The Storyteller's Companion To The Bible, Volume 9

by Michael E. Williams, Jo-Ann Elizabeth Jennings

Telling the story of Jesus has been a part of Christian practice for nearly 2,000 years. In fact, one of the earliest forms of Christian preaching was storytelling, or telling Jesus' stories. These early story/sermons provided the raw material for the Gospel narratives. Because the Gospel writers wrote down these early stories and preserved them, today we can read the story of Jesus in the Bible. Yet we still have a longing to hear the story told, in the same manner as it has been told by generations of storytellers in the past. This volume is designed to help readers do just that. The editors have taken a representative collection of stories about Jesus from the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and provided for each story a new analysis that illuminates how it works as a story. Paired with each analysis is a creative retelling of the story by a professional storyteller-preacher. The goal is to provide readers with insights into the biblical story and suggestions on how it might be retold for audiences today.

Hardcover

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[SusanwithaGoodBook · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bought these Storyteller's Companion books hoping they would help me write stories for my Bible Class Curriculum, but that's not really what I found here. Yes, there are storytelling ideas, but they weren't really what I was looking for and weren't really useful to me. However, I did find that the "Comments on the Story" sections were useful, particularly for historical information and insight into the meanings of terms and things. I marked several places to go back and take notes to possibly add to my stories or activity ideas, so that was very helpful.

There is one HUGE problem with these books and a caveat with my possible recommendation - the authors of these books do not view the gospels as fully authentic, nor do they see them as inspired writings. There were several points at which that POV was glaringly obvious and in some places outright stated. This was particularly bad for the volume on the gospel of John, where I was appalled at some of the ideas presented.

In short, I can't really recommend these, though I did find some nuggets of good info, the overall pov can't be trusted, imho.

[Marilyn]

I finally found this book at ThriftBooks.com and ordered it last week. Now I just need Vol 8 for a complete set. I’m excited.