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Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who

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Having enjoyed Mr. Buechner's biblical fiction, I also picked up this volume of his musings on the people of the Bible. I wasn't disappointed.

I don't know if I would recommend it as a who's who to non Christians who want a quick reference - some of the entries don't make sense if you don't know your Bible - but for those who do, it's an often amusing reflection on our faith. It's also sometimes profound. Some of my favorites - Why do discussions of David and Jonathan anymore seem to revolve around whether or not they were gay and miss the point of their wonderful friendship? What would Uriah have to say about his murder if he could chat with us now? Was Gabriel as scared as Mary during the Annunciation? What happened if, as is likely, Jesus and Judas met again when Jesus descended into hell?

This is one to keep next to your Bible. Mr. Buechner's worldview is comforting and compassionate, and this volume speaks as a little gospel light.

Buechner brings out the insightful traits of many Bible Characters. Each sketch prompts thought and creates a desire to meet these people and ask them questions.

After reading these sketches you will never read another name in the Bible without thinking who this person was in real life.

"Peculiar Treasures" is Buechner's second in a trilogy of lexicon-style expositions, this time focusing on Biblical characters. Including some virtual unknowns alongside the "heavyweights", Buechner examines each person and tries to discover what makes them unique. Since the Biblical characters might not always be immediately familiar to the reader, there is necessarily increased length to the entries, and thus fewer entries, relative to Buechner's other two books in this series. While not quite as good as "Wishful Thinking", this book is still excellent and thought-provoking.

In these short, pithy portraits of 125 Bible characters, Buechner has put together a humorous and entertaining bunch of folks who in most ways are just like ourselves. Buechner writes with a light touch and his humor gives pizzazz to this book.

In Peculiar Treasures, vastly underappreciated theologian and novelist Frederick Buechner blows the dust off of well-known, as well as some quite obscure, people from the Bible. In doing this, Buechner breathes life into these voices from the past, such as I have never seen or read before. He has the enviable knack for seeing far beneath the surface of the Bible, and taking the reader with him to show you what he has found there. As with most of Buechner's works, Peculiar Treasures is best taken in bite-size morsels, with a great deal of meditation in-between on what he has brought to the table. It may not turn out to be Buechner's best work, but I personally found it to be a wonderful place to start.

The subject tag at the top of the rear cover of Frederick Buechner's "Peculiar Treasures" says "Religion / References". I suspect that was put there by the HarperOne publishers, not by the author.While the book appears to be structured after a biblical "Who's Who", it is far more in the genre of satire or parody. It is certainly meant to be funny, and it succeeds. In fact, one of the book's main premises is to show that God had a sense of humor when he inspired many of the events in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. In case you have any doubts about that, Abraham, the founder of three great religions, gets two pages, and Job, the long suffering petitioner to YHWH, gets six. That is totally fair, since Abraham's story takes up only about 1/5 of the book of Genesis, and Job gets an entire book, all 42 chapters to himself.

This is a great book to read for pleasure. It is a disaster if you were looking for a book which summarized the lives of biblical figures. The short piece on Abraham spends no time whatsoever on what may have been Abraham's greatest moments, such as when he bargained down the punishment YHWH was about to mete out to Sodom and Gomorrah. It is also a great source if you happen to be stuck for a sermon theme. Each entry is followed by a reference to where in the Bible the subject was presented. It would have been even better if there were an index of these references in the back, but that would have distracted from the charm of the book. And that is the best word I can offer. This book is charming. You will want to share these stories with others you know and recommend them to anyone who happens to pay attention to your recommendations.

Good book for anyone, I use it in my classroom to give my students more information on certain Biblical characters.