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. History and fact take on personality and warmth. 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. Wangerin recreates the high drama, low comedy, gentle humor, and awesome holiness of the Bible story. Priests and kings, apostles and prophets, common folk and charismatic leaders-individual stories offer glimpses into an unfolding revelation that reaches across the centuries to touch us today. From Abraham wandering in the desert to Jesus teaching the multitudes on a Judean hillside, The Book of God follows the biblical story in chronological order. Reading like a great historical novel, The Book of God dramatizes the sweep of biblical events, making the men and women of this ancient book come alive in vivid detail and dialogue. Here is the entire story of the Bible, narrated by master storyteller Walter Wangerin Jr. Jr.The Bible as a Single, Powerful Story.

In other news, The Good Book Company (the publisher that brought us the wonderful Tales That Tell the Truth series) shared a list this week of 7 Christian book reviewers to follow in 2021-and they were kind enough to include me in the list! If you’re on the lookout for good books (as I assume you must be if you hang out here), I encourage you to browse the list and get to know the other reviewers-there are some excellent reviewers on the list, and all of them were new to me! Whatever it cost her she said, on our behalf, “ Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). The characters’ responses ring true and point us back to what we do know about those years: Jesus was God made flesh, a holy and perfect God bound by all the limits of humanity-and childhood. Reading it, we’re not tempted to think That’s how it was, but That’s how it could have been.

Like Peter’s First Easter (also by Wangerin), this is a longer picture book, full of human emotion and honesty. We see his trust and her faith, as again she tells him what we call the Christmas story, but what was, to him, his story. Told from Mary’s perspective, Wangerin imagines the child Jesus asking again to hear the story of his birth.

Walter Wangerin, Jr., writes a beautiful book about those years.

The book of god walter wangerin