Great Couples of the Bible

by Herbert Haag, Dorothee Soelle, Katharina Elliger

The book of God is also a book of people. Love and lust, devotion and betrayal, sex, sin, jealousy, and grief — the stories of biblical couples disclose a full panorama of human emotions and actions. These stories of love, marriage, sex, and death, historically fascinating and yet also wellsprings of great artistic traditions and religious meaning, are here presented in an informative and engaging format with more than 200 full-color illustrations from classic, chiefly Western art sources. Some of the couples explored Adam and Eve, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, Tobias and Sara, Amnon and Tamar, Judith and Holofernes, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, Ruth and Boaz, Abraham and Hagar, Moses and Zipporah, Ahab and Isabel, and more.

191 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[A B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Question for you: would you consider Jezebel and Ahab to be a "great couple"?

Heck no. Dysfunctional, perhaps. Abusive, maybe. But great? Nope.

How about David and Bathsheba? I say no. In fact, I can't even call them a couple. Are you really a couple if the king facilitated the murder of your husband? Some might say yes, but I would hardly call it great.

That's my problem with this book. I thought it would focus on the people involved as couples and how that directs their religious practice, not two individuals that happen to have some relationship with each other to suit the authors' purposes. It's really just an oddly arranged series of analysis of various Bible stories. There's some occasionally relevant artwork. The text is very opinionated and sometimes downright puzzling, which seemed odd given that the authors have impressive credentials. They are certainly highly qualified religious scholars. Perhaps something went haywire with the translation from German to English.

Overall, this was a disappointing bait-and-switch. It would make a nice coffee table book for someone with a passing interest in the Biblie, though more devout Christian or knowledgeable scholars of any faith may find the analyses concerning.