The Book of Creation, Pierre-Marie Beaude

The Book of Creation, Pierre Marie Beaude

I picked up this book second hand, and what attracted me to it were the lovely watercolor illustrations by Georges LeMoine. They portray the look of the hot, dry Middle Eastern desert, and more colorful aspects of creation, but are really quite lovely in their simplicity.

The story itself, although based on the Genesis story of creation, has a bit of artistic and poetic license. It isn't a book necessarily for teaching your child the actual Genesis story of creation, but is still lovely to look at and read. 

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A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson

I have been a big fan of Bill Bryson's for years. I really enjoy his style, and he makes pretty much everything he writes about interesting. 

This book, however, I had some issue with. Yes--it was interesting and he did a great job writing it. My issue is with the blind acceptance and treating as fact some of the popular theories, such as the big bang theory, evolution (one kind of creature turning into a completely different kind), that all dinosaurs died from a meteor hitting the earth etc. 

Yes, I believe in creation by intelligent design and it makes more sense than blindly accepting that nothing magically exploded and created the building blocks of everything which magically and randomly came together into the exact proportions of elements etc to create and sustain life. I just can't get past the blind acceptance of that.

Whether you are an evolutionist or not, though, I think this is a good read. If you don't believe in the theories in this book, it still gives the explanation of how they came to be accepted and what they all entail. I think it's important to know the history of the ideas. And for all the other stuff in the book, it is quite fascinating and put in a way that the lay man can grasp and enjoy, even.

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The Gospel of John, Holman Christian Standard Bible

 

The Gospel of John, Chapter 1

Written by John the Revelator, one of Christ's disciples, this book has a different writing style and perspective than the other three Gospels. There are plenty of studies out there on the significance of each Gospel. I am just going to talk today about the first chapter.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This first part of the chapter is about Jesus, of course. It testifies to the fact that Jesus is eternal, that Jesus is God but also with God (Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are the same yet separate), that Jesus was part of the act of Creation, and that life and light have always been in Him and part of Him.

Verse 12 is powerful: But to all who receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God. 

This is a powerful chapter, and a powerful book testifying to the life of Jesus. There is so much in here, definitely worth a deeper study.

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Old Stories of the East, James Baldwin

Old Stories of the East, James Baldwin, 1895, American Book Company

This beautiful antique book has been in my family for many years. I don't know where it came from but it is one that I remember seeing in a bookshelf in my home when I was a child. I have read this one twice, once years ago, and I just re-read it this year. 

It is a re-telling of stories from the Old Testament, geared toward children, with simpler writing and edited stories with a lot of gory details omitted.

This book was written by James Baldwin. I found some information on him from  this website, https://www.mainlesson.com/authors/baldwin.shtml . Here is an exerpt from The Baldwin Project website: 

(1841 - 1925)

According to his biography in the Junior Book of Authors (1951), Baldwin, a native of Indiana and largely self-educated, began teaching at the age of 24. After several years he became superintendent of the graded schools in Indiana, a post he held for 18 years. The last 37 years of his life he worked with publishers, first with Harper and Brothers and later with the American Book Company. In addition to editing school books, he started writing books of his own. After the publication in 1882 of The Story of Siegfried, he went on to write more than 50 others. His influence was widely felt because at one time it was estimated that of all the school books in use in the United States, over half had been written or edited by him. Unfortunately, his works are much less widely known today. So far as I know, none of his books are in print today.

I found the language in this book much more formal than what we use today. It's interesting how language changes, even through it is the same words we use today, it has a different feel to it. 

I can't forget the illustrations fount inside, by E. B. Edwards and lithographed plates but I can't make out the artist on them. Here is an example, showing Noah building the Ark. You just don't find illustrations like this anymore:

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