4 out of 4 stars
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Who Told You That You Were Naked? A Refreshing Reexamination of the Garden of Eden is a thought-provoking analysis of the nature of sin by Reverend William E. Combs. In this book, Reverend Combs takes the reader back to the Garden of Eden to dissect how sin came into the world, and how faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to combat this "enemy crouching at the door."
To begin, I'll risk stating the obvious fact that this is a nonfiction Christian book. I would only recommend this book to Christians, or at least those who have studied the Bible. The content focuses heavily upon the Book of Genesis (again, I'm stating the obvious), but also draws quite a bit from Paul's epistles and other portions of Scripture.
One of the main points of this book is that Christians need to reexamine the popular notion of sin, which is typically perceived as a laundry list of misdeeds that can be overcome by simply committing them less often. Reverend Combs shatters this misconception (and a few others) by using specific examples from the Bible to back up his points. Additionally, he provides detailed fictional accounts of what life may have been like for Adam, Eve, and others that help the reader understand them on a more personal level. Christians with a more orthodox viewpoint might balk at these stories, but I personally found them to be helpful and enjoyable.
The ending of each chapter contains a list of questions that recap the main points. In addition to reinforcing the information, these questions could also be great discussion starters, making this book an excellent choice for a group Bible study.
I also enjoyed reading the many personal testimonies that Reverend Combs provided as practical examples of Scripture. Some of them painted beautiful scenes in my head (Reverend Combs grew up in Alaska), while others were downright frightening, but all of them were relevant to the specific points that they emphasized.
The writing within this book is quite good, and free of major errors. However, the font changed several times throughout the book, which I did find a little strange. I only have one true criticism of this book, however, and it is a little difficult to explain. Several times, Reverend Combs provides insight that doesn't have a specific Biblical backing. I cannot give examples without including spoilers, but I can best describe these insights as educated guesses. They are logical and they do not contradict the Bible, but there isn't any solid evidence to back them up, either. Of course, I do realize that Reverend Combs is far more knowledgeable of the Bible that I am, so perhaps this perception is due to my own lack of expertise.
I found the content of Who Told You That You Were Naked? to be both interesting and insightful, and I award it 4 out of 4 stars. This is an excellent book for the Christian reader who wishes to study the Book of Genesis in more detail.
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Who Told You That You Were Naked?
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