Whenever the heroes from the Bible are trotted out in Sunday school, people are quick to point out their flaws and failings, going straight to the moral of the story rather than paying attention to what the text actually says. In this short but adventurous book, Jordan shows that the Biblical narratives are about so much more than Sunday School lessons and that in fact the patriarchs are not held up for us as examples of failure or sin, but are rather are great moral exemplars.
In contrast to Adam, Cain, and other characters in the early pages of Genesis, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Judah were great heroes of the faith and by paying careful attention to the details of their lives, we can discover much more from the Bible than we often think.

Jordan has an eye for details and pursues these details within the context of scripture and culture of the people of the scripture. It is a difficult book for me to read because his understanding of a story is sometimes quite different from what I had learned. Yet his views reinforce the orthodox view of scripture. I do wish he would have given more bibibliographical support for what he was claming. However, he does support his views with other support from scripture. ( )