No Graven Image [Paperback]

Elisabeth Elliot (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1982

First published in 1966, No Graven Image is the only novel of the best-selling author Elisabeth Elliot. Margaret, an intrepid twenty-five-year-old missionary, travels to the Andes Mountains of Ecuador to start her ministry. She sees little progress at first, but eventually gains a following and an enhanced reputation for her part in the safe and seemingly miraculous delivery of a breech baby. Things seem to be going well. She works on her translation of the Bible into the Indian language and befriends a native and his family. Then tragedy strikes, shaking Margaret's entire way of thinking. Full of excitement, human emotion, and exotic South American culture and color, No Graven Image is sure to captivate new readers everywhere.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Elisabeth Elliot was a young missionary to the Auca Indians of Ecuador in the 1950s when her husband, Jim, was martyred along with four other missionaries. She is best-known for her classic book, Through Gates of Splendor. She is a speaker and best-selling author of many other books, including Passion and Purity and A Chance to Die. Elliot and her husband, Lars Gren, live in Magnolia, Massachusetts. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Good News Pub (April 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891072357
• ISBN-13: 978-0891072355
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,526,297 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Graven Image by Elizabeth Elliot, December 10, 1999

By 

Connie (Toccoa, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Graven Image (Paperback)

This book is an awesome representation of missionary life. A young, unmarried, woman named Margarat is working as a Bible translator to the Quicha Indians in the mountains of Ecuador. Most of the action takes place in her mind, where she tells you about her previous ideas of missionary work. The end is astonishing and will leave you with a new view on how God works. This book makes you search your soul for what you believe and why. It draws you into the story line, as if you were actually in the mountains of Ecuador with her! I highly recommend it for anyone planning to go into missions or just with an interest in missions.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good read, a deep think, April 30, 2008

By 

Stephanie Van Gorden (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: No Graven Image: A Novel (Paperback)

This book has been on my wishlist since before I had a wishlist. It's written by Elisabeth Elliot (one of my favorite women *ever*), it's about missions, and it's fiction. Unfortunately, it's also out of print. While wandering through a discount bookstore, I found one copy on the shelf, so of course I picked it up, and read it over the course of one day. Just over 250 pages, it was a quick and engrossing read.

In her preface to this edition, the author says, "When I wrote [this book], I felt that the implications of my message would best be conveyed in the garb of fiction. As it turned out, many readers would have preferred a happily-ever-after ending and they have remonstrated with me about the plot, saying 'I just can't believe that God would allow things like this to happen.' Sorry, folks, He does."

That alone intrigued me enough to put my other reading (even Agatha Christie!) aside. Due to our ministry, and the direction God has led in what I've taught over the past three years, I've focused a lot on unexplainable or "unacceptable" circumstances, and I was interested to see how she'd handle it in fiction.

I like Margaret. The setting is completely different from our own, and the attendant difficulties look quite different, but underneath, there is something in her that would probably resonate with most women. Missionary or not, we each have at least watershed encounter in our life that is a turning point in our relationship with the Lord; we come face to face with who we *thought* God was, and with who He now reveals Himself to be.

I liked Margaret's freshness and enthusiasm at the beginning of her spiritual journey, and then, of course, life happens. And as she becomes more realistic, the author didn't shrink from describing her doubts and questions. "Is this really the way it's supposed to work?" "This isn't how missionaries reported their work back home..." "What am I really supposed to be doing?" Margaret, though young, began to see straight through the trite and euphemistic, and slightly deceiving language that are the signs of becoming a politician-missionary, a danger of fixing our gaze on the results of our work, rather than on the God who called us to the work, and Whose responsibility it really is to produce results. It's an important realization, and one I'd not thought seriously about before.

Many who read No Graven Image might be tempted to "remonstrate," as Elisabeth Elliot said, about the lack of a happy ending, but I don't think she could have or should have written it any other way. The spiritual journey Margaret takes is one on which God will probably lead every one of His people at least once in their lifetime. He begins to teach her that if she is to trust Him, she must trust Him as He is, not as she wishes Him to be. We must trust God *Himself*, as He reveals Himself in His Word, in our circumstances...not the God we often remake in our own image. That is no god at all, and He will do whatever He needs to, to shake us to the core, to wake us up, to open our eyes to the fact that our God is not tame, not someone we can "get a handle on," and He is not willing to fit Himself into the boxes we build for Him.

But He is always good. He accepts our questioning - as He does Margaret's - with patience, grace, love, and mercy. A "happily-ever-after" ending? Not quite. But there is the hope of one, one day, because God is God, and He is worthy of our worship, even when we don't understand Him. No Graven Image reminded me that He is true.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book of Fiction for All Christians, November 6, 2003

By 

John "Editor" (Cleveland, Ohio, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: No Graven Image (Paperback)

The only thing wrong with this book is that it is out of print. In The best thing about it is that it shows how important good Christian fiction is. In her own plucky style, Elisabeth Elliot shows what it means to be a real missionary. One of my favorite parts is when the missionary (Margaret) helps a not-so-helpful but well-meaning American visiting Ecuador realize that giving gospel tracts to South American Indians who can't read at all (let alone read Spanish) is less than helpful. Don't miss reading this book. Buy it and share it with those you love (including your pastor). You won't be sorry!