The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels Book

First, I think Cahill writes like no other. His sentences are clean and lucid and his prose simply makes you want to keep reading. This book is about the origins of the people of Israel, but it is not a dry, boring, wake-me-when-it's-over kind of book. Cahill had me hooked from the first page through his wonderful insights into the Bible as story. If you're on the more "conservative side: you might be alarmed at his view of the origins of Scripture, but since I try not to choose "sides" I'll go ahead and say that what Cahill says makes more sense than any other. Cahill offers no defense of "traditional" evangelical interpretation (i.e., "inerrancy") and for that I was thankful since that subject is fraught with plenty of pitfalls and shibboleths. Cahill simply walks through how the canonical Hebrew Scriptures were formulated and how they "worked" in every day life for the Jewish (and later Christian)communities. More importantly, he deftly shows how many of the "rights" and "freedoms" we take for granted today came directly from a little bunch of desert nomads. Wonderful reading and sure to stimulate a craving for more Biblical knowledge and how the canon is supposed to change our lives and our cultures!