A Not-So-Silent Night

A Not-So-Silent Night: the Unheard Story of Christmas and Why It Matters

by Verlyn D. Verbrugge, 2009 (98 pages)

I won this book through Goodreads's "First Reads" program. As the title implies, the author goes through the Biblical telling of the Christmas story, but he goes into further detail. He uses cultural, Biblical, and linguistic research to explain elements of the story that most of us never think about.

Many of the things that the author points out are things that I had heard before (like the fact that the "Wise Men" came a few years after the birth; that "the manger" probably wasn't some sweet, sanitary place like all the nativity scenes make it out to be). However, he did bring up a few things that I had never heard before. For example, based on other stories in the Bible, the town of Bethlehem probably wasn't very sweet or "still" like the song implies, but rather had a pretty tough reputation.

I like the fact that the book was a very quick read, and even though it was research-based, it read more like a narrative. There were a few places where I'm not sure I agree with the point that the author made (as it seems to contradict some things I've heard before), but I thought that the majority of the author's points were interesting.

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Total number of books read in 2009: 42

Total number of pages read in 2009: 14858