Author of seven books Bruce Feiler says that he is different from most people who speak and write about religion.
“I didn’t know anything about religion before I started this project,” said Feiler of his three books about the lands and people of the Bible. He was in Milwaukee on Monday, Nov. 14, to talk about his most recent book, “Where God was Born: A Journey by Land to the Roots of Religion” (William Morrow, hardcover, $26.95).
“I am not an authority. My work is subjective and personal and, like the people in the pews or in the pickup trucks, I have doubts,” he said in an interview with The Chronicle. In the evening he spoke at Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop in Mequon.
But through travel and study in “five countries, four war zones and two continents,” Feiler has forged his beliefs through his “own internal struggle on the page.”
And though religion was not a hot topic when he conceived the idea for the first of this trio of books on the Bible in 1997, Feiler noted that that situation has shifted dramatically.
In addition, in this time, “we no longer accept what our politicians, journalists or parents say. We are in a time when we make up our own minds about our beliefs,” Feiler said.
In spite of challenges, this leads us to be more engaged in our faith, he said.
Feiler sees himself both as an example and a beneficiary of this process, he said.
“People read my work and then start re-instituting their beliefs.” They form study and discussion groups and become energized to learn and think about religion in their lives, he said.
‘ Join this country’
Feiler, 41, is the fifth generation of his family to grow up in Savannah, Ga. His parents were active in the Jewish community there but their Judaism was “more about community and service and not so much about spirituality or Zionism,” Feiler said.
After traveling to 50 countries in 10 years during his 20’s, following his graduation from Yale University, Feiler realized that he wanted to become more conversant in the Bible.
“So I took it off of my shelf and put it next to my bed, where it sat for two years. It is virtually unreadable without an access point,” he said.
Feiler, a National Public Radio commentator who has a history of learning by traveling, conceived the idea of learning about the Bible by connecting with its places when he visited a high school friend who had made aliyah to Israel.
There, standing on a promenade overlooking Jerusalem, his friend pointed out various places visible below. “And over there is the rock where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac” she said. It was then that he had an “aha moment.”
Amazed to discover that places referred to in the Bible actually existed, the idea struck him that he wanted to “join this country” like he had joined the other places he had written about, he said.
In spite of protests by family and friends, Feiler connected with archeologist Avner Goren and pursued the idea, which led to the publication of “Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses” and “Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths.”
Thus he began his travels to the heart of the Middle East in pursuit of the roots of religion.
Last year, Feiler retraced his first journey through Turkey, Israel and Palestinian territories, Egypt and Jordan with a documentary film crew. The result was a photographic version of “Walking the Bible” and a PBS television series, which will premiere in January 2006.
In “Where God Was Born,” Feiler poses the question: “Is religion tearing us apart, or can it help bring us together?”
And his answer, that it can bring us together if we search for our commonalities, is based on his realization that at the birth of Western religion, all faiths drew from one another and were open to coexistence.
The Bible argues for interfaith harmony, he believes, and he sees great potential for understanding and peace in an appreciation of the common roots shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims.
He not only wants moderate people to be engaged with the Bible and not cede it to the extremists, he wants them to work toward mutual understanding through interfaith dialogue.
Though he is not personally involved in an interfaith marriage, “interfaith marriage is an interesting vanguard for interfaith dialogue,” he said.
It’s time, he said, “to get over what our mamas told us about how we shouldn’t discuss politics or religion. We have to talk about these things,” in order to build understanding.
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