taking Steps
Amos Lassen
"Walking the Bible" is a guide to the places mentioned in the Pentateuch and is written basically, as I can see it, from the Jewish perspective. Reading the book gives a new appreciation for the tales from the Torah. Feiler shows us how to walk where our ancestors walked. The book is absorbing as it informs and Feiler gives a new perspective on the Bible as he changed from an almost secular Jew to one who after exploration of the land became quite a believer. He seems to have found a path of understanding as well as a realization of the meaning of the holy books.
The book works on many levels. It is a travel guide first and foremost but it also looks at history and faith. Feiler adds scholarly interpretation as we "walk the Bible" and his guide, Avner Goren, has a great deal of information and knowledge of Biblical archeology.
Unfortunately, however, the writing style leaves a lot to be desired Feiler also has a knack for making a story longer than it needs to be. What is valuable is the amount of information in the book and there is even some interesting Torah commentary.
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Summary: Take a walk on the Bible side
Comment: Back in my junior high and high school days, the standard way to do a book report focused on some very broad categories, particularly plot, characters, setting and theme. Of these, setting often gets the least attention, but it is often essential. Take the Bible, for instance, as Bruce Feiler does in his book Walking the Bible: the tales would be quite different if they had taken place in the relatively lush greenness of Great Britain instead of the semi-arid lands of the Fertile Crescent and Egypt.
Actually, despite the title, Feiler's book covers only one portion of the Bible, namely the Five Books of Moses, also known as the Pentateuch or Torah. Just as the Torah has five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, so is Walking the Bible divided into five "books", though Feiler's sections do not fully correspond to the Biblical ones.
The idea is to visit the sites that were recorded in these stories, starting with the location of Noah's Ark, then following the nomadic travels of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; we then go to Joseph leading his family to Egypt and Moses taking those descendants out generations later. Finally, after wandering the desert like the Israelites (though in far less time), Feiler ends his narrative at Mt. Nebo, where Moses's tale also ended.
Several key ideas are developed throughout Walking the Bible, chief of which is the importance of setting. As I stated earlier, these tales could not have taken place in a different climate. In particular, the scarceness of water would dictate where people would wind up and the types of lives they would lead (in particular, nomadic herding over agriculture). Another theme deals with the relationship of fact and legend; many of these sites can only be guessed at, and different traditions may place the same stories in different places. What prevails, however, is that belief often trumps fact, and just because archaeology proves or disproves something doesn't end the belief.
Informative and engagingly well-written, Walking the Bible is worth reading. Whether you think the Bible is myth, history, a crock or literal fact, it is undoubtedly the single most influential piece of literature ever. Therefore, whether you're an atheist or a fundamentalist (or like most people, somewhere in the broad middle), it is worth knowing about the Bible, and Walking the Bible provides the sort of insights that can appeal to that broad range of believers and non-believers.
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