A Surprising God

One day a few years ago, I told some six-year-olds my version of the story of Noah and the flood. When I finished, one of them said, “That’s a great story; where do you get your ideas?”Bible stories are enthralling tales. But we may be in danger of losing them. Even though the Bible is still the number one bestseller, it is becoming an unread book. Why? It might be because of implausible beliefs associated with the Bible, such as the belief that the Bible contains the very words of God; or that God created the world in six days and later wiped all innocent life in a great flood; or that God once-upon-a-time spoke to people, acted in human affairs, and favored a chosen people; or that God led armies to destroy wicked and innocent alike. Even children’s bibles, with their simple words and colorful, playful illustrations, can frighten kids—“Why, daddy, would God want Abraham to kill his son?”—puzzle adults, and create skepticism about the God they portray.A Surprising God is much more than another collection of Bible stories told in simple words. It is a new telling of those stories. Rather than starting from the belief that the Bible is the word of God and means exactly what it says, A Surprising God begins with human stories, stories of people like ourselves who slowly, and often after mistakes and detours, discover hints of who God may be. It relies on contemporary knowledge of ancient history and language and storytelling for new insights into these stories. The result is that we find that the things that happened to the family of Israel are the experiences we have in our own lives. We are Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Moses, David and Job, and the God with whom these heroes wrestled is bigger than the one we have heard about or imagined.A Surprising God is an adventure in storytelling. It is written in two vocabularies and arranged for two distinct audiences. First, of course, it is written for children, especially those children between the years of six and twelve. Their minds are full of questions that they are not yet too self-conscious to ask. But A Surprising God is also written for adults, parents and teachers who read to their children. They will appreciate introductions to each story that reflect up-to-date biblical scholarship, and they will find a "Storyteller's Toolkit" in the appendix to help them read or tell Bible stories with understanding and feeling. A Surprising God is for questioners both young and old.