The Bible tells a story. It's a beautiful account of God's love for people throughout history. The events of the Bible are exciting, tender, and at times awe-inspiring, but often the story can get lost among the laws, genealogies, poetry, and instructions.
The Whole Bible Story shares the entire grand narrative of the Bible in one easy-to-read, chronological account. All the stories you remember--and many of those you don't--make up the page-turning story of God's pursuit of you. Now fully illustrated with maps and photos to bring the story to life!
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Dr. William H. Marty has taught at Moody Bible Institute for thirty-seven years. His main emphasis has been teaching an Old and New Testament survey to freshmen at the Chicago campus, and the fruit of his focus on teaching the story line of the Bible has been published in The Whole Bible Story. Dr. Marty has also written The World of Jesus and The Jesus Story and coauthored A Quick-Start Guide to the Whole Bible. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Linda, and is an active triathlete.
My Thoughts:
The Whole Bible Story is basically what the title implies. Dr Marty has written a condensed summary of the story of the Bible beginning with the creation account through the New Testament church age. It is divided into chapters kind of by time period, such as, Creation through Babel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and sons, Moses and the Exodus, etc.... The last chapter is The Story of the Church. To me, it seemed kind of like a kids story book, except for grownups. It is a pretty easy, well written, interesting read.
Dr Marty has taken Bible history and summarized it in chronological order so those who have a difficult time understanding the Bible can read it in sequence and get the whole picture.
The pros -
- it provided the whole story, broken into chapters, to be better understood
- it could be read rather quickly
- it is easy enough to follow
- it gives the whole picture
- it is illustrated, which helps us relate better to the places and people and times
The cons -
- it is not the same as reading the BIBLE itself
- it is not inspired
- it is missing key parts of the Bible such as the Psalms, Proverbs, Epistles, Revelation
My personal opinion is that as long as a person reads this as a book, written by man, to better understand the background and history of the Bible and get the picture as a whole, it is good. But it needs to be read with the understanding that this is not God's word! It is not inspired. It is not Scripture and there is alot of good material that you will only find in the Bible itself, that has been left out. The purpose of this book was to create a desire in someone who doesn't understand the Bible to read it. I pray it does that, and is not used as a substitute for Bible reading! There is nothing like hearing from God through his inspired word.
I received a copy of this book courtesy of BakerBooks to read. I was not required to review positively. All opinions are my own.
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