Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses - Softcover

Feiler, Bruce

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380807319 ISBN 13: 9780380807314

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2002

Synopsis

From the mountain where Noah's ark landed to the site of the legendary burning bush, a ten-thousand-mile journey across the Middle East goes in search of the roots of the Bible to discover whether it was an abstraction or a living, breathing entity. Reprint.

About this title

Review:

Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses is the story of Bruce Feiler's 10,000-mile trek from Mount Ararat to Mount Nebo, undertaken for reasons he did not understand at the outset and accompanied by a companion who was very nearly a stranger. In the book's first chapter, in characteristically understated style, Feiler suggests a viable parallel to his journey:

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.

Feiler, a fifth-generation American Jew from the South, had felt no particular attachment to the Holy Land. Yet during his journey, Feiler's previously abstract faith grew more grounded. ("I began to feel a certain pull from the landscape.... It was a feeling of gravity. A feeling that I wanted to take off all my clothes and lie facedown in the soil.") Feiler's attentiveness, intelligence, and adventurousness enliven every page of this book. And the lessons he learned about the relationship between place and the spirit will be useful for readers of every religious tradition that finds its origins in the Bible. --Michael Joseph Gross

About the Author:

Bruce Feiler is the New York Times bestselling author of Walking the Bible, Learning to Bow, Looking for Class, and Under the Big Top. A frequent contributor to NPR's All Things Considered, and contributing editor for Gourmet he writes regularly about American music for The New York Times, The New Yorker, and other publications, and recieved international acclaim for his influential cover story in The New Republic, "Gone Country." A native of Savannah, Georgia, Mr. Feiler is a graduate of Yale and Cambridge Universities, and now divides his time between Nashville and New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0380807319
• ISBN 13: 9780380807314
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480