Review: Wisdom for Everyday Life From the Book of Revelation

Confession time:  I've NEVER read the Book of Revelations, the last book of the Bible.  All that symbolism and end-of-times stuff is a bit over my head.  That is until I read Fr. Richard Veras' book, Wisdom for Everyday Life from the Book of Revelation.  Fr. Veras' book details all the symbolism and imagery throughout all 20 chapters of Revelation.
One thing that he is quick to point out is that Revelations is NOT just about the end-times; Revelations is "a catechesis that summarizes foundational truths of Christianity."  Father later explains that "the Church sets this book before us as inspired Scripture tells us that it has relevance for every Christian in every historical moment and circumstance.  The battle it speaks about is a universal battle, so it refers in some way to every battle, great and small, that is fought in the Church's pilgrimage through time."

How cool is that?  Who knew?

Here's another cool thought:  The book of Revelation seeks to underscore the infinite dimensions behind the encounter with Christ and the decision to follow him. ... (it) draws our attentin to the fact that following Jesus is a gesture of inestimable worth and incalulable proportion.

Father Veras goes through each chapter of Revelation, step by step, to explain the major themes (including that "Jesus Christ is truly present in the midst of His Church").  The symbolism and imagery in this last book of the Bible, as explained in Fr. Veras' book, is amazing!  There is such richness throughout this relatively small volume (only 130 pages long)!

The final chapter sums up Revelations:  the message is one of hope, hope and faith that Jesus will come again, but more importantly is that he is here with His Church ALL THE TIME and the faithful must rejoice in this fact. 

He who testifies to these things says,"Surely I am coming soon." Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.  Amen.  (Rev 22:20-21).

This is an amazing book by Fr. Richard Veras who is a pastor on Staten Island and has taught in parochial high schools.  He has a gift for ellucidating even the most cryptic of passages and applying each and every bit of the scripture to every day life.  I highly recommend this book for high schoolers and older, especially if you're like me, and have never read Revelations!

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This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Wisdom for Everyday Life From the Book of Revelations and other great books and resources.

Veras, Fr. Richard -- Wisdom for Everyday Life from the Book of Revelations.  Servant Books (Cincinnati, OH).  2009.  isbn: 978-0-86716-905-8.  paperback (pgs 130).

Review: "Bible Maps and Charts" is a must-have resource!

Are you studying Bible history? Are you studying the Old or New Testament? Are you doing Ancient and early Christian history? Have I got a supplement for you!

Nelson's Complete Book of Bible Maps and Charts is an amazing resource that is a must-have for anyone doing research or learning about the Biblical eras -- from the Old Testament on through the New Testament to the Epistles and Revelations.  This book is filled with great maps of the journeys of the Biblical figures as well as schematics of important buildings (for example, an approximation of Solomon's Temple footprint and a drawing of what it would have contained). In addition, there are charts of the story-lines, the principal characters, events and other important information for each book of the Bible.

One thing that is VERY cool is that Thomas Nelson publishers give reproducible copyrights to the owner of the book -- you can make up to 1000 copies of each map, chart, picture, etc as long as you aren't selling the copies or profiting from the content. And they thought of everything -- each map or chart is on it's own page for easy copying! There is also a link to online-sourcing for downloading pdfs of these pages; this makes it easy to include this information in powerpoint or other digital presentations.

Here's how Bible Maps and Charts approaches each book of the Bible:

• discussion of the traditional author (with any notes debating the authorship)
• approximates dates of time period covered
• themes and literary structure (including a chart outlining the text and an "at-a-glance" chart that explains topic, location and time-period)
• map(s) of the area discussed and any other charts of pertinent information

NOTE: for Catholics, this book will have differences from Church teaching in the book's interpretation of some of the scriptures as well as omitting various parts of the Bible. All quotes used in this book are from the New King James Version -- which is similar to, but not the same as, the Bible used by Catholics. BUT, don't let that dissuade you from using this book -- there is too much other good stuff in here.

