Andrew Smith's Blog

My name is Andrew. Come and have a look inside my life and watch me share what is on my heart.

Why is that in the Bible?: The Most Perplexing Verses and Stories – And What They Teach Us By Eric J. Bargerhuff Book Review



In Why is that in the Bible, Eric Bargerhuff explored scriptures and tried to comprehend why God included them in the Bible and what their purpose was. He begins the book by looking at some of the truths found in Job’s stories and why God allowed satan to test him and what we can learn from his story. He was faithfully following God and he ended up losing his livestock, servants, and his children. He also lost his health and his wife wasn’t happy with him, and friends wasn’t supportive. Some of the stories, he also explored was Abraham and Isaac, Balaam and the talking donkey, Peter cutting off an ear, no one knows the time or hour, Solomon’s many wives, Herod eaten by worms, a youth group is killed by bears, battle for Moses body, Absalom’s head stuck in a tree, bodily discharges, and much more. 



One of my favorite chapters that is quite shocking was the chapter that covered the story of David and his son Absalom. As we all remember, David had an affair with Bathsheba and how he tried to cover it up. Prophet Nathan, warned David about how the sword will never depart and leave his house. David had at least eight wives. Eric explained how this was directly a sin because the Bible declared that marriage is between one man and one woman. Next, Eric explored David and Absalom relationship. He was David’s third son with Maacah. One of David’s firstborn sons with another wife of David, Ammon rapes his own half-sister, Tamar. David was angry and he chose to not punish his son. Absalom eventually has Ammon killed for the crime and he fleets for three years. David misses his son so he allows Absalom to return but he can’t be in the presence of the king. He tricks one of the commanders of David’s army into letting him seeing David and he publicly shamed David for his actions. He turned around the hearts of Israel against David. He fleets and Absalom has sex with his harem on the roof where everyone can see. David cries out to God and eventually David’s army prevailed and Absalom’s lost his head while he riding his mule it was caught in the branches of a tree. Eric explained the importance of remembering that sin destroys and how it greatly changed everyone’s life and how it affected the dynamic of David’s family and the tribe of Israel. 





I would recommend this amazing book to anyone who is wondering why the Bible covers some difficult topics. I immensely liked how open he was about looking at the topics of rape, incest, suffering, and bodily discharges. There are many stories included in this book that many preachers and Sunday school teachers most likely won’t preach in church because of how graphic they are. I learned a lot about scriptures and stories that I haven’t really seen in detail before. I liked how Eric tried and connected the stories together where readers could understand the background of what was going on around that time. I appreciated how he dived in on how we can interpret the passages and what we can learn from them. 




"I received this book free from the publisher, Bethany House/ Chosen for my honest review.” 





If you would like to purchase a copy of Why is that in the Bible, check it out on Amazon.com:


0 comments:

Post a Comment