Discovering the City of Sodom by Dr. Steven Collins and Dr. LaTayne C. Scott

This book was quite fascinating.  I have been studying Genesis since the beginning of the summer so when this book came up as available to review, I was quite excited.  I knew this book could go one of two ways....extremely fascinating or quite boring.  It did take me a few chapters to get into the book but was well worth the perseverance.  I think it took me a while to get used to reading the foreign-sounding places and some of the archaeological terms, which have extra help about these terms in the appendix section of the book.

The "Backstory" sections were interesting and I think it helped to remind the reader that it is a personal story, as well as a historical event/place that has been discovered.  I admire him for his use of Scripture and for basing his search off of Scripture.  If I remember right, he tells his students to "go to the text first" while they are figuring out an excavation.  I love that so much emphasis is put on God and that they long to prove to others that these events in Biblical history really did occur.

If you are at all interested in Sodom and Gomorrah, this book is a must read.  You will learn so much.  I think this book will take me several times of re-reading it to completely gather all of the information that is in it.

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I received this book free from Howard Publishers in exchange for my honest opinion of this book.

The Jesus Scandals by David Instone-Brewer

I was unsure of this book when I first saw it, to be truthful.  There was something about the title that made me question what the book was going to be about.  However, since I knew it was from a Christian publisher, I felt that I had better give it a chance! 

It was very interesting to read about how Jesus was caught in scandals during his day.  I never stopped to really think about the cultures at his time, such as why he was single and the disgrace that came with that at the time.  Or how about not having a father....one that everyone could see and say that Jesus came from that family.  Instead, all he could say was that Mary was his mother.  That was disgraceful to take her name.

I never saw what Jesus did as scandalous.  I saw it more as going against the world.  However, when I stopped to think about it, "scandalous" describes how the world viewed him. 

The book itself is an easy read with nice and short chapters.  It's written in a way that is informative and not boring.  I really enjoyed the cultural information that he included in the chapters, as well.  I felt that I better understood more about how Jesus was viewed in the eyes of those who judged him and hated him.

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I received this book free from Kregel Publications in exchange for my honest opinion.