Brush Up Your Bible! [Hardcover]

Michael Macrone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 1998

What did Israel sow in order to "reap the whirlwind"? Where did the "prodigal son" go to spend his inheritance? What is a "plowshare" and how can you beat a sword into one? Learn about these and other well-known words, phrases, and stories of the Old and New Testaments that have entered our everyday language. Includes black-and-white line drawings by Tom Lulevitch, a helpful index to key words and phrases, and a section on expressions that are mistakenly attributed to the Bible.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An excellent Bible-reading companion." -- --Booklist --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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What did Israel sow in order to "reap the whirlwind"? Where did the "prodigal son" go to spend his inheritance? What is a "plowshare" and how can you beat a sword into one? Learn about these and other well-known words, phrases, and stories of the Old and New Testaments that have entered our everyday language. Includes black-and-white line drawings by Tom Lulevitch, a helpful index to key words and phrases, and a section on expressions that are mistakenly attributed to the Bible.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Gramercy (October 6, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517201895
• ISBN-13: 978-0517201893
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,281,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A touch of the divine, May 25, 2003

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brush Up Your Bible! (Hardcover)

The Bible is one of the most influential books in the world, in more ways than one might think at first glance. The Bible, and in particular the King James Version, has had a profound impact on the English language, especially in word and turn-of-phrase choice. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the King James Version of the Bible was produced during the flowering of the English language, historically speaking about the same time as Shakespeare, and when English was beginning to be carried across the seas in commerce and colonisation.

Many of the phrases we take for granted today are of Biblical origin. Phrases such as 'salt of the earth', 'labor of love', 'fight the good fight', and 'to cast the first stone' come from the Bible. However, other 'biblical' statements and phrases, such as 'original sin', actually do not exist in the biblical text. Many things are attributed to the Bible, but are not in fact there.

'Brush Up Your Bible' is a fun little book designed to highlight the parts of the Bible that have made it into common speech, the stories, legends, and linguistic elements. It also highlights the common mistakes made in assessing these stories. For instance, how many animals of each sort did Noah take into the ark? Think it was two of each kind? Guess again.

Interspersed with the stories are historical notes--an essay entitled 'Why four gospels?' for instance, discusses the development the gospels as texts:

'It is now clear that the four canonical Gospels were not the only four to be written, and that others--now lost or excluded from the Bible--circulated among the Christian communities of the Roman world. But by the early second century, church leaders had begun to regard Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as the best and most authoritative records of Jesus' works and teaching. The New Testament canon as we know it took shape as a whole in the fourth century.'

The section on non-biblical (but seemingly biblical) phrases includes an historical record of where these phrases actually originate. The phrase, 'don't know him from Adam' actually originates from the serial 'London Sessions' in 1784; 'raising Cain' might have been done, but was not referenced in the Bible; 'God forbid!' never occurs in the Bible, but rather in the thirteenth century poem 'Cursor Mundi'. The 'Golden Rule' is never actually called the Golden Rule, but is referred to as the 'Golden Law' by Robert Godfrey in 1674. And, while there are many Jehoshaphats in the Hebrew Bible, none of them was specifically known to be a jumper. These and other fascinating facts show the breadth of the influence of the Bible, as well as the breadth of Macrone's work in drawing it all together.

Macrone has a neat little section on famous 'typos' in Bibles of the past, and recounts such examples as the 'Ears to Ear Bible', which misprinted the famous line 'who hath ears to hear, let him hear' as 'who hath ears to ear, let him hear'. There was a 'Wicked Bible', printed in 1631, which misprinted the seventh commandment to read 'Thou shalt commit adultery'. There is the 'Placemaker's Bible' from 1562 in which Jesus in the beatitudes proclaims, 'Blessed are the placemakers'. Perhaps one printer, fearing persecution, was responsible for the 'Printer's Bible' in 1702, whose psalmist decries the 'printers' (rather than 'princes') who have 'persecuted me without a cause'.

Explore the Bible in a new way. If you are interested in the spiritual message, this will be a welcome side treat. If you don't care for the Bible much, this book will show you just how much of a debt of language and literature is owed to it nonetheless. In any case, this is an excellent book to learn fascinating facts often overlooked both by scholarly and inspirational studies.

The author, Michael Macrone, also produced a volume entitled 'Brush Up Your Shakespeare', whose language is contemporary with the King James Version of the Bible. This makes a good gift, a good refresher, and a good book for discover of a common but no longer commonly known subject, approached from a gentle, humourous, non-dogmatic way.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brush up Your Bible, August 19, 2006

By 

Michael C. Mathis (Beaverton, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brush Up Your Bible! (Hardcover)

Good book to help you through stories in the Bible and to help you understand some words or phrases which aren't so common in our everyday vocabulary. Michael Macrone does a good job at keeping you enertained during the stories, which help us recall them better. No bibical giant should be without this book in his/her arsenal... great resource to help you out on that talk you my be called on to give.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brushing up for begining young christians, March 23, 2000

By 

Joony Oh (Vancouver,Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brush Up Your Bible! (Hardcover)

A great book that makes a lot of sense for christians or non-beliver's daily questions and comments about the bible. Kind of like bible for dummys version. It sure did help me when I first read this then the bible. I began reading the King James version of the bible, which is like arabic for me, and it totally made soo much sense when I was reading "brush up your bible". Really excellent.