Chapter Two Research Notes

“It wasn’t much of a crown, but it was the only one he had, taken from the bounty of his first defeat of the Ammonites, back in the days when He was happy. If He had let Saul keep the bounty from King Agag, he wouldn’t be stuck with Nahash’s battle back-up; he’d have the most impressive solid gold, […]

Chapter One Research Notes

I’ve been sharing research images for The Giant Slayer on Facebook (and gathering them on Pinterest) to help curious and studious readers get even more accurate in their imaginings about life 3,000 years ago. This post collects all my notes about Chapter One: Bethlehem. Late summer, 1028bce in one handy location. David carried himself as stiff and straight as a dried stalk […]

Plausibility is the name of the game

One of the major difficulties in writing an imaginatively expanded version of the story of David from the Bible (and trying to still keep it biblical) is the utter lack of precision in the source materials when it came to time. When did all this stuff happen? Not having the exact dates is fine for […]

The Giant Slayer is available for purchase

This all started over 3,000 years ago, when the story of David and Saul took place–Saul was born around 1076BCE, and David around 1040BCE. But this particular retelling started in 2011, when I reached the story of David in 1 Samuel in my read-the-Bible-all-the-way-through project. I was engrossed by what I was reading and regularly […]

But I’ve never been there

Please pronounce the been in the title with verve and so it rhymes with seen. This is so it will take part in an event that I didn’t witness, but have heard about enough times that I might as well have. A Canadian friend was in a play at his U.S. college in which he had to utter […]

Cloaks and slings and the siren song of authenticity

Or, the pleasures and perils of writing about three thousand years ago. As the publication date for The Giant Slayer gets closer and closer, I’ve been taking care of what seem like thousands of details. Besides all the super-fussy stuff like registering ISBNs, I’ve written a glossary and a discussion guide, and started a Facebook author page (insert craven […]

Loving the Villain?

According to this great TED talk by Andrew Stanton (of Toy Story and WALL-E fame), Mr. Rogers carried this quote around in his wallet: “There isn’t anyone you couldn’t learn to love, once you’ve heard they story.” In the last twenty years, readers have definitely grown to love all kinds of characters who’ve traditionally been villains: vampires, […]

Practice, Practice, Practice

I’m going to say this straight out, rather than ease you and me into it, and possibly lose some of you in the process: I believe that God communicated with me with words. It was last fall, just as I was realizing that all the work I’d put into the David and Saul story was […]

Why I Do What I Do

“What I do” is turn the power of my imagination, my knowledge of story, and my historical research onto biblical stories in the hopes of developing a better and deeper understanding of who God is and what God wants of me by way of what God wanted of his followers in the Bible, and to […]