by David Plotz
Ezekiel’s bread: He bakes it from wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and farro, and lives on it for 430 days (Ezekiel 4). You can try it for yourself: Food for Life sells “Ezekiel 4:9” bread in yuppie markets everywhere.
Jacob’s pottage: Esau sells Jacob his birthright for a bowl of red lentil stew and some bread (Genesis 25).
Quail: Sick of manna, the Israelites demand some meat for a change. Their complaints infuriate God, who decides to give them so much meat it will make them sick. A huge flock of quail kamikaze outside the camp, and the Israelites start to gorge themselves on the meat. God strikes the greedy ones with a plague, and they die with the flesh “still between their teeth” (Numbers 11).
David’s cakes: When he brings the ark to Jerusalem, David gives all his subjects “a loaf of bread, a cake made in a pan, and a raisin cake” (2 Samuel 6).
Roasted grain and vinegar: Boaz and Ruth’s first meal together (Ruth 2).
Abigail’s fig cakes: When David threatens Abigail’s husband, she buys him off with 200 fig cakes, as well as bread, raisins, mutton, and parched corn (1 Samuel 25).
Lion’s honey: Samson kills a lion, and returns a year later to find bees swarming around the skeleton. He takes their honey and gives it as a present to his parents, but doesn’t tell them where it came from ( Judges 14).
Jael’s milk: The fleeing General Sisera asks for water. Jael gives him milk instead. Then she murders him ( Judges 5).
Acknowledgments
Good Book began as a project for Slate called “Blogging the Bible,” and my first and greatest thanks go to Blogging the Bible’s readers. When I started the blog in 2006, I found myself in the world’s best Bible study group. Readers by the thousands e-mailed me to correct my theology, crack jokes, tell personal stories, retranslate key passages, damn me to hell, and proselytize me. That lively, contentious conversation not only kept me going through the Bible’s dull portions—yes, I’m talking to you, Zephaniah and Micah!—but also made me appreciate and love the book more than I ever would have done on my own.
I’m not much of a God-thanker but thank God that I work at Slate, where I’m surrounded by the best colleagues imaginable. I’m particularly grateful to several of them. Jacob Weisberg encouraged me to do the blog, came up with the brilliant phrase “Blogging the Bible,” and gave me time off to write the book. Julia Turner (and her mom) gave me the book title. Julia and Emily Yoffe also read and critiqued the manuscript, a thankless job. Brad Flora and David Sessions helped me enormously with the Bible lists. Jack Shafer lent me an inspirational CD of the book of Leviticus. June Thomas encouraged me to tour biblical Israel and write about it for Slate. Emily Bazelon edited my first blog entries and greatly enriched them. Sian Gibby, the best Jew I know, challenged me to think more carefully about the Torah.
Thanks to Kelly Mason, Mark White, Aryeh Tepper, Avis Miller, Robert Alter, Mark Dever, and Jacques Berlinerblau for advice on how to read the Bible. Abby Pilgrim was a marvelous scriptural guide, and I’m grateful to her parents for playing Bible trivia with me. Ian Stern, David Ilan, and Leor Ilan gave me a great biblical tour of the Holy Land. And big Toda Rabas to Josh Block for inviting me to Israel to begin with, and to Amiram Goldblum for being my host while I was there.
Sarah Chalfant is my ideal of an agent: equal parts editor, psychologist, and negotiator. Tim Duggan at HarperCollins is not merely a superb reader and editor, but also a mensch (unfortunately, not a word found in the Bible). Copy editor Susan Gamer gave the manuscript a great read, correcting errors, improving logic, refining jokes.
My parents, Paul and Judith Plotz, didn’t give me a biblical education, and for that I am immensely grateful to them. Miriam and Eli Rosin are living proof that the Fifth Commandment should be amended to include in-laws. My daughter, Noa, asked me one hard question after another about the Bible, none more difficult than this: “Why are you writing the Bible again? There already is a Bible!” My son Jacob didn’t ask me any questions about the Bible, but his exuberant sweetness reminded me of why we’re commanded to go forth and multiply. And my son Gideon was born as I finished the book, allowing me to put my scripture reading to work by naming him after one of my new Bible heroes.
I must thank my wife, Hanna, for a boring reason: that she bought me a Bible and told me to write about it. And also for all the other reasons: like God at His best, she is wise, funny, just, loving, and merciful. But with Hanna, there’s no smiting.
About the Author
DAVID PLOTZ is the editor of Slate. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, The Washington Post, and GQ, and is the author of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank. He won the National Press Club’s Hume Award for political journalism and has been a National Magazine Award finalist. He lives with his wife, the journalist Hanna Rosin, and their children in Washington, D.C.
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Credits
Jacket photograph © Alloy Photography/Veer
Jacket design by Jarrod Taylor
Copyright
GOOD BOOK. Copyright © 2009 by David Plotz. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780061972881
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