Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses by Bruce Feiler

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Walking the Bible merits a place on any intellectually minded traveler's bookshelf simply on the strength of its premise: a compelling journey of 10,000 miles across the Near and Middle East, in search of the locales at which many of the Old Testament's key events took place. Meticulously researched and documented, the book draws upon a wide range of canonical and secular research on the explicit geography of the Bible, and it offers readers a well-rounded look at both the holiest and most ignored biblical spots on earth.

The guiding principle of Bruce Feiler's quest, on which he was accompanied by legendary biblical expert Avner Goren, was to place biblical stories in the historical and cultural context of the ancient Near East. Drawing upon the traditional Hebrew and Latin terms for investigating and analyzing the content of the Bible, Feiler explains, "What Avner and I undertook was a topographical midrash, a geographical exegesis of the Bible."

What may sound like a high-minded, scholarly journey rooted in logic and reason also turned out to be a richly detailed, complex, inspirational tale of spiritual regeneration. The combination of personal narrative, harrowing travelogue, spiritual quest, and modern politics places Walking the Bible among the most remarkable works of travel literature. An accomplished author, Feiler makes what would otherwise be an excellent core historical travel text an incredibly moving, profound examination of the human relationship with God.

Many travel writers use their adventures to seek answers to philosophical questions about identity, society, and humanity. Feiler's desert trek is an attempt to prove the validity of otherworldly, sacred religious beliefs by establishing and acknowledging terrestrial proof that biblical stories are, in fact, history, thereby solidifying the spiritual and experiential connection between them. While many before him have made pilgrimages to holy sites in order to reaffirm a connection with God, Feiler seeks to bestow a similar sanctity upon the living, tenable spaces on earth that figure prominently in the great Judeo-Christian saga.

The relevance of this mission is confirmed repeatedly throughout his travels. Feiler begins his book by writing of the Jewish patriarch Abraham, "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." That ancient, mythical call is a spirit-rouser for the author, and for the reader. While traveling in Israel, Feiler learns about the biblically sanctioned connection between Jews and their land when an American settler in the West Bank tells him that "to walk in the land of Israel is a holy thing to do." Ultimately, Feiler himself grows increasingly attached to the land upon which he treads, writing, "I began to feel a certain pull from the landscape.... It was a feeling of gravity." With that, Feiler's connection between abstract spirituality and terra firma is made profound, both for himself and for the reader lucky enough to take this remarkable journey with him. (Emily Burg)

From the Publisher

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, ten-thousand-mile journey, retracing the Five Books of Moses through the desert. Traveling through three continents, five countries, and four war zones, Feiler is the first person to complete such a historic expedition. He crosses the Red Sea, climbs Mount 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?

Along with renowned archaeologist Avner Goren, Feiler treks through Turkey, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt, the Sinai, and Jordan, visiting the actual places of some of history's most storied events, from the mountain where Noah's ark landed to the site of the legendary burning bush. He visits the desert outpost in Turkey where Abraham first heard the words of God and faces arrest while camping on Mount Nebo in Jordan, where Moses overlooked the Promised Land. In each place, he scrupulously gathers the latest archaeological research and sits down to read the stories in their natural surroundings. With eloquence and insight, he explores how geography affects the larger narrative of the Bible and ultimately realizes how much these places -- and his experience -- have affected his own faith.

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. It 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.

Anglican Herald

A work of magic...[succeeds] in making the Bible exciting.

San Francisco Jewish Bulletin

Goren and Feiler make for two of the most entertaining traveling buddies since Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

Stephen J. Dubner

Anyone who cares about the Bible or history or mankind should be grateful to Bruce Feiler.

Washington Post Book World

An instant classic...A pure joy to read.

Christian Science Monitor

Evocative, descriptive, emotionally honest, and often funny.

Melissa Fay Greene

How on Earth did Bruce Feiler come up with so many new, insightful, witty, and touching things to say...?

Calgary Herald

Anyone planning to visit the Middle East should take two books with them—the Bible and this one.

Jerusalem Post

The perfect read for people who are interested in the Bible and the Middle East.

Jewish Week

Armchair reading with a spiritual bent...Feiler writes with a sense of poetry about the land.

People

An inspirational oasis...From the barren land, Feiler emerges, like those whose paths he traces, renewed and transformed.

San Francisco Chronicle

Feiler's accomplishment, and it's a profound one, is to confront his idea of God...

New York Times Book Review

An enthusiastic travelogue...Feiler delivers a wealth of information in an accessible and entertaining format.

Los Angeles Times

Smart and savvy, insightful and illuminating.

USA Today

Bruce Feiler went looking for proof. He learned that proof doesn't matter.

Chicago Sun-Times

A powerful and spiritual pilgrimage...in every way, marvelous if not indispensable reading for anyone remotely interested in the Torah.

Entertainment Weekly

An eloquently spiritual pilgrimage.

New York Times

[Feiler] is an excellent guide...He has...invested [this book] with a keen intellectual curiosity.

Miami Herald

An exciting, well-told story informed by Feiler's boundless intellectual curiosity...[and] sense of adventure.

New York Times - Richard Bernstein

Mr. Feiler, in taking us through various harsh and craggy landscapes whose very appearance gleams with biblical associations, proves to be an excellent guide and a worthy wrestler. He has put an enormous amount of information into this book and has invested it with a keen intellectual curiosity, so that we learn a great deal about the spiritual meaning of the Bible and the centuries of speculation about it as a historical document. Most of all, Mr. Feiler achieves for his readers what he set out to achieve for himself: to ground the Bible in real soil and in real history and, in so doing, demonstrate its amazing vitality.

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. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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 Cahners Business Information.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Interviews & Essays
• Reading Group Guide
• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Interviews & Essays

First, the deep-seated urge. Like many, after leaving home at the end of high school, I lost touch with the religious community I had known as a child. I slowly disengaged from the sticky attachment that comes from a regular cycle of readings, prayers, and services. I separated myself from the texts as well. And ultimately I woke up one morning and realized I had no connection to the Bible. It was a book to me now, one that sat on the shelf, gathering dust on its gilded pages. The Bible was part of the past -- an old way of learning, a crutch. I wanted to be part of the future.

Over more than a decade of living and working abroad I found that ideas, and places, became more real to me when I experienced them firsthand. But even as I traveled, I found that certain feelings from my past kept resurfacing. There was a conversation going on in the world that I wasn't participating in. References would pop up in books or movies that I couldn't fully comprehend. I would read entire newspaper articles about wars I couldn't explain. At weddings and funerals the words I heard and recited were just that -- words. They were not part of me in any way. And yet I wanted them to be. Suddenly, almost overnight as I recall, I wanted these words to have meaning again.

No sooner had I made this realization than I discovered how daunting it seemed. For starters, the idea of reading the Bible from cover to cover seemed undoable. The text was too long, its language too remote. I went to the bookstore seeking help, but found 50 different translations, with assorted concordances, interpretations, and daily inspirations. None of the classes I considered tackled these questions either. I was left with the book, which sat by my bed for months on end, suffering from renewed neglect.

Then I went to Jerusalem. On my first day I joined an old friend, Fred, who was giving a tour to some students. We stopped on a promenade overlooking the city. "Over there," said Fred, "is Har Homa [a controversial settlement]. And over there is the cliff where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac." Real or not, that piece of information hit me like a bolt of Cecil B. DeMille lightning. It had never occurred to me that that story -- so timeless, so abstract -- might have happened in a place that was identifiable, no less one I could visit.

In subsequent weeks I had the same experience in a variety of places. In the Middle East, the Bible is not some abstraction. It's a living, breathing entity unencumbered by the sterilization of time. That was the Bible I wanted to know, and almost immediately I realized that the only way to find it was to walk along those lines myself. I would take this ancient book and approach it with contemporary methods of learning -- traveling, talking, experiencing. In other words, I would enter the Bible as if it were any other world and seek to become a part of it. Once inside, I would walk in its footsteps, meet its characters, and ask its questions in an effort to understand why its stories had become so timeless and once again so vitally important to me. (Bruce Feiler)

Reading Group Guide

"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."