Beloved World: The Story of God & People as Told from the Bible

I happened upon this book accidently in a collection of old literature that my husband has, and fanned through it to decide whether or not it was a keeper. I'm so thankful I did...I keep it sitting on the counter so if I have an extra 5 minutes, I pick it up and read another story. It has completely changed how I understand the Bible. I grew up as a Christian and knew almost every Bible story by the time I was an adult, but what this book adds is the "emotion" behind the story. Like when Rebecca had to say goodbye to Jacob for the last time. The author goes into the detailed (and vastly different) emotions each was feeling. I'm right there in the story feeling it with them. The Bible has taught me facts and details - and I do love the word of God - but this book has caused me to connect emotionally with scripture in a brand new way.

This is a great book, and holds up nicely as a way to read Bible stories without reading the whole Bible. There are many things it skips, of course (the "begats" being one for which we are grateful). I read it in my childhood, and am now reading it to my son. We don't attend church, so he hasn't heard any of these stories, and he's getting to the phase in high school (and moving on to college) where to study Western Literature he needs to know the Biblical archetypes. I am appalled to find the sexism in the stories that I didn't notice, of course, at 9, when I read it (40 years ago!). However, coupled with discussion and the help of _Asimov's guide to the Bible_ (a much denser tome, to be sure, but amazingly well done) we are working our way through. He's enjoying it, and I'm hoping we can get the basis for understanding the stories when they hit him in other literature. So: 5 for content and writing, 3 for sexism, averages to 4.