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In The Burning Word: A Christian Encounter With Jewish Midrash, teacher, poet, wife and mother Judith M. Kunst takes her readers on a wonderful journey toward God as she affords them the opportunity to view the Hebrew and Christian scriptures through Jewish eyes. She also shares the intricacies of her life as she enters into dialogue with a God who is found more in questions than in answers.

For the Christian believer who has been exposed to years of religious education, Sunday school lessons and Bible studies, this book opens a new door of the Jewish practice known as midrash. It peeks in and gives a taste of this ancient yet fresh way of encountering God in the scriptures. It leaves the reader yearning for more and desiring to find a "hevruta," a study partner, with whom to turn over the word of God.

The author's initial encounter with Jewish midrash began when one of her writing teachers posed the question, "You are reading the Hebrew Bible – but are you reading it with Hebrew eyes?" Kunst, who has a deep love for the subtle power of the word, began to delve into how language can also shape our experience of God.

Kunst's search to understand the Jewish traditions that laid the groundwork for Christianity led her to the scriptures. She yearned to see God through Jewish eyes, which meant experiencing God by midrash, a Hebrew word meaning "to search out." She turned to this long tradition of "wrestling with the text" in order to dig deep within each word where God himself can be found.

This practice is similar to the Christian tradition of "lectio divina," or divine reading, with a few slight differences. In "lectio divina," one meditates on the word of God in order to let it resonate within the soul and then precipitate an inward transformation. In midrash, one expresses intimacy with God not so much in quiet reflection but in active questioning, "turning the word over and over" in order to spur growth and explore new possibilities.

This questioning of God and mulling over of the sacred texts is anything but rude in the Jewish tradition. Rather, the Jewish people see it as a statement of intimacy with the Creator. As Kunst says, "Midrash values the question, and the sacred language that gives rise to it, as ground for meeting with God."

Throughout The Burning Word, Kunst provides practical and convenient suggestions for implementing midrash with both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.

This book is an excellent tool for anyone actively engaged in scripture or who has a poet's heart and loves language. I found the use of personal vignettes an excellent way in which to mirror the word of God in everyday life.

Meanwhile, in Where God Was Born: A Journey by Land to the Roots of Religion, Bruce Feiler takes his readers on a rugged and dangerous journey through the modern biblical and political landscape of the Middle East where so much of the story of God and man plays itself out. Feiler breathes new life into the sacred texts, and the layperson and scholar alike will appreciate the opportunities for dialogue it offers within the Jewish, Christian or Muslim communities.

"One overriding challenge of my journeys across the Middle East," Feiler writes, "was trying to remove the stories of the Bible from the gilt-edged pages that sometimes ossify them today."

The approach the author takes in this enterprise is refreshing as he liberates God from the ancient stones and artifacts. His archaeological knowledge and descriptions of the biblical sites in modern Israel, Iraq and Iran allow the reader to ponder some of the notions about religious people in the ancient world and how they lived with one another. The theological reflections he offered are thoughtful and insightful.

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Wright teaches at Assumption College for Sisters in Medham, N.J., and Union Catholic High School in Scotch Plains, N.J., and is the author of Silent Witnesses in the Gospels (Charis/Servant Publishing).