And the Winner is…BR’s Short Story Contest Results Are In

First Place: “Home Is Where…,”
by Susan Gabbay (aka Lot’s Wife)

Second Place: “Divining the Divine,”
by Molly Pickering Grose (aka Balaam)

Third Place: “Pursuing Knowledge,”
by Bruce Martin Wildish (aka the Serpent)

When we printed a small announcement for our short story contest in the April 2000 issue of BR, we really weren’t expecting a big response. Actually, we weren’t sure anyone would respond. We were—to put it mildly—wrong. Nearly 100 readers eagerly accepted our invitation to rewrite a biblical story from the viewpoint of a lesser character. And nearly 100 readers thanked us for the opportunity. It was, they said again and again, fun.

We called the contest “Who Wants to Be Joab?” The answer to that question turned out to be quite a few of you. We heard from a whole regiment of Joabs, eager to explain why they felt compelled to disobey David’s command: “Deal gently with my boy Absalom, for my sake” (2 Samuel 18:5).

But that’s not all. The voice of the whale came to us from the bowels of the ocean, and the serpent hissed at us from Eden. We received an epistle from Balaam, and a very different account of events from his ass.