Families of the Bible: A Review

• Paperback: 126 pages
• Publisher: Hannibal Books
  
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934749532
• ISBN-13: 978-1934749531

This book gave me a new view of the Bible and the "characters" in there! I have sadly (in my complacency) come to view the Bible as just another story book. I didn't really think about the stories and the people and the things that they dealt with. The people weren't real to me; it's like I've been reading fairy tales.

The title of this book intrigued me and got me thinking. Even before the book arrived I was putting myself in the shoes of the Bible men and women and their unique situations. Only the more I thought the more I saw that their situations were so much like our situations. People today don't face anything new! The Bible tells us that in Ecclesiastes chpater one:

⁹ What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

¹⁰ Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

¹¹ There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

So then, I get the book and I start reading it and I'm thinking: "I know someone who's been in that situation!" or "WOW! I know how that mother feels!!" or "I can not imagine how that would have been for him; I've never experienced such a thing." It was a wake-up, kick-in-the-butt, the Bible-is-real moment that I really needed.

Some of the issues dealt with in the book include:

• Adam and Eve - murder
• Moses - adoption
• Naomi - facing tragedy after tragedy
• Joseph - mending family relationships

Some of my other thoughts about these topics: "WOW, there were some dysfunctional families in the Bible!" "Oh, another one is infertility - Hannah."

This book is in study format with questions at the end of each chapter.

Paperback copies ($12.95, ISBN: 978-1-934749-53-1) are available through online bookstores such as Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. Hannibal Books also offers the book through 800-747-0738 and www.hannibalbooks.com. Here is a direct link to Families of the Bible at Hannibal Books.

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,