The Rain

by Dan Tankersley, Chris Skates

Noah was in shock. It had been nearly one hundred twenty years since God told him this flood would come. Now that it was here, he couldn't bear it. Noah understood quite well what was taking place outside and why God had determined it had to be that way. Still, the reality was agonizing. Why, oh why, did they not listen? Noah thought. He shed no tears. He had cried so much and so often in these recent days that his body could produce no more. He continued to stare into his lap. Noah wished the screams outside were not real. He wished to awaken from this nightmare. But he could only endure it. As the rain pounded the roof and the people outside suffered, minutes were like hours. Familiar voices were begging him to open the door. Noah knotted his fists into his cloak and tried to hold on. Chris Skates, who wrote Christian-themed one-act plays and short stories in college, rediscovered his love of writing in his late thirties. He has had five short stories published nationally and has published several technical articles. Chris, a chemist, also has taught adult Bible study classes for eight years. He and his wife, Tracy, have two children. Dan Tankersley has developed more than three hundred discipleship training classes that he uses to teach Biblical topics. His strong interest in and decade-long research of the first eleven chapters of Genesis led to the development of this novel. He has a technical degree in data processing. Dan and his wife of more than thirty years, Judy, have three children and seven grandchildren. Chris and Dan can be contacted at info@BeReadyMinistries.com.

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 2007

Reviews

[Barbara Mason · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the Back Cover:
We huddled together around the table, terrified of what was to come. Though we had been warned, the reality of what was happening was almost more than we could bear. We violently pressed our hands to our ears to block the sounds from those outside, but we could not keep from hearing their screams. The sound of fingernails clawing desperately at the sides of the ark went through us like a knife blade.
When I was a child and sat at my daddy's knee, he would read me wonderous stories of Noah, David and Goliath and the life of Jesus. When, in my childishness, I would ask him questions about the flood, or the giant or the man who walked on water, he would, in his vast imagination, answer all.
This book of Noah and his sons took me back to that innocent time. My dad could have been telling this story. I enjoyed the imaginary and what seemed the impossible. Noah and his sons became people who were real. They hurt, they cried, they feared. They were brought to life in this book as they haven't been before. I would recommend this for all ages for I was a child when the stories were read to me.[[ASIN:0989148629 The Rain]]

[Stephanie Prichard krill · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been years since I read this book, but it still sticks vividly in my mind. Until reading this book, I didn't realize how many unanswered questions I had surrounding the story of Noah's Ark. I love the authors take on these details, and the way that events might have happened. Whether wrong or right nobody will know, but they certainly give a good and plausible answer for those questions.
I think this is a wonderful book, and really takes this from a story that we've heard over and over since childhood so much that you don't think to really look at it in depth, and it makes you do just that. It's so easy to more or less dismiss those stories that were popular to us as children and think that we've heard them so much that we 'know' them, when in reality there is so much more we can learn as adults, when we really take the time to study the scriptures and get a deeper understanding.

[Beth Farley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story of Noah & family, the ark and the flood that adds details for the story's sake, but doesn't contradict the biblical account.