REALLY BAD GIRLS OF THE BIBLE [Paperback]

This book focuses on a really interesting (and sometimes unusual) selection of biblical women - when was the last time you read some thing in detail about Athaliah or Jael? The style is easy to read and I like the way the author moves between the biblical story, modern day retelling and application. However I found the style a little too gentle to be really gripping - it was an easy book to dip in and out of. Maybe 3 and a half stars if half stars were allowed.

One of my "Life Changing" books is "Really Bad Girls of the Bible" by Liz Curtis Higgs.

This book is the second in this author's series of Bible studies all about adultery, murder, prostitution, disobedience, lying, cheating, messing with the occult and general Bad Girl behaviour - all of it instigated by (or blamed on) the women to whom this author gives a voice.

The reason I have chosen this as my Life Changing book is that it has helped me with reading the Bible, particularly Matthew's genealogy of Jesus Christ (Matthew Chapter1, Verses1-17).

Whenever we read Matthew's genealogy, there is always the temptation to skip through it - it is a list of 42 names in chronological order and most of these names are obscure. Other than the well known stories of Abraham, Isaac, David, Ruth and Joseph, who could say they knew who all these people are, and why they are on this list?

There are four women in Matthew's genealogy - three of them have featured in works by Liz Curtis Higgs. "Really Bad Girls..." is a collection of eight short stories/Bible studies. The author has written a modern day version of the Bible story, followed by an explanation of the Biblical version, i.e. the real story.

The characters in the book are: The Medium of En Dor; Athaliah; The Woman caught in Adultery; Tamar; Bathsheba; Herodias; Jael; and The Woman who was healed after 12 years' bleeding. Tamar and Bathsheba are both in Matthew's list and Athaliah features in Kings 2 - a segment of the names on the list are from the books of Kings and Chronicles, so it is interesting to "read around" this character.

You will notice that some of these characters are referred to in the Bible as "the Woman who..." - they are not actually named in Scripture. The author has given them names in her modernised versions. The updated versions are very cleverly done, e.g. Bathsheba is transformed into a baseball version of a WAG; Tamar waits for Judah in a Nevada casino; and Athaliah is a CEO in a big company.

I think that these are good examples of short story writing, whether or not you know the Bible story. (The characters are a lot more realistic than some of the "cardboard" types you find in some modern Christian fiction!) If you are not familiar with the Bible, this might be a good place to start. The author says she has modernised the stories to help us realise that the issues are still relevant. She has also done a lot of historical research, so there are a few interesting facts to be gleaned!

Liz Curtis Higgs also isn't averse to adding details (some of them surprising!) about her own life to illustrate a point. Obviously, the author is writing from a Christian perspective, but more of her stories are from the Old Testament than the New, so readers of other Faiths could maybe also read and enjoy this book. It would also be of interest to Higher English students. I would recommend this book for 16+ readers, as some of the issues covered aren't for younger readers (and yes, this is all taken from the boring old Bible!).

In case you are wondering what happened to Rahab and Ruth from Matthew's list - Ruth is a "Good Girl" (so the author hasn't written about her - for now, anyway) and Rahab's story is in "The Bad Girls of the Bible", the first book in this series. There is also "Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible" and there is another about Mary Magdalene.

Thanks to this author, I can read Mathew Chapter 1 and say "Oh yes, so and so" rather than "Who?"