Walking the Bible

"For as long as people have walked, they've walked to get closer to their gods."

Bruce Feiler

Walking the Bible

"Walking is good for the soul."

Andi Barendt

The Bible is probably the most influential book ever written. Regardless if you believe in God, it has inspired several different religions, been the reasoning behind many different wars and peaces, and driven many individuals in their daily lives. Here in America the stories in the Bible are distant, taking place in a far off land. For those who live in the Middle East they are much nearer.

In Walking the Bible, Bruce Feiler travels through the Middle East, following the stories told in the Five Books of Moses, or the first five books in the bible. Because of this I think that Walking the Torah would be a much more accurate title, but Walking the Bible is much, much catchier. It's a travelogue/ Bible deconstruction as the author tries to get to the root of the stories  while at the same time examining his own faith in the modern world.

This book was charming. It was really neat to see the historical origins of the stories, as well as how the faith is tied to the land, specifically the desert. The author did his research, and traveled to some very interesting places (I very much want to go visit St. Catherine's in the Sinai peninsula) all while handling the religious and geopolitical tensions with grace. 

I really liked how this book described the role of the desert in the Biblical text, how it looked at its mysticism and harshness and how this played a role in the stories of the Bible, almost as if the desert were its own character. It was something that I could really relate to living in the south west of America. We run into similar feelings of awe in western literature dealing with our own deserts (Abbey and anything about Everett Ruess) and it definitely makes more sense why the Mormons wanted to colonize the state of Deseret rather than find a more hospitable place to live.

This book was charming. I'm a big fan of the Literary Travel Adventure as a genre and this book definitely belongs in that group.