Five Biblical Portraits: Theology

As always, Elie Wiesel's writing is marked by the questions he asks. While his literature dwells around the Holocaust and the persecution of the Jewish people, this book is different and the same. His portraits of five prophets from the Bible are brief yet fully informative, a mixture of religious sources to create pictures of men who are well known but obscure at the same time. Wiesel focuses on Saul, Jonah, Jeremiah, Elijah and Joshua - five men chosen by God to be his voice to his chosen people. What these five men have in common is obvious, but Wiesel also examines their backgrounds, or lack of background that is known to us. These men were all obscure, some uncertain about the role they were to play in Israel's past, present and future. He paints a compassionate portrait of Saul, the first Jewish king, who will forever be overshadowed by his son-in-law David. His biographical sketch of Jonah shows us a prophet whose prophecy amounts to five/six words, and a run from God in order not to fulfill his mission that separates him from the other prophets. Elie Wiesel has a way of bringing life to words. By applying his experiences, and the religious writings of Jewish history to these Biblical characters, he offers readers a fresh look at five men who shaped the history of faith. Wiesel applies his typical questioning to the text, allowing modern day dilemmas to influence these questions, knowing that "most good questions remain questions", but offering the experiences of these prophets as examples.