Don’t let the cover and the size of this book fool you.
The Story of the Bible by Larry Stone is a beautiful over-sized hardback book that sits like a coffetable book but it is not just for looks. Flipping through it you may think it contains dry historical museum types of information.
But in fact, this book reads like a paperback, explaining in plain layman language, the entire history of the Bible. It comprehensively covers from the beginning of how the Old Testament was transmitted through oral tradition, to how and why it was translated to Aramaic, all the way to the persecution of the Christians in the 1st century, the reformation, and how the Bible came to be translated to modern languages today. And it’s not just about the Bible. I learned so much about Christianity, about the story of the Jews, the apostles, early church fathers, the Roman Catholic church, and much more.
The illustrations in the book are beautiful works of art, but the best part of the book are the 23 life-sized pull out pages of copies of Bible manuscripts and Bible pages from old printings. For example, a page of the Great Isaiah Scroll, Genesis 1 from the Latin Vulgate Bible, a page from the Geneva Bible first chapter of Ephesians, this is stuff you don’t normally get to see up close.
This is an excellent book as a resource. Use it to teach Sunday School, and to answer questions such as, “How do we know the Bible we have today is reliable?” It’s the best book about the Bible I have ever read.
Disclosure: Thomas Nelson provided me with a complimentary copy of this book for this review. Opinions are entirely my own.
April 1st, 2011 at 8:22 am
Disclosure: I was not provided a complimetary copy of Larry Stone’s book.
I have read numerous reviews of it and they were positive and were written at the request of the publisherThomas Nelson. The reviews were written from a laymen’s point of view and I question their ability to credibility of the author or the endorser. Mr. Stone according to his bio is a writer of numerous books and his text is very readible but I question his academic qualifications and although his present position is editorial vice-president for Thomas Nelsom Publications, his prior position as executive director of KidShape, a pediatric weight management program speaks mainly that he is writer for hire. The book’s endorser’s Ravi Zacharias is a very controversial protestant radio personality. The book reflects a very conservative viewpoint. I was disappointed that I was unable to locate reviews by authorities in the areas of Old Testament or New Testament history. I would feel more comfortable with this text if it were endorsed by some scholars in the field.