Tischler's learned commentary on integral biblical themes reads as engagingly as a lecture by a teacher who both understands and values the Bible as a source of wisdom and as a component of world literature. Tischler respects the written word and the music of poetry and seems at home with all corners of American and British and, to some degree, world classics as well. Simple layout invites the neophyte to read signal passages of scripture on such topics as creation, gender, war, and the afterlife; and to peruse classic works--Billy Budd, To Kill a Mockingbird, Donne's sonnets, The Old Man and the Sea, Little Women, The Prince--for more recent thinking on the chosen subjects. Tischler's tone and diction avoid tedious cant and dogma by sticking to humanistic themes--godhood, justice, liberty, power, sacrifice, violence--and pure, uncluttered glimpses of human situations, such as the nonstop task of the shepherd, David's emergence into leadership, the circumscribed world of women, and the Jewish response to the threat of alien invasion….Highly recommended. Home, church, high school, and public libraries; general readers.

Choice

This work is recommended as an excellent beginning for further research on particular themes such as slavery and freedom, truth, earthly paradise, government and politics, and the journey of life….Tischler's style of writing is a pleasure to read and would surely be appreciated by students.

American Reference Books Annual

Tischler traces a few typical examples of the various biblical themes in English and American literature, and occasionally in their European counterparts. In each thematic chapter, she identifies a handful of biblical and literary works she considers, then explores how that theme has been worked out from biblical times to the present. Among the themes are animals and humans, women as heroes, war, predestination and free will, and last days.

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