From Eden to Easter · 21 stories

The Bible

Shepherds, giants, queens and prophets. The stories behind half the phrases you know.

Phrases you’ll meet

Journey 1 · Before Abraham

Beginnings

A garden with one forbidden tree, the first murder, then a world gone violent and forty days of rain.

By the end of it, you can tell where forbidden fruit and “my brother’s keeper” come from, and why a dove with an olive branch still means peace.

Journey 2 · Middle Bronze Age

A tower that never reached the sky, a father told to give up his son, then twins who fight from the womb to the river Jabbok.

By the end of it, you can tell why three religions call Abraham their father, and how Jacob got the name Israel.

Journey 3 · Bronze Age

A dreamer sold by his brothers, then a runaway prince who faces Pharaoh.

By the end of it, you can tell how a family feud ended with a whole people walking out of Egypt.

Journey 4 · 1000 to 850 BC

A shepherd boy and a giant, a wise king and a temple of cedar, then a prophet who calls down fire on a queen’s gods.

By the end of it, you can tell how one stone ended forty days of taunts, why a wise judgment is still called Solomonic, and who Jezebel really was.

Journey 5 · 780 to 480 BC

A runaway prophet, a city under Assyrian siege, a den of lions and a queen with a dangerous secret.

By the end of it, you can tell what the writing on the wall said, and where “swords into plowshares” comes from.

Journey 6 · 6 BC to AD 30

A baby in a feeding trough, fishermen who leave their nets, stories about seeds and pearls, a woman at a well, and the road to Jerusalem.

By the end of it, you can tell where “no room at the inn”, “turn the other cheek”, “born again” and “cast the first stone” come from.

Journey 7 · Around AD 30

Palms on the road, a last supper, a Roman prefect washing his hands, and a tomb found empty.

By the end of it, you can tell what happened between Palm Sunday and Easter, who decided what, and why the Gospels tell it four ways.