05/02/2023 – A new book review fellowship!: “The Source” by James Michener // Join us!
We will bring the Bible and our faith into this book! And the Bible is already in the book, you will note in the acknowledgments up front, the translations of Psalm 6 and Proverbs 31 are on page 321 and 418-419, respectively. I read this book around 25 years ago; it is time to read it once again and be amazed once again. If you haven’t heard of this book before, the link below to Kirkus reviews is a concise summary:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/james-a-michener/the-source/
Here is the book, with reviews on Amazon:
The beauty of this blog fellowship, is we can all connect up, even though we read this 1000+ page book at different paces. For organization, I suggest we post by chapters, listed below based on the different levels of archaeological discovery of this fictional tell: Makor. Subsequent fellowship from the original post can be accomplished by just adding comments to the original post. That way, if I am reading this years from now, and say I am fascinated with Level IX – “King of the Jews”, I can review all the posts to that point on a single posting. I have already set up a new category for just this book. So, we can filter on the category and get immediate results for a full history to that point of all postings on the book.
The Source by Michener
Chapter – ending pg. # / Yrs. Span
-The Tell – 77
-Level XV – The Bee Eater – 113 / Artifacts: 9831 – 9811 B.C.E.
-Level XIV – Of Death and Life – 165 -/Artifacts: 2204 – 2202 B.C.E…
-Level XIII – An Old Man and His God – 235 -/ Artifacts: 1427 – 1419 B.C.E
-Level XII – Psalm of the Hoopoe Bird – 326 / Artifacts: 966-963 B.C.E.
-Level XI – The Voice of Gomer – 369 – / Artifacts : 684- 605 B.C.E.
-Level X – In the Gymnasium – 418 / Artifacts: 184 – 167 B.C.E.
-Level IX – King of the Jews – 445 / Artifacts: 4 – 20 B.C.E.
-Level VIII – Yoga and His Three Generals – 500 / Artifacts: 67 – 74 C.E.
-Level VII – The Law – 594 /335 – 352 C.E.
-Level VI – A Day in the Life of a Desert Rider – 636 / Artifacts: 644 – 1099 C.E.
-Level V – Volkmar – 693 / Artifacts: 1124 C.E.
-Level IV – The first of Ma Coeur – 752 / Artifacts: 1271 – 1291 C.E.
-Level III – The Saintly Men of Saved – 861 / Artifacts: 1240 – 1559 C.E.
-Level II – Twilight of an Empire – 919 / Artifacts: 1004 – 1880 C.E.
-Level I – Rebbe Itzik and the Sabra – 1007 / Artifacts: 1943 – 1948 C.E.
-The Tell – 1080
Let’s get started! Soli Deo Gloria!; always connected through prayer and by His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Jimmy
3 comments on “05/02/2023 – A new book review fellowship!: “The Source” by James Michener // Join us!”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
LennyK
Great book. Can’t put it down. Have read 300 + pages the first week. I think I might just push on and then do a second reading slowly, taking the time to stop and do research.
admin
I’m with ya Lenny! I’m only to page #165, end of the Chapter “Of Death and Life”, but the meta story of life seems to jump out constantly: Who is God?; Who is Man?; and, “What is our relationship to God? And it is a reminder from when I read the book so many years ago that no matter where we are in history, the answer to those questions don’t change.
It’s a pretty day outside. I think if we were neighbors, I could picture us pulling up some lawn chairs on the patio, and losing track of time to the point that the urgency of Saturday projects would be totally lost. Oh well – haha
admin
And I am thinking on my posts I will start out anyway by putting questions that I have up top in summary form, followed by
research notes, typically website links. You might want to defer the notes through your 1st reading. The notes and the participants are evergreen, not necesarily in the present.
Michener is classified as a novelist, a fiction writer, but I suspect more often than we suspect, he is a better historian than the acclaimed history writers, particularly if they are recent, not classical. From memory, You will be noticing historical characters and quotes pop up. I’m already finding numerous historical connections to archaeological references in the first introductory “The Tell” chapter. So, I like your plan in that: 1) elaboration of the research notes and, 2) a setting of priorities can come later after getting say a 10,000 foot view of the entire panorama. My 10,000 foot view of a couple+ decades ago is too hazy right now.
Ya just never know… It occurred to me that my grandson Will could be going over our joint research notes someday in his 2nd reading. It is a nice thought for me, as it pulls me away from “we must be nearing end times”. And I think that syncs up with God’s will for us. I’m thinking when Jesus told his disciples, who were trying to get the little children away from Him: “Unless you are like these little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (I don’t think I have the verse nailed so I’m calling it a paraphrase)
Always connected by His grace and through prayer!
Jimmy