middle east

Although Walking The Bible: A Journey By Land Through The Five Books Of Moses authored by Bruce Feiler certainly does not qualify as a scholarly treatise, it nonetheless merits reading. For many of us it will initiate a new appreciation of the Old Testament as well as man's relation to God.

The author, guided by the Israeli renowned archaeologist, Avner Goren, attempt to retrace the Bible through Africa and the Middle East. Their travels are not only geographical in character, but also spiritual, that invariably piques our curiosity.
Using the Five Books of Moses, also called the Pentateuch (from the Greek word meaning five-book work), as a kind of road map or compass, we voyage to Turkey, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Sinai and finally to Mount Nebo in Jordan where supposedly Moses dies.

From the very onset we are informed that there is no archaeological evidence to relate any of the events in the Five Books to specific places. In other words, if we use the Bible as a map we would be facing often-contradictory claims of history, myth, legend, archaebiology, paleozoology, and faith. For example, there are many theories as to where exactly Mount Sinai is located.
Moreover, the exact path the Israelites pursued through the Sinai has never been determined.

However, even with all of these shortcomings, the author and his guide undertake a "topographical midrash, a geographical exegesis of the Bible." As pointed out, "in Judaism, the traditional process of analyzing scripture is called midrash, from the Hebrew meaning search out to investigate; in Christianity, this process is referred to as exegesis."

The voyage kicks off in Turkey, and from the very onset the author perceives the land of the Bible as reaching up to him and touching him, "elbowing aside my preconceived views of the Bible as a sterile collection of stores set in places I couldn't see, involving characters I couldn't relate to, experiencing desires I didn't have. What emerged was a vibrant view of the Bible as a collection of living tableux, set in actual places, involving genuine people, experiencing the most basic human desires: the longing to live in a place, with their own beliefs and their own aspirations."
The author arrives at the realization that he actually is part of the story and he casts aside the notion of the Bible as something of a metaphor. The actual experiencing of the scenery of the dessert, the mountains and the Sea, as well as the interrelation with the peoples inhabiting the various countries visited serves as a reinforcement of this insight.
The viewing of ancient sites such as the Pyramids and coming into contact with the Bedouins, definitely can invoke powerful emotions.

One of the shortcomings of the book is that from time to time I found the author wandering in his thoughts in the same manner the Israelites wandered in the dessert for forty years!
In all probability the book could have been shortened with less of the author's introspection and self-questioning that at times I found irritable and monotonous.
There was also a tendency to resort to trite descriptions of landscape features that should have been avoided.
However, notwithstanding these deficiencies, the book is informative as it briefly touches on many disciplines including geography, history, religious study, sociology, anthropology and archaeology.
If you are planning a trip to this part of the world or if you are an armchair traveler, the book will prove worthwhile and enlightening.

This review first appeared on reviewer's own site

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.

Bruce Feiler, a nominal Jew, describes his journey to the Holy Land... His stories are fascinating as he and his guide retrace their steps while they explore the world of Old Testament characters and Biblical stories. It tells of Bruce's personal pilgrimage and spiritual awakening.