Rating: 
Summary: Practicing Peripatetic Theosis Ecstatically!
Review: ... I wish there were a book like this for EVERY religion! What a wonderful way to learn about religion in general, and the Bible in particular. Someone from every faith should write a similar book about their particular spiritual path. It would be great to have a "Walking the Vedas," or "Walking the Sutras," or "Walking the Koran," or "Walking the Tao," or even "Walking with The Great Spirit." How about "Walking with Aristotle, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Zeno of Elea?" Now, that would be something! Bruce Feiler may have started a great trend here!... I found this book to be fascinating. It brings the first five books of the Bible - what Hebrew people refer to as The Torah - alive and relevant to the reader. It's like a chronological trek through biblical time; like the ultimate geography lesson in relation to the Hebrew, Christian, and Muslim God. Indeed, it brings back to life the very act of practicing peripatetic theosis ecstatically! Socrates and Aristotle would be proud. Bruce (the author) and his buddy Avner (his archaeological guide) go on a journey together that takes us all along for the ride, and we all learn more about the people and places of the Bible along the way. I simply could NOT put this book down. Once you pick it up, it grabs you like a magnet and it's hard to let go of it. ... Here's an example of an echange, from page 240, between the author and a young monk named Anastasis at Saint Catherine's monastery at Mount Sinai in the Middle East: "And what about praying here?" I said. "Do you feel closer to Moses because you live here." "It feels a little bit strange, " he said. "Because when Moses met God, he did it on this spot. 'This is holy ground,' God said. The ground is much more important than the bush." "So, do you feel closer to God, too?" "No," he said. "Wherever you are, if you are close to God, you are close. If you are far away, you are far away. It doesn't matter where you live. It matters what you feel." ... Page after page after page, this book is filled with inspiring and insightful reflections on the stories in the Bible and how they are brought to life in our own lives. It is a wonderful ecumenical odyssey, and a real joy to read. ... Now, who will be inspired to write: "Walking with Shamen?" ... YOWZA! - The Aeolian Kid
Rating: 
Summary: Traveloque rather than religious study
Review: To be honest, I was expecting more of an light archeological study rather than a simple traveloque. So I was perhaps disappointed by the lack of depth. It started out sounding a little like some Zionist literature, with the "maybe its in my DNA?" and interviews with Israeli settlers in the occupied territories. No discussion of the alternate political views - e.g. why should they be allowed to take land that doesn't belong to them. But this is done without much overt political agenda and is not offensive; just doesn't necessarily fit with the exploration of the Bible. Most of the book wasn't like that though, but was just kind of boring. I took a class in college that reviewed the "Old Testament" with the perspective of history and anthropology which was great and I was really expecting something more like that.
So probably a good book for some, but not what I was looking forward to.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing book
Review: I thought this book was amazing. Feiler goes from a non practicing Jew to finding a connection to the Bible and the land that he never could have imagined. There is a connection for everyone in the book, whether you are Jewish, Christian or Islamic, you will learn more about the people, the land and the God of this living and breathing thing we call the Bible.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Journey of Faith
Review: Bruce Feiler has taken a spiritual journey and written of it in a way that I have not seen since I read Peter Jenkins' <i>Walk Across America</i>. But while Jenkins' account is of contemporary people and events, Feilier's tale consists of trying to place Biblical accounts into their proper setting, both historically and culturally. To be fair, he does very little historical investigation. Most of this is confined to discussions with various scholars of various traditions and interpretations. The cultural position, however, becomes more and more relevant to both Feiler and his readers. By tracing the Pentateuch geographically, we can see many things that are not included in the Biblical narratives. We understand the significance of minor events in Scripture, and we can see major events more fully. By exploring the geography in a contemporary setting, we can see interesting contrasts between Biblical times and our own, and can often see that we are not so different from them after all.
Rating: 
Summary: A Religious Journey
Review: Ever wonder about the stories in the bible? If they were true? If they were even realistically possible? Or how about the characters and their destinations? Were they real?
These are a few of the questions Bruce Feiler, author of Walking the Bible, wanted to have answered. His story starts by taking an awesome journey through the Five Books Of Moses. The Five Books Of Moses are the first five books of the bible, which include Genesis, Exodus, Levidicus, Numberes, and Deuterotomy. These stories tell of the lives of anyone form Adam and Eve, to Moses and Abraham. Feiler joins archeologist Avner Goren to literally walk in the footsteps of biblical characters. They meet friends of Avner's, doctors, other archeologists, American tourists, and locals through their different journeys. From Egypt to Israel, Feiler and Goren travel by foot, boat, camel, and car, discussing the Bible and related matters. Even though they cross "bumps in the road" and face many difficulties, they manage to gain a great deal of information.
This book relates so well to the Bible and its characters, yet Walking the Bible is more of an adult book due to difficult language and the depth the author goes into. This book is an engaging book but very complex and informational. Sometimes it was hard to follow, but overall I enjoyed this book and it gave me a new perspective on the stories of the bible. Great book!
Rating:
Summary: Sleep-inducing adventure
Review: "Heart-racing adventure"? PLease. It starts off interesting, but wears off quickly. Mostly parrotting of liberal views of biblical archeology, with some dialogue between the author and various experts, mostly to show the author's "intellectual sparring" and new "insights". Liberal scholarship, by the way, is most notable for denying pretty much anything described in the Bible, such as positing that the Exodus is a warped version of a couple of hundered slaves leaving Egypt over many years (See "Riddle of the Exodus" for an interesting new theory). Interviews invariably terminate on this note: we can't believe the Bible as an historical document, but we can believe its message (???) by faith - OK if you're content to base your life on what you believe to be a work of fiction, I suppose. Have they never read "Biblical Archeology Review"? (which presents views of both pseudoskeptics and objective archeologists.) It is interesting to read about people who feel a connection to the land, and have decided to live there because of their feeling tied to the Bible record. There is also some interesting information regarding different sites mentioned in the Bible. But one gets the feeling that these could have been written into a much shorter book. Not much excitement otherwise. There's really not much action at all. Unless you count actually seeing a gun on a patrolling guard as action. The problem is that most of the insight to be gleaned is based upon orthodox Egyptology, which is not based upon much hard evidence, and in fact ignores such things as the problem of probable water erosion on the Sphinx and the wafer-thin assertions regarding Egyptian chronologies. So the insights are based upon what is probably fiction (in terms of the "historical" context - who was the Pharaoh of the Exodus and so on) to start with. But what if there were a book which compared the writings of an Egyptian sage with the Ten Plagues of the Exodus? Wouldn't that be intriguing? Again, I would recommend "Riddle of the Exodus" for something more archeologically interesting, even exciting, instead of this "personal" rehash of liberal "scholarship."
Rating:
Summary: A Journey Through the Story
Review: "Walking the Bible" is a unique book- I can't say I've ever read one like it. Bruce Feiler has writen a book that seems more like his diary. As he journeys through the middle east visiting the places where the Bible took place, he gives wonderful accounts of what can currently be seen as well as the back history of these places. Through the book I found it most interesting to read Feiler's own change of attitude as he travels. The key answer ultimately found is that the Bible is a book deeply rooted in the land of the middle east, and this cannot be denied. For Feiler, Biblical belief and interpretation became unimportant in the end, and the story itself becomes as real as the ground Feiler he walked on. In his own little ways he set out to rationalize these amazing stories, and instead found that there was more life in believing them. I was fascinated to learn that Manna is a real phenominon in the Sinai, and that the "Red Sea" was a misinterpretation of the "Reed Sea", which is an area still existing in Northern Egypt. This book can be appreciated because it does not seek to convert or give %100 proof for the Bible, but instead it searches out the importance and impact of the Biblical story to humanity. No matter what you believe, there is much knowledge to be learned here on the Bible and the world it has made.
Rating:
Summary: Weird, but still okay
Review: Adding a little perspective, I am a devout non-believer. Honestly, I found this guy's journey to be a bit more horse-puckey than anything truly enlightening. What about all the other religions? But despite a weird tone overall, I still managed to get through the book. I had a bet with someone that I wouldn't finish it, so I had a real crud-eating grin on my face when I collected!
Rating:
Summary: A+
Review: I enjoyed the blend of culture, travel, history, and religion.
Rating:
Summary: A Fantastic Book!
Review: This book is absolutely great! I enjoyed the author's sense of wonderment as he walked through the history of the Bible and stood in the places we've all read about. There is also a sense of sadness to this book because of current events, but that doesn't deter from the book's underlying sense of spirituality.
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