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“An instant classic. . . . A pure joy to read.” —Washington Post Book World
Both a heart-racing adventure and an uplifting quest, Walking the Bible presents one man’s epic journey- by foot, jeep, rowboat, and camel- through the greatest stories ever told. From crossing the Red Sea to climbing Mount Sinai to touching the burning bush, Bruce Feiler’s inspiring odyssey will forever change your view of history’s most legendary events.
The stories in the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Torah, come alive as Feiler searches across three continents for the stories and heroes shared by Christians and Jews. You’ll visit the slopes of Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark landed, trek to the desert outpost where Abraham first heard the words of God, and scale the summit where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Using the latest archeological research, Feiler explores how physical location affects the larger narrative of the Bible and ultimately realizes how much these places, as well as his experience, have affected his faith. A once-in-a-lifetime journey, Walking the Bible offers new insights into the roots of our common faith and uncovers fresh answers to the most profound questions of the human spirit.
“Smart and savvy, insightful and illuminating.” —Los Angeles Times
“An exciting, well-told story informed by Feiler’s boundless intellectual curiosity . . . [and] sense of adventure.” —Miami Herald
Walking the Bible is Bruce Feiler’s engrossing 10,000 mile spiritual and archaeological odyssey-by foot, jeep, rowboat, and camel-through the Holy Land. A fifth-generation American Jew from Savannah, Georgia, Feiler was overcome with the urge to reconnect to the Bible, musing upon the original seeker, Abraham, as his inspiration:
“Abraham was not originally the man he became. He was not an Israelite, he was not a Jew. He was not even a believer in God-at least initially. He was a traveler, called by some voice not entirely clear that said: Go, head to this land, walk along this route, and trust what you will find.” Along with noted Israeli archaeologist Avner Goren acting as his trusted guide, partner, mentor, and sidekick, Feiler embarks on painstakingly retracing, through the desert of Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. Traveling through Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Palestine, three continents, and four war zones, Feiler converses freely with Bedouins and religious pilgrims alike. With Feiler as their guide, your students will visit actual places referenced in the Bible, including Mount Ararat, where it is believed that Noah’s Ark landed after the flood, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, the site of the burning bush where Moses first heard the words of God, and Mount Nebo, where Moses overlooked the Promised Land. Students in a wide variety of courses, from Biblical archeology and history to more general Bible studies, will benefit by joining Bruce Feiler on this epic journey. In engaging and lucid prose, Feiler continually reflects on how the geography of the land affects the narrative of the Bible, and pointedly wonders whether the Bible is just an abstraction, or a living, breathing entity. Ultimately, Bruce Feiler concludes in Walking the Bible that the Bible “is forever applicable. It’s always now. . . . The Bible lives because it never dies.” From page 145 in Walking the Bible “Before setting out on this journey, reading the Bible for me had been largely an act of imagination, of trust—that these characters saw these things, said these things, did these things. The characters were almost completely disembodied from time and space. But now, reading the Bible from the inside, as it were, from the places themselves, I could feel myself moving closer to the stories. The Bible was no longer metaphor to me. It was no longer the story of some other people in some faraway places. The places, at least, were familiar now. And for someone from a distinctive place, whose favorite books were always ones with rich, almost overpowering settings—Faulkner’s South, Tolstoy’s Russia, Updike’s New England—that sense of immersion was the first step to the most satisfying feeling I ever have while reading: a feeling that I actually inhabit the story. I climb through the pages, slip through the scenery, and enter some parallel place of swamps, or canyons, or castles, or dales. And not until I cross that divide-not until I walk in that world-can I fully enter the minds of the characters, and feel their desires as my own.” For more information about Bruce Feiler and Walking the Bible, please visit www.brucefeiler.comYou may also like
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