Product Description

One part adventure story, one part archaeological detective work, one part spiritual exploration, Walking The Bible vividly recounts an inspiring personal odyssey -- by foot, jeep, rowboat, and camel -- through the greatest stories ever told.

Feeling a desire to reconnect to the Bible, award-winning author Bruce Feiler set out on a perilous, 10,000 mile journey retracing the Five Books of Moses through the desert. Traveling over Lee continents, through five countries, and four war zones, Feiler is the first person to complete such a historic expedition. He crosses the Red Sea, climbs Mt. Sinai, and interviews bedouin and pilgrims alike, as he attempts to answer the question: Is the Bible just an abstraction, or is it a living, breathing entity?

Both a pulse-pounding adventure and an uplifting spiritual quest, Bruce Feiler's Walking the Bible is a stunning and elevating work of courage, scholarship, and heart that revisits the inscrutable desert landscape where the world's great religions were born and uncovers fresh answers to the most profound questions of the human spirit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1640315 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-01
• Released on: 2001-03-20
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 4
• Binding: Audio Cassette

Amazon.com Review
Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses is the story of Bruce Feiler's 10,000-mile trek from Mount Ararat to Mount Nebo, undertaken for reasons he did not understand at the outset and accompanied by a companion who was very nearly a stranger. In the book's first chapter, in characteristically understated style, Feiler suggests a viable parallel to his journey:

Abraham was not originally the man he became. He was not an Israelite, he was not a Jew. He was not even a believer in God--at least initially. He was a traveler, called by some voice not entirely clear that said: Go, head to this land, walk along this route, and trust what you will find.

Feiler, a fifth-generation American Jew from the South, had felt no particular attachment to the Holy Land. Yet during his journey, Feiler's previously abstract faith grew more grounded. ("I began to feel a certain pull from the landscape.... It was a feeling of gravity. A feeling that I wanted to take off all my clothes and lie facedown in the soil.") Feiler's attentiveness, intelligence, and adventurousness enliven every page of this book. And the lessons he learned about the relationship between place and the spirit will be useful for readers of every religious tradition that finds its origins in the Bible. --Michael Joseph Gross

From Publishers Weekly
Prolific author Feiler has turned from his earlier subject (clowning, in Under the Big Top) to more serious fare: the Bible and the Middle East. Jewish author Feiler offers himself here as a pilgrim, walking through biblical lands and interviewing individuals from many religious traditions and walks of life. He reads the stories of the Pentateuch in the places they are thought to have happened, he records the latest archaeological understandings of the Bible, and he wrestles with his own faith. Of course, contemporary politics sneaks into the story, too; Arab-Israeli conflicts are hard to avoid when one is writing about the biblical Canaan. Feiler is an accomplished wordsmith. When he describes the "smells of dawn cinnamon, cardamom, a whiff of burnt sugar," the reader is transported to Turkey. He has the rare talent of being able to write in the second person, a gift he uses sparingly here: "Light. The first thing you notice about the desert is the light." In the sections of the book where his content is banal (readers can only take so many descriptions of dusty museums, bustling streets and breathtaking sunsets), Feiler's prose carries the narrative through. This book belongs on the shelves next to classics such as Wendy Orange's Coming Home to Jerusalem. Readers who find Westerners' encounters with the Holy Land enchanting will cherish this book.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Feiler, a frequent contributor to National Public Radio's All Things Considered and the author of four previous books, including Learning To Bow and Dreaming Out Loud, wanted to reconnect with the Bible. In this work, he sets off on a personal hegira by camel, foot, jeep, and rowboat to trace the books of Moses, believing the stories to be the greatest ever told. Feiler reminds listeners that human nature is constant; favoritism and family problems are always with us. Covering 10,000 miles, he travels over three continents, through five countries, and four war zones. As did his favorite biblical characters, he crosses the Red Sea, climbs Mount Sinai, and interviews other pilgrims as well as Bedouins. Feiler searches for the answer to the question, "Is the Bible just an abstraction, or is it a living, breathing entity?" His spiritual quest is not without challenges; his research and proposed trek force him to do archaeological detective work, and the war zones force him into unexpected adventures. Walking the Bible combines scholarship, adventure, and heart. Nourishing to the spirit and the arm chair traveler, this is recommended for all libraries with large audio collections. Pam Kingsbury, Florence, AL
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Part travelogue, part history book, part pilgrimage
This book really should have been called "Walking the Torah," since it covers the Five Books of Moses and is written from a primarily Jewish perspective. I suppose the marketing people felt that "Bible" would have a wider sales appeal or something. Be that as it may, the most interesting thing about this book was the profound change in attitude that the journey brought to the writer himself. No, he didn't "get religion" and run off become an Orthodox Jew. However, he did gain a new appreciation for the Bible stories themselves, as well as the various people and places that the Bible describes.

By his own admission, Bruce Feiler was a secular/Reform Jew who started out simply wanting to connect to the physical places mentioned in the Torah, i.e., to literally walk where his ancestors had walked. At first, Feiler thought of the Bible as a sort of Baedekers travel guide. He spent most of his preparation time reading history, geography, and archaeology. Once he got on the road, however, he soon discovered that the Bible is also "in the people" (his words). Whether they are true believers of many faiths or secularists who see the Bible as literature, the people who actually live in these biblical locations have a deep, almost mystical connection to the land itself -- a bond which goes beyond merely occupying a particular piece of real estate. Feiler grew to have this inner experience, too. As he himself explains, somewhere along the line he stopped thinking of The Book as a travel guide, and started seeing it as The Bible.

Feiler's prose style is both creative and highly readable. While some have criticized his incessant junk food metaphors (chocolate mountains, cinnamon hills -- he was getting hungry maybe?), I found them rather amusing. On the one hand, here he is, talking about places mentioned in a Holy Book that is sacred to millions of people. On the other hand, he doesn't pontificate, nor does he idealize. He duly notes the the rampant commercialism at holy sites and, with a wry sense of humor, he comments on many strange justapositions of traditional and modern life. (The fire extinguisher kept near the "true burning bush" in St. Catherine's monastery on Mt. Sinai had me laughing out loud. Was the burning bush was expected to catch on fire?)

As with most personal travelogues, there are things in this one that Feiler doesn't get right, even with his famous tour guide, Israeli archaeologist Avner Goren. (Who, by the way, was paid by Feiler to do this project, but so what? Hiring a guide is a time-honored travel practice, and more than one scholar has financed his research with moonlighting.) What I got out of the book was a deeper understanding of how the lay of the land in the Middle East influenced the Bible. This, in turn, opened up many Torah passages in new ways for me.

A Refreshing New Pilgrimage Through the Bible's Stories
Walking the Bible is an absorbing & informative travel memoir of Feiler's journeys through the first five books of the Old Testament. Feiler presents a refreshingly different perpective on this subject because he admittedly comes to the project as a young, semi-inactive-in-the-faith Jewish man. What he learns through the trip by reading, interacting, and observing doesn't seem to give him concrete "proof" of the historical veracity of the events, but nonetheless leads him down a path to understanding faith and to realization of the enormous meaning found within the Holy Land. His appreciation for that land and the conflict and beauty found within it are apparent throughout the book, and I found that appreciation to be contagious.

The best thing about this book is that it enlightens and entertains on spiritual, historical, and travel adventure levels. Scholarly views on the interpretation of Biblical events as well as the geography and culture of the Holy Land are researched and well-presented. Avner Goren was a fantastic guide/mentor who has a greater knowledge of pre-historic and Biblical archaeology than most anyone else around -- his input is priceless. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a thirst for more knowledge about Old Testament times in the Holy Land, and particularly to those in their 20s or 30s who may come to the book with backgrounds similar to that of Feiler. I learned quite a bit, particularly in regards to the motivations of Israeli immigrants and Judaistic views on God's interaction with his people during Exodus. And yet that book does not proselytize in any way -- it simply presents the experiences on the journey.

As to those reviewers who critize Feiler's undertaking of the Biblical journey as unoriginal: "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." - C.S. Lewis, MERE CHRISTIANITY

I believe that most people will walk away from reading this book glad that they read it, laden with new information and, perhaps, new questions.

Uplifting and Life Changing
A rare book changes the way you live and experience the world. Walking the Bible does just that and more. It is gracefully written, hugely entertaining, and enormously thoughtful. It is filled with great thrills ... riding camels up Mount Sinai, standing on the very spot where Moses received the Commandments, tasting the salt pillars at Sodom and Gomorrah, crossing the Red Sea in a row boat, beholding the burning bush. Above all, it is a profound, deeply intelligent exploration of the Bible as a vibrant force in our lives and the world. Take the journey -- feel the desert wind, smell the Bedouin feasts, climb inside the great pyramids -- and soon, like the author himself, you will be transformed by the experience, even touched by the Holy Land and God.