Books like A Light in the Window — picked by fans

First of all, I really love this book because it has a great title. But the content is just as good.

The Bible records that on the day of His resurrection, Jesus approached two disciples on their way to a town called Emmaus but prevented them from recognizing Him initially. So, it was Jesus who was the stranger on the road to Emmaus. Then, Jesus Himself explained to them how Moses and all the prophets were fulfilled in His own death, burial, and resurrection.

This book attempts to present what Jesus could have said to them on that day. It is recommended for anyone, regardless of their knowledge of the Bible.

I live in a Western culture. I’ve visited Israel twice and read through the Bible a few times. But what do I really know about the ancient Hebrew language and heritage? My knowledge is limited to what I’ve learned through researching rabbinic interpretations of the Tanakh, Legends of the Jews, Josephus, and other Jewish sacred texts.

The Jewish Study Bible gives me expert rabbinic commentary on every verse from a Jewish perspective! I finally understood Abraham’s and his descendants’ vital role in preserving God’s story—His story, history—from Creation to present.

A dear friend told me the Bible was a single Love Letter written to me—Genesis to Revelation—and I’d find Jesus was the Messiah in Genesis, not only in the New Testament. So I opened my Bible—the Love Letter—and found God waiting there. Every day, He’s waiting there to chat. 

Connilyn’s novels always tease every emotion for me. I also love how her books, though written in series, both stand alone yet build on the series before it to follow the chronological story of the Bible. The main or minor characters in each new series are somehow connected to the family we met in her first book (Counted With the Stars) from her first series (Out of Egypt).

Connilyn uses fictional characters to tell the Truth about major events in the Bible. This book sets the stage for Israel’s historical and political landscape during the reign of King Saul. The series title, The King’s Men, previews the novels’ subject matter—the soldiers who fight alongside Prince Jonathan and what a soldier’s life might have been like with a romance complication or two.

After reading this imaginative story, I never thought of Eve in the same way again. Havah is a stunning depiction of the first woman—one created, not born. Tosca Lee takes us on an original journey into the life, choices, and emotions of the first woman. It is a story of sin, but more than that, it is a story of creative love and the gift of free will. This story allows us to sympathize with Havah, and even ask ourselves what we might have done in her place. Enthralling and inspiring!

Francine Rivers has always been a master at writing biblical fiction.

As a teen my daughter read many of Rivers’s novels. But I never took the time to do so until another best-selling author recommended to me A Lineage of Grace. It is a collection of short stories, nearly the length of novellas, following five women in the lineage of Jesus Christ. 

The story that captured me most was Tamar’s. I had never thought about her viewpoint as a Canaanite, or why she went to the extreme measure she did, pretending to be a prostitute, to hold her father-in-law Judah to his promise and bare his children.

I love books that make me see something on a slant, from a different viewpoint. There are also Bible study questions at the end of each woman’s story.

Using state-of-the-art scholarship and his own vast erudition, Calasso reveals the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament)—the foundational text of Judaism and Christianity—in a whole new way.

You will time and again be shocked by this book, and swear that he must be making things up, that these wild tales can’t possibly be in the Bible… yet indeed, all of them are there. A revolutionary book on a revolutionary religion. 

When I started writing biblical historical fiction in the early 2000s, I found only one or two novels about Moses. Shadow Women was especially helpful because it spanned Moses’s whole life, which meant it also encompassed the biblical narrative from Exodus to Deuteronomy. It was like Cliff Notes for four Books of the Bible! As my writing friendships have expanded over the past two decades, I’ve come to know Angela Hunt personally and discovered that she holds a PhD in Biblical Studies, which gives me even more confidence in the historical and biblical accuracy of her many biblical novels. She continues to be one of my favorite authors. 

As a writer of fantasy fiction, I know the importance of asking the “what if” questions.

And, as a reader of the Bible, I often read scripture and wonder what life was really like for some of the people, what they felt like, or what drove them to do the things they did. That’s why I love a well-written biblical fiction novel, and Eden is the perfect book to feed my often-insatiable curiosity.

Brennan McPherson is the perfect fit for a job like this. His understanding of the Bible and the intricacies of human nature give him the ability to bring us a unique look into the lives of people like Adam and Eve.

Imagining the life of Adam and Eve was at the center of the story of my novel. More importantly, this story personalized Earth’s first couple and made me evaluate my relationship with God.    

As its title implies, this book is accessible to the entire family and would be a great resource for Sunday school teachers who want to provide their students with a larger understanding of the life and times of peoples in ancient Palestine and Rome. The book is broken down into easy-to-find categories such as "The Home," "Warfare," and "Travel and Communication," to name a few. There are stunning photographs on every page with detailed and clear explanations. The back of the book has timelines of the Bible and a map of Palestine in New Testament times with highlights of key events in the New Testament. There is also an alphabetical index that makes it easy to find information on specific topics.

I loved this book because it was such an easy read, but still somehow managed to really capture the whole story of the Bible.

The author also did something that was really unique. After the first chapter, he began to write a summary of the entire Bible. Then, at the end of every other chapter, he simply added to it. By the end, the reader is left with a very concise, but complete summary of the Bible. That was quite ingenious!

Recommended for anyone!