I highly recommend this book for any student, teacher or class studying the Ancient times whether for History, Religion or Theology course-work. The only down-side to this book -- it's paperback-bound which means that we'll probably need to replace it at least once as I can see us refering to this book fairly frequently!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Review: Come and See: Wisdom -- Catholic Bible Study

How many books within the Bible are considered "wisdom books"?  Can you name the "wisdom books" of the Bible?  What is one distinguishing characteristic of all these books?

I couldn't name the seven wisdom books nor did I know that they are all written in poetic (as opposed to, prose) form. 

I so don't know my Bible!  That was one of the reasons I chose the book, Come and See: Wisdom -- Catholic Bible Study for review; I figured I'd be able to answer at least these three questions when I was done with the book.

Well, I can now do that and more!  The "wisdom books" are: 

1. Job
2. Psalms
3. Proverbs
4. Ecclesiastes
5. Song of Solomon
6. Wisdom 
7. Sirach. 

They are all written in a poetic form with lots of cool literary tools embedded (including the use of acrostic-poetry in their construction, similes and metaphors, and proverbs scattered throughout).  These are such deep scriptural books that phrases or whole verses are used throughout Western literature (Shakespeare uses scriptural references extensively and what we now consider trite cliches are actually direct quotes from the "wisdom books"!).

Fr. Liesen and Dr. Manhardt do a great job of explaining the many facets of these books:  the historical setting, the literary devices used throughout, the catechism embedded in the poetry, the Church writings and Magisterial teachings that these seven books have engendered.  Each of the 22 chapters are a different part of the scriptures -- a natural/literary coupling of the various chapters or verses of the individual books. 

It's amazing how much bang these wisdom books pack!

I liked how Liesen and Manhardt include directed-study questions at the conclusion of each chapter; questions that are objective and great review, that direct the reader to the important or key points of each section of the Biblical passages. 

As a homeschooling mom, I see this as a great high school Religion curriculum for 9th grade Scripture or as a 12th grade Theology elective.  The coverage in this guide includes

• history by setting each book in it's contemporary setting and explaining the Jewish vs the Christian understanding of the words;
• literature by defining the myriad of literary devices used throughout each of the Biblical books
• catechism by explaining Church teachings on what these scripture passages mean for a Catholic with Papal and Church Father quotations throughout the text
• apologetics by separating the Jewish from the Catholic from the Christian understandings and defending the Catholic interpretation of these sage writings

As a homeschool mom, I could easily use this guide to build an entire semester's worth of multi-disciplinary studies for a high school student.  Pretty cool, eh?  I like that this guide is fairly self-contained -- you could use it as a study-guide for a student, an adult or a small-group from a parish. 

I do have a couple of quibbles, though:

1. The introduction is very abrupt and reads clumsily; the intro gives an overview of how the books came to be in the Bible but it is a very technical, academic discussion.  Then all of a sudden the intro explains how to use the book ... the format was ... well, wierd.
2. The objective questions at the end of each section are great but the subjective questions (marked with an asterisk) are a bit hokey ... lots about "feelings" and "imagining" that seems forced and more politically correct than it needs to be.
3. At times the text is a bit pedantic and technical.  There is an assumption of prior knowledge that this particular cradle Catholic (who went to Catholic schools from K-undergrad) didn't quite "get"; I ended up having to do further research  a couple of times to understand what they were saying.

Overall, I think this is a great study guide for high school age and older; for individuals or for groups; for parish study or for home-study.  These books of the Old Testament need to be read and understood by all Catholics. 

This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Come and See - Wisdom - Catholic Bible Study.

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Liesen, Father Jan SSD and Manhardt, Maurie Watson (PhD)  Come and See: Wisdom -- Catholic Bible Study. Emmaus Road Publishing (Seubenville, OH) 2009; ISBN: 978-1-931018-55-5; paperback, 220 pages.