Len Bailey - Sherlock Holmes and the Needles Eye: The Worlds Greatest Detective Tackles the Bibles Ultimate Mysteries

PRAISE FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE NEEDLES EYE

Unique, inventive, educational, and fun. Whats not to like?

JERRY B. JENKINS
NOVELIST, WRITER, AND OWNER OF THE CHRISTIAN WRITERS GUILD

A phenomenal accomplishment. Every page crackles; every chapter takes my breath away. Baileys attention to historical detailwhether of London or Jerusalemis all by itself a major attraction. I cant wait to dive back into it. All I need to write a one-line review of Sherlock Holmes and the Needles Eye is one line from it: The Needles Eye is the product of pure genius.

GER ERICKSON
EDITOR, BRENTWOOD PRESS & PUBLISHING COMPANY

Bible study leaders are always on the lookout for the hookthe original slant that will captivate readers and students to take a fresh look at familiar material. Len Bailey has tapped one of his life passionsthe Sherlock Holmes storiesas an avenue to explore unexpected nuances in visits to ten Bible stories. In keeping with the detective story format, each of the Bible passages is formulated as a mystery to be solved. Fifty pages of investigative questions at the end highlight the ten questions and give excellent prompts to reflecting on or discussing the passages.

LELAND RYKEN
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, WHEATON COLLEGE

SHERLOCK
HOLMES

AND THE NEEDLES EYE

OTHER TITLES BY LEN BAILEY

FANTASAMS

CLABBERNAPPERS

2013 by Len Bailey

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Author is represented by the Stobbe Agency.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION. 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from THE ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION. 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data is available upon request

Printed in the United States of America

13 14 15 16 17 18 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my mother, Margaret Ann Bailey, who
introduced me to Sherlock Holmes

This book has two parts: It begins with the narratives of all ten mysteries followed by a section of investigative questions for each narrative. If you are reading Sherlock Holmes and the NeedlesEye as a Bible study, begin by answering the questions in the back that pertain to the particular week you are in. The mystery to be solved will be displayed below the chapter number. The investigative questions will lead you through specific scriptures, and familiarize you with the mysterys environment, but will not reveal the mysterys solution. Keep in mind that some questions can only be answered after reading the mystery. After that, turn back and read the corresponding narrative in the front of the book where Sherlock Holmes and Watson go back in time to the particular Old or New Testament setting and solve the mystery.

If you want to read Sherlock Holmes and the Needles Eye as a novel or a collection of individual mysteries, simply begin reading at the beginningand enjoy!

CONTENTS

I APPRECIATE THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE FOR THEIR HELP IN producing this volume. First, thanks to Dr. Warren Wiersbe for his encouragement and for presenting me with the two-volume set of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes by William S. Baring-Gould. Thanks to my wonderful wife, Denise, who endured my repetitive watching of the BBC productions of Sherlock Holmes, starring Jeremy Brett. For their advice and patience, thanks to Nina Rosselli, Linda Wiebking, Rick and Jody Prunty, and Karen Vikiras, and to Les Stobbe, my agent. Thanks to my IT technician, Marty Patryn, for keeping me up and running. Finally, to Jack Sorensen, my good friend, DVC aficionado, and brother in the Lord, many thanks.

ON MY NINTH BIRTHDAY, MY PARENTS GAVE ME MY FIRST ADULT Bible, and I have been a student of the Word of God ever since. When I was ten, a librarian introduced me to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, and reading the novels and short stories again and again over these many years has made me a devout Sherlockian. But I never dreamed that anybody would combine the Bible and Sherlock Holmes! However, my friend Len Bailey has done it and has done it quite successfully!

Imagine Holmes and Watson unraveling some of the problem texts in Scripture that have puzzled people!

Even if you are not a Bible student or a fan of Holmes and Watson, I urge you to read and enjoy this book. You will especially appreciate the way Len has captured the Victorian atmosphere of the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories, and as a bonus, you will also learn more about your Bible and how to study it successfully.

In the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, Holmes says to Watson, It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment. That principle applies also to Bible studyso start reading and discovering how Holmes does it!

Warren W. Wiersbe

HOW SHALL I BEGIN? HOW MIGHT I CONVEY TO YOU, THE READER, of a most troublesome circumstance which befell me, whereby I might kindle in you an understanding of the dark misgivings which linger in my nightmares? How might I awaken your pity regarding my anxious tremblings and joys, my mortal fear for my life during the ten adventures which resulted from this event, one following after the other in the seeming interminable march of time? Perhaps you will laugh at me. Or will you wave your hand to read of my voyages into the past as too wonderful and fantastic to be believed?

Let me state it thus: My friend and closest companion had completely vanished. Upon my return from the north of Scotland, I entered 221b Baker St., London, to find our landlady, Mrs. Hudson, in a heