Detective Stories from the Bible

Book excerpt: When we think of a detective story, we often think of murder mysteries. But the Bible contains some different kinds of detective stories. How is it, for instance, that some of the key personalities in the Bible story slip into the story almost unnoticed—like Judah, for example, an ancestor of King David and Jesus Christ. How did the symbolism of blood in Communion get started? When Cain was warned that the ground would no longer yield for him because he had killed his brother—did that set a precedent for connecting moral behavior with environmental harshness? These themes and many others are investigated in this study, accompanied by a discussion guide.