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    Bible Stories You May Have Forgotten: Miracles, Adventures and Life Lessons from Genesis to Revelation
    Bible Stories You May Have Forgotten: Miracles, Adventures and Life Lessons from Genesis to Revelation
    Bible Stories You May Have Forgotten: Miracles, Adventures and Life Lessons from Genesis to Revelation
    Ebook142 pages1 hour

    Bible Stories You May Have Forgotten: Miracles, Adventures and Life Lessons from Genesis to Revelation

    By James Bell

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    About this ebook

    The Bible is the best-selling book of all time and its importance cannot be overestimated. It informs the lives, cultures, and politics of millions of people around the world, and I bet you don’t even know who Esua is! (He traded his birthright to his brother Jacob for some stew.) Do you actually know what went down in Sodom and Gomorrah? Does the Tower of Babel ring a bell, or do you need to clean the cobwebs out of your belfry?

    This light and witty reference book will give readers a base knowledge that will make them feel like experts. From Genesis to resurrection, all the stories you should know and love are condensed for ease of understanding and entertainment. Spotlights on biblical references in pop culture will keep the tone upbeat and relevant to all. With a new handle on everything Ephesian, you can impress your minister, reawaken your faith.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTrusted Media Brands
    Release dateJan 31, 2013
    ISBN9781621450160
    Bible Stories You May Have Forgotten: Miracles, Adventures and Life Lessons from Genesis to Revelation
    Author

    James Bell

    James S. Bell, Jr., owner of Whitestone Communications, has served as executive editor of Moody Press and director of religious publishing at Doubleday. He is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Bible.

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      Book preview

      Bible Stories You May Have Forgotten - James Bell

      001.jpg

      A READER’S DIGEST BOOK

      Copyright © 2013 The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

      All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction, in any manner, is prohibited.

      Reader’s Digest is a registered trademark of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

      ISBN 978-1-62145-003-0

      We are committed to both the quality of our products and the service we provide to our customers. We value your comments, so please feel free to contact us.

      The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

      Adult Trade Publishing

      44 South Broadway

      White Plains, NY 10601

      For more Reader’s Digest products and information, visit our website:

      www.rd.com (in the United States)

      www.readersdigest.ca (in Canada)

      Contents

      Introduction

      Part I: The Old Testament

      One Bad Apple Spoils the World: Adam and Eve

      A Boatload of Trouble: Noah and the Ark

      The Skyscraper That Didn’t Scrape: The Tower of Babel

      His Birthright for a Bowl of Stew: Jacob and Esau

      From the Pits to the Palace: Joseph and His Rise in Egypt

      Let My People Go!: Moses and the Exodus

      Three Hundred Good Men: Gideon and the Midianites

      The World’s Worst Haircut: Samson and Delilah

      Shepherd Boy with a Slingshot: David and Goliath

      Whose God Wins?: Elijah and the Prophets of Baal

      Part-Time Prophet, Part-Time Lion Tamer: Daniel and the Lions' Den

      Persia’s Supermodel: Queen Esther Saves Israel

      A Whale of a Tale: Jonah and the Big Fish

      Part II: The New Testament

      The Greatest Story Often Told: The Christmas Story

      The Life of the Party: Jesus Turns Water into Wine

      Lost and Found: The Prodigal Son

      Won’t You Be My Neighbor?: The Good Samaritan

      Master of the Wind and Waves: Jesus Walks on Water

      The Three Superheroes: Moses, Elijah, and Jesus Transformed

      The Man Who Died Twice: The Raising of Lazarus

      A Meal to Remember: The Last Supper

      The Cross That Rocked the World: The Crucifixion

      SonRise in Jerusalem: The Easter Story

      Not as Drunk as You Suppose: The Apostles and Pentecost

      A Most Unlikely Conversion: Paul on the Damascus Road

      Begin and End It with a Bang: The End of the World

      About the Authors

      Notes

      105527.jpg

      Introduction

      It’s no exaggeration to say that allusions from Bible stories still remain part of our everyday lives. When you accuse someone of babbling on and on, or describe your friend as a Good Samaritan, you may not realize you are referring back to the biblical stories of the Tower of Babel and Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan. The Bible has been the world’s best-selling book for hundreds of years—and no book can match its sales figures, even today. In fact, Bible sales make the sales of the Harry Potter and Hunger Games series and every other book pale in comparison.

      When we dig below the surface of our cultural fads and preferences, we find the Bible in a surprising number of places. For example, if you’ve ever told someone not to take an eye for an eye, that’s from the Bible.¹ If you’ve ever accomplished something by the skin of your teeth² or been told you’re the apple of someone’s eye,³ those phrases are from the Bible, too.

      On the other hand, some people view the Bible, especially in its older editions and translations, as a piece of antiquated history. It’s a huge tome, for one thing—more than two thousand pages in most versions—and people have trouble with those thin, flimsy pages and the archaic, tiny print. The Bible also describes ancient, unfamiliar traditions and customs, and the people who quote from it often sound like they’re reading Shakespeare when they say thou and thine and all that. They don’t realize there are many user-friendly versions of the Bible, with scores of notes and modern analyses in which these timeless narratives come alive. This is what we have attempted to do in this volume—make some of the major stories accessible, enjoyable, and inspiring.

      The Bible is a major influence on the moral and social codes that teach us what’s right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. It’s where our society learned the Golden Rule, for example—that we should treat others as we’d like to be treated.⁴ In addition, Jesus taught us to love our enemies as well as our neighbors,⁵ and the Bible’s Ten Commandments⁶ are the foundation of the Western judicial system.

      Even our primary forms of entertainment have at times been (and continue to be) heavily influenced by the Bible. Most examples of great literature—from Shakespeare’s works to Dickens to Cormac ­McCarthy—contain several allusions to scriptural texts and events, as do the works of several great songwriters, including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Sting, and many more. Even movies and television have mined the Scriptures for decades. Just a couple of examples: you can’t really understand some of the themes in The Matrix without a basic knowledge of the Bible; and biblical themes are implicit in The Lord of the Rings.

      When you get down to it, we shouldn’t be surprised by the Bible’s entrenchment in modern society. Stories have always had the power to move us, motivate us, unsettle us, and inspire us to become the people we’ve been created to be. And at its core, the Bible is a collection of some of the best-loved and most influential stories ever told.

      You’ll find a lot of those stories summarized in the following pages. As you read, keep in mind the different ways these stories have influenced not only the outside world but your own life as well. Perhaps your mother first read them to you as you sat comfortably in her lap; perhaps you heard them in Sunday school, or when you took a course in classic literature. Most important, whether you’re experiencing them again or encountering them for the first time, allow yourself to be enriched as you dig into Bible stories you may have forgotten.

      Ch1.jpg110730.jpg

      One Bad Apple

      Spoils the World

      Adam and Eve

      (Genesis 2:15–3:24)

      When you hear the word paradise, what images come to mind? Maybe you think of a deserted island—­sandy beaches surrounded by clear, crystal-blue water. Or maybe you picture mountains covered with the kind of powdery snow that’s perfect for skiing. Maybe it’s a bustling city street packed with gourmet restaurants and Starbucks coffeehouses on every corner.

      Whatever your particular vision of paradise may be, try to hold it in your mind as we explore the story of Adam and Eve—the first human beings to live, love, cry, and die on planet Earth.

      A Single Guy

      According to Genesis 1 (the first chapter of the first book in the Bible), God created the entire universe in just six days. He started with raw materials such as light, water, air, and land. Then He created specific objects to make use of those raw materials. He created the sun, moon, and stars to produce and reflect light. He created fish for the water, birds for the air, and plants and animals for the land.

      Then, on the sixth day, God created His crowning achievement: human beings. Technically, though, He started by creating a single human being. That was Adam, the world’s first man.

      If you’re hoping Adam lived in the world’s first man cave, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. God actually planted a garden paradise in a land called Eden, and that became Adam’s home. According to Genesis 2, the Garden of Eden was filled with trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.⁷

      Adam wasn’t a layabout; even in the middle of paradise, he was given a job. Specifically, God made Adam a steward of His creation. That didn’t mean Adam was the owner of the garden or any other part of the created world, nor could he use and abuse creation to satisfy his whims. Rather, Adam was charged with the task of tending and caring for both the garden he lived in and the other creatures that lived with him. Adam even had the privilege of naming the different species of plants and animals as he saw fit.

      For a time, everything was perfect. Adam was strong, smart, and confident. He found satisfaction in his work, pleasure in his connections with the other living things around him, and joy in his relationship with God, who had created him. It was a heavenly experience.

      A Perfect Match

      After a time, however, it became clear that Adam was unique among all the animals in creation. Whereas male birds could connect with female birds, and each squirrel scampering through the trees could find community and companionship among the other squirrels, Adam was alone. He was quite literally one of a kind.

      In time, God remedied this situation by creating Eve—the world’s first woman. It’s interesting that God didn’t create Eve from scratch, as He’d done with Adam. Instead, He performed the world’s first surgical procedure by placing Adam in a deep sleep (the world’s first anesthesia, apparently), removing one of Adam’s ribs, and using that bone as the raw material

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