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Francine Rivers� Unveiled is a Biblical fiction narrative of part of the story of Tamar (and Judah) from the book of Genesis. Rivers uses historical and biblical research to try to explain the events accounted in Scripture from Tamar’s perspective.

The powerful light of this narrative is in the original Biblical text, Rivers has done a service to the reader in drawing us to the fire. Rivers captures the tension produced by Judah’s sinfulness, passivity and troubles of his sojourn away from the tents of his father Jacob. She also positions the story in context, after Joseph is sold into slavery (Genesis 37) and before the famine that brings Joseph’s brothers to Egypt (Genesis 42). It is important to note that the entire novella is limited to the events of Genesis 38 and that Joseph’s timeline (Genesis 39-41) is taking place simultaneously over the approximately 25 years covered in Judah’s Genesis 38 interlude. Additional context is provided into societally defined roles, marriage contracts, and expectations of marriage relationships. Rivers does a good job of articulating the injustice done to Tamar by Judah and his family, as well as how it was that Judah comes to declare of the Canaanite Tamar “she was more righteous than I� (Genesis 38:26). She also provides an explanation for how it could have happened that Tamar became a follower of the God of Israel, and was grafted into the line of Israelite Kings, and of Jesus Himself, after her faithfulness in building Judah’s house. This is a tricky matter, because Genesis 38 makes it clear that Judah’s Canaanite family is not kind to Tamar, yet she chose to follow Judah’s God and not her own local deities.

The weakness of Unveiled is it’s brevity, and I wonder if that carries through the entire series? At 64 pages, covering over 20 years of timeline, the work is series of backgrounds upon which events play out via flannel graph characters. Maybe this was done to respect the Biblical account? I wish Rivers had expanded her view beyond Genesis 38 to include Judah’s travels to and from Egypt which lead to the reconciliation of Joseph with his family (Genesis 42-45). I would also have liked additional insight into Shelah, Perez (and his two sons) and Zarah’s presence among the tribe of Judah, as a members of Jacob’s family that went down to Egypt (Genesis 46), and why Tamar isn’t mentioned, though she may have been counted among the wives (Genesis 46:26). Finally, I would have liked Tamar’s perspective on Jacob’s death, blessing of his sons (Genesis 49), and her probable passing in Egypt far from her homeland. True, a fully developed novel accounting Tamar’s life would have lead to more speculation about the characters and events. But as neither Tamar nor Judah’s life ended in Genesis 38, it would also have lead to more understanding of the times and facts of the Biblical narrative.

Unveiled: The Story of Tamar is the first novella in the Lineage of Grace Biblical fiction series, which covers five women in the line of Christ. The narrative is followed by approximately 40 pages of Bible study and discussion entitled “Seek and Find� that could be shared with a group. With notes for 6 separate discussions, for the entire work to clock in around 100 pages, the presentation seems awkwardly short on reading (which one would presume to be done throughout a week) and long on discussion (which one would assume to be for single meeting). If completed in the presumptive format, members would take part in a 6-week discussion of a 64 page novella. This is not to say that the Bible Study and discussion are not well done. After finishing the novella, I wanted to ruminate on the Biblical passages, and the Bible Study includes them. The discussion questions seem like good conversation starters that gently lead to application.

My current reading project is to read and review each of the 5 novellas in the Lineage of Grace series, followed by the five novels of the companion series, Sons of Encouragement.

There’s More:
Unashamed: The Story of Rahab (Lineage of Grace #2), Francine Rivers, 2000
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