The Book of God

’[Wangerin’s] aim was to produce a clean, continuous story free of repetitions and genealogies, and to add in bits of cultural and historical background based on his own travels and scholarship. Sometimes he switches the narrational perspective so as to veiw biblical events through the eyes of minor characters. In all this he succeeds….’ * Financial Times *‘An immensely readable and well-organized text and may be an acceptable and more enticing alternative for some people, especially those who – like me – always meant to get around to reading all of the original.’ * Belfast Telegraph *‘Considering what he has attempted, Walt does a remarkably good job, and he writes a lot of conventional scholarship in the form of narrative.’ * Manchester Evening News *‘I was hooked…passages such as the account of Solomon’s reign, seem to me to work exceptionally well….’ * Church Times *‘Powers along with great stamina for hundreds of pages….The pain of the crucifixion itself is memorably conveyed in terms of lungs, ribs, separating bones. Terse and punchy…it will be read and enjoyed.’ * Time Out *‘Reads like ‘Gone With the Wind’ (of the Holy Spirit) or ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (plus prophets). Wangerin has done for the biblical kings what Shakespeare did for Macbeth and Richard III….Imaginative, stimulating and fresh….Bubbles with creativity but above all is the work of a craftsman.’ * Glasgow Herald *‘Whether the stories are familiar from childhood or encountered here for the first time, you will be struck by their palpable power. And the sweep of the narrative, like a vast fresco, allows us to see the big picture of God’s providence in a way that we rarely do in our fragmented reading of Scripture…exhilarating, but also disturbing.’ * Christianity Today *

Walter Wangerin Jr. is widely recognized as one of the most gifted writers writing today on the issues of faith and spirituality. Among his books are The Book of God; Paul: A Novel; Whole Prayer; Reliving the Passion; Preparing for Jesus; Mary’s First Christmas; Peter’s First Easter; Ragman and Other Cries of Faith; Miz Lil and the Chronicles of Grace; Little Lamb, Who Made Thee? Mourning Into Dancing; The Book of Sorrows; A Miniature Cathedral; The Orphean Passages; and Crying for a Vision. He lives in Valparaiso, Indiana, where he is writer-in-residence at Valparaiso University and holds the Jochum Chair.