READERSVOICE.COM aims to give a few samples from interesting secondhand books. The best chance of finding books like these is to visit charity stores. You mightn’t even find them there. But there are a wide range of books donated by the public to thrift shops and opshops. There are some real gems to be found there, too. Not to mention the fact that they’re dirt cheap.

This issue features a 1953 copy of Egermeier’s Bible Story Book, by Elsie E. Egermeier (1890-1986). It was published by The Warner Press of Anderson, Indiana. It was first published in 1923 and revised in 1947.

The book features 142 stories from the Old testament and 91 from the New testament. The author was a Sunday School teacher and she would read the stories to children to test whether they understood and enjoyed the stories. The stories are just as interesting for adults. The book explains who the people were in the stories, the cities and towns where the stories took place and why they occurred there. An ideal introduction and companion to The Bible itself.

Here is a sample from the story “The Temptations of Jesus”:

After the baptism at the Jordan River [of Jesus], when God’s voice spoke from Heaven and said, “This is my beloved Son,” Jesus was led by the Spirit of God into the lonely wilderness. There he lived by himself for forty days, among the wild beasts. But God did not allow any harm to come to him.

And Satan, the tempter, found Jesus all alone in the wilderness. So he tempted him there. First in one way and then in another he tried to get Jesus to listen to his cunning plans and open his heart to let sin enter, just as Adam and Eve had done. But Jesus would not listen.

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