Batholomew's Passage

We really enjoyed reading this for Advent. We had just completed a homeschool study of ancient Rome so it was the perfect segue. Until now I didn't fully grasp that Israel was ruled by Rome at the time of the birth of Jesus. I'm surprised that there weren't more reviews complaining about the content. I'm fine with it because we study a lot of history, but I think some families might find it disturbing. For example, the boy is taken into slavery and when he accidentally spills something he is ordered to have his hands cut off and he only narrowly escapes. My kids age 11 and 6 tolerated the suspense just fine and didn't seem to be bothered by it. Some of the devotional sections at the end of each chapter were a little annoying, like I just wanted the story to speak for itself, but other times they brought up some really good food for thought.

Wonderful stories for every age, adventure and biblical truth. I have an 11 and 14 year old and we read these aloud during Christmas and Advent. The characters are related through time so you really become invested. Wonderful creative author.

My children absolutely love these series. They beg all day to read the next days chapter and often want to read ahead. These stories are very entertaining and always have a good lesson to learn. Good for all ages. My 18 year old down to my 1 year old all love our nightly reads of these series before Christmas. It’s one of our best traditions! Parts of the story literally gave me goosebumps and made me tear up! The author ties in characters from bible times and true events into the story.Love love love!!

This was my favorite or Ytreeide’s books! So much adventure and heart-stopping moments. I highly recommend for advent for the whole family!

Ytreeide is a very talented storyteller who weaves compelling stories in with the narrative of the account of Jesus' birth from the Bible. We love how each of the 4 books in this series intertwines with each other.

We have really enjoyed the story parts of this book, which are exciting and well written. However, we were disturbed and saddened to find this explanation of God at the end of one of the chapters. I'll let the text speak for itself (hang on until the end):"We’ll never know how many times God has stepped in to protect us, or guide us, or prevent some evil. But sometimes He can’t. It seems kind of strange, but it’s His great love for us that sometimes prevents Him from helping us. He has given us free will, to do as we please. We are not slaves to Him, He doesn’t force us to follow His rules. He only offers us the joy of an abundant life if we do, and then He allows us to make our own choice.But the price of that freedom is that He has no control over some of the storms and tragedies we face."Is this really true of the God of the Bible that we worship, the God that we celebrate this advent & Christmas season, that He has no control over some of the trials we face?No, that is not the God of the Bible! Psalm 139 states, "Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether (v.4)" & "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them (v.16)". There are so many examples I could give here, but this is a book review, not a theology debate :) The point is, the story is great, but the theology about that God they are seeking to point us to is terrible! Read the explanations at the end of the chapters with caution.

I read this book aloud to three of my kids (ages 8, 7, 4) and we all loved it! It was very exciting and made us understand how the Romans and Jews and the different classes of people interacted at Jesus' time. We also learned about how some of the Jewish scholars interpreted the prophecies in different ways, and how difficult travel was. This book would be interesting to both boys and girls. It's a fun way to make history come alive!

We really appreciate Arnold Ytreeide's storytelling in this book.He seamlessly weaves the facts we know from Scripture with some Traditonal ideas & his fictional imaginings to tell an engaging tale of how the coming of Messiah Jesus could have interacted with several compelling families and Individuals, the most prominent of which is the young lad, Bartholomew, and his Mentor / Adopted father, Nathan.The book chapters are set in episode format, following the Advent season, as they days count down to Christmas Eve. Our kids ages 11 to 21 would look forward to each nights chapter & application, most of the time a relevant Scripture verse.This book was preceeded by Jotham's Journey and we obtained it after having that volume and having used it for several Advent seasons. I now note that there are other's like Istar's Odyssey & Tabitha's Travels.We now have another year to obtain those books for upcoming Advent seasons !Keep up the great work, Arnold !

We have used Jotham's Journey and Tabatha's Travels in previous years as our Advent story but fancied a change this year. This one is every bit as good as the others. There are a few "scary" bits when our heros are in danger but it all ends up happy in the end at the stable as you know it's going to!I bought the kindle version of this book and it's fine, I know some children's books are a bit lacking on an ordinary kindle (not a Fire) but with all the illustrations being line drawings this was not an issue.

My kids 8 to 15 loved it, and the adults, it is such a captivating story. They were thrilled when they recognised characters from the previous book.

It is a great addition to the other books in the series. Plenty of suspense, humour and good life lessons.

These are interesting stories and I love the idea of making daily life in the time of Jesus real for kids. However, much as I would like to, I cannot read this to my own kids. The author himself acknowledges in a note to parents at the beginning of the book that the story includes elements of the real world such as greed, cruelty, and death. He justifies including these by saying that Jesus coming as the light of the world does not cover up the darkness, and that most children over age seven have already experienced worse violence in movies, tv, and cartoons. I'm sure this book is wonderful for those kids. There are exciting events, engaging characters, and intense cliffhangers at the end of each chapter. However, if your kids have not been exposed to the typical media violence, then they will find this book too much to handle. If Disney movies are too much for your kids, this book will be as well.

Our boys loved Jotham's Journey by same author. We read Bartholomew this year for a change. It was very good, but I think nothing compared to the original. Character overlap (and not just baby Jesus haha). But I understand why the author did this.4 stars because we liked Jothams Journey best but this is this is great addition to a home library!