Dear Reader in search of a deeper engagement with God’s Word and some flesh on the Bible’s bare bones,
Welcome to Mostly About Midrash.
It’s a joy to meet you.
I am Bobbie Ann Cole and, like you, I am seeking more connection, wisdom, discernment.
Being crazy about story, I love midrash, which is from the Hebrew mi drash, ‘from exposition’.
Rabbis have been expounding midrash for millennia, noting down their ideas of how to fill in the Bible’s blanks. The 5-volume set is available through Amazon.
Then there are authors like me who have been writing midrash, basing our stories on those in the Bible.
My Books
My coming to faith story is a midrash on the Book of Ruth. Like her, I was called to faith in the Land (of Israel) and led to meet and marry my Boaz, (a Canadian, aka Butch). I wrote about this in my first memoir, She Does Not Fear the Snow, a title taken from the Proverbs 31 Woman, whose price is far above rubies and a bit of a fib, really, because I most certainly did fear the Canadian snow, coming as I do from England.
This memoir became an Amazon #1 bestseller and was shortlisted for the Munce Prize, 2012.
Then came Love Triangles, Discovering Jesus the Jew in Today’s Israel, which charts the joys and challenges of living in Israel as a believing Jew. This book brings to life midrashically some of the Bible’s most vivid stories as Butch and I encountered them, in situ. It was also an Amazon #1 bestseller.
A novel followedꟷ a midrash on the story of Solomon who chooses between two women claiming the same baby. Being Lena Levi is set in 1950 England and the newly formed State of Israel, where my heroine’s unsuspected birth mother, a Holocaust survivor, now lives on a kibbutz.
This book was shortlisted for the Eyelands Book Award 2019.
Presently, I am getting to grips with the real Mary, mother of Jesus. I see her as gutsy and courageous, rather than bland and simpering as she is often depicted. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever written.
But I am persevering.
What’s in it for you here?
In this blog/vlog, I shall be writing midrashꟷ offering my Jewish slant and perspective on some Bible storiesꟷ as well as features on festivals, Christian and Jewish.
I shall interview other writers writing midrashically and influencers whose slant on the Bible is that it’s a Jewish book.
Next time, 23rd September, I shall be interviewing the lovely and talented Natasha Woodcraft on her recently-published book, The Wanderer Scorned, a fable-style midrash on the story of Cain and Abel.
If you would like to be involved, do get in touch.