Look and learn about the places you've read about in the Bible

"Oxford Bible Atlas,"

Edited by Adrian Curtis

If you've never been to the Holy Land or other places mentioned in the Bible, this is the book to take you there in absentia.

If you've been to any of those ancient sites, this Oxford University Press large-format paperback is the book to rekindle memories.

It was nearly 50 years ago that the Oxford Bible Atlas first appeared in print, and this fourth edition blossoms like none of its predecessors thanks to color photography throughout. As you might imagine, satellite photos of the Dead Sea, the River Jordan, and that portion of Earth from Egypt to the Arabian Penisula weren't in that first edition in 1962.

As Adrian Curtis explains, the primary aim of the atlas is to provide the reader with an awareness of the world in which the biblical stories are set. Aerial photographs do what one's imagination never can to show what the hills of Galilee, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho and the City of Jerusalem are really like.

While many of us are accustomed to looking at an atlas for directions, the Oxford Bible Atlas does so much more, offering not just geography and history but archaeology and geology, too. There is as much text and photography as there are maps.

We don't just see where Babylon is on the map, for example, but we learn how the exile of the Jews there came about.

Curtis, a Methodist lay preacher, is an excellent teacher with a background as a lecturer on the Hebrew Bible for 40 years at the University of Manchester in Great Britain.

You can very easily sit down with the atlas and read it as any other work of nonfiction, chapter by chapter. It would be great for Bible study, small group, faith sharing or adult faith formation purposes, reading a chapter a week. Most chapters are just a few pages, with full-page maps included, and they tend to read chronologically.

Where did the Ephesians live?

While many are likely to have a fairly good idea where Damascus is (in Syria, north and east of Israel), how many times have those of us in the pews heard the lector proclaim names of biblical places such as "Cappadocia" or "Ephesus" (Paul's epistle to the Ephesians!) and not had a clue that both are part of modern-day Turkey?

A couple of the later chapters offer a real education in archaeology, including a two-page spread on ancient writing systems.

I enjoyed reading and finding my way along on the maps, but I could see where others might enjoy and learn about biblical lands just by looking at the many photos and reading the captions. That alone is an education.

Bravo to all involved in bringing Bible places to life. -- bz

'The Shack': Interesting novel/catechism turns hateful

'The Shack,'

by Wm. Paul Young

Wm. Paul Young had me for 178 pages.

Through 178 pages the author of this New York Times bestseller offered a creative approach to teaching readers about all kinds of elements of Christian faith.

In the paperback version of this "catechism-as-dramatic-novel/fantasy," the first 178 pages are a painless way to be forced to think about our -- yours and mine -- relationship with God.

Through a hurting father's meeting with the triune God, the first 178 pages of "The Shack" present convincing explanations about the concept of free will, unconditional love, good and evil, human frailties, the Trinity and more.

For 178 pages Young, the child of missionary parents, makes us reflect about our image and understanding of God, reinforcing the idea that God is always with us, always loves us, even as we stumble and fall.

Then comes page 179.

Religion one of 'trinity of terrors'?

That's where Young's Jesus starts a diatribe against organized religion, using the kind of language Catholics used to see only in the hate pamphlets that carried drawings of the pope as the devil -- horns and tail included.

The character of Jesus who inhabits Young's fanciful "shack" says he's "not too big on religion," and lumps religion in with politics and economics in a way most Christians would describe as, well, unchristian.

Religion, politics and economics, this Jesus claims, "are the man-created trinity of terrors that ravages the earth and deceives those I care about. What mental turmoil and anxiety does any human face that is not related to one of those three?"

But there's more.

Young's Jesus says, "Put simply, these terrors are tools that many use to prop up their illusions of security and control. People are afraid of uncertainty, afraid of the future. These institutions, these structures and ideologies, are all a vain effort to create some sense of certainty and security where there isn't any. It's all false!"

But wait, there's more.

Two pages later it is all the world's systems that are the problem. Jesus of "The Shack" says,

"Institutions, systems, ideologies, and all the vain, futile efforts of humanity that go with them are everywhere, and interaction with all of it is unavoidable. But I can give you freedom to overcome any system of power in which you find yourself, be it religious, economic, social, or political. You will grow in the freedom to be inside or outside all kinds of systems and to move freely between and among them. Together, you and I can be in it and not of it."

So, none of what humanity -- created in the image and likeness of God -- has developed through the centuries does any good? It's "well-intentioned" but evil? Hard to believe. And, if you're like me, those last couple of sentences in the quote above sound similar to the Catholic Church's advice that its members are to be counter cultural, in the world but not of it, part of society but not caught up in its less noble pursuits. But you don't hear Young's Jesus acknowledging that.

Now who's being judgmental?

Perhaps the attack on organized religion wouldn't come off as so hypocritical if it hadn't come after a whole chapter in which Mackenzie -- the book's main character -- goes through an agonizing trial that teaches him not to be judgmental.

Far be it for any Catholic to ignore the failings of our church -- its members and its leaders -- throughout history and even to the present day. But any author does readers an enormous disservice by ignoring the positive motives, positive actions and positive results that organized religions have brought to the world throughout history and continue to bring today.

Our churches -- of many denominations -- deserve credit for upholding moral standards that easily go by the wayside in a laissez-faire society.

The Catholic Church in particular has earned the admiration of many for creating the concept of higher education.

People -- organized through their church affiliations -- feed the hungry, care for the sick, shelter the homeless -- in a better way when they do so in organized ways.

The list could go on. Sadly, Wm. Paul Young has chosen to ignore the good and instead judge others in a way he tells his readers not to.

Sad, too, is that it took 179 pages for him to show his true colors. -- bz