Customer Reviews

Walking the Bible: A Photographic Journey

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

We all know the stories of Noah and his ark, Moses and The Ten Commandments and Abraham in the Promised Land. Now noted photographer Bruce Feiler takes us to the actual places where history was made. The photos --- intimate portraits, breathtaking vistas and fascinating panoramas --- are nothing less than astounding (and, in the case of the close-ups of the mummified Joseph, a bit shocking). From the heights of Mount Ararat (where Noah's ark landed) to the desert outpost in Turkey (where Abraham first heard the words of God) to the summit where Moses met His maker, Feiler puts a face on the stories that have long inspired the human spirit and kept man's faith alive. Thou shall not ignore this gem.

I was excited about this book, and enjoyed the storytelling and images. However, I was expecting higher resolution photography. The type that really take you in and make you want to study them for a long time. The images in this book, while beautiful, have a grainy feel to them. I'm quite surprised that the authors were filming a series and didn't take a professional photographer with them.

This is a beautiful set of photographs from the Middle East. It professes that these are the locations where many of the stories in the bible take place. This book is a companion to the TV PBS miniseries that visits the locations where the familiar stories take place.

For instance Noah's ark might have landed (as with a lot of the bible there is discussion as to where it really happened) on Mt Ararat, and here are pictures of the mountain from several aspects. Other stories are treated in a similar manner.

Most of the stories told here and illustrated with photographs from where they (might have) taken place. If I sound skeptical, it's because 5,000 years is a long time, even in the Middle East. The locations are mostly from the Old Testament, where Abraham first heard the words of God and he sleeps on the summit where Moses overlooked the Promised Land.

The pictures show a wealth of detail of an area at the same time familiar and strange.

The fact that a few of the facts are not quite right doesn't detract from the power of this photographic journey. Thousands of years after the events of the Bible nobody really knows the exact locations of some of the most famouse sites mentioned. But it's certain that the real places in the Bible must have been very much like those experienced by the early Jews and Christians. It's exciting to see these places and imagine what it might have been like.

Intellectually written with attention to spiritual doctrines. Page turning photos kept the reader at once connected to the readings.

WALKING THE BIBLE: A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY could also have been featured in our Spirituality section: it's reviewed here for its striking photo impact so that artists don't miss the value of its presentation. It's a companion volume to the new PBS series on its way: in 2004 Feiler reprised the 10,000 mile walk through the Middle East deserts which led to his WALKING THE BIBLE. This photographic odyssey blends stunning photos - many taken by Feiler - with a survey of Biblical places and landscapes. A striking visual panorama, not to be missed.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I purchased this book last year as a Christmas gift for my grandmother. The photos are lovely and the accompanying text proved just right for a non-reader - interesting captions and short readable paragraphs, nothing lengthy. She was very happy with it and later said it was "beautiful and interesting to read and look through". Several of us enjoyed looking through it on Christmas day, and we were all impressed with it overall.

We bought this book for my father-in-law. My husband was skeptical because he wasn't sure he would have the time to read a book. My 8-year-old daughter looked through the whole book before we wrapped it, exclaming on just about every page, "Oh, this is so beautiful!" and then said, "This will be okay for Grandad, it's mostly pictures." He did seem to like it on Christmas Day

This is a real walk through the holy land especially if you can't get there.

The author Feiler wrongly ignores (or honestly doesn't realize) that the Holy Bible claims mountains of Ararat to be where Noah's Ark landed. Not Mt. Ararat itself. In the early Christian era (long after the Old Testament was written down) Mt. Ararat was known instead as Masis Mons or Mt. Masis. The people of the early biblical writers's time all felt the Ararat region where the ark landed was far south of where Mt. Ararat is. There are many mountains that have traditions of being the mountain of Noah's Ark.

Feiler also refers to WW1 Russian pilots spotting something resembling the ark on ararat. This story is rather fictional. It was pretty much created by one writer Benjamin Allen in 1940 for a magazine. Roscovitski was the name of the pilot that Allen invented to have seen the ark. Read books from your library by Prof. Lloyd Bailey on the real possible locations of Noah's Ark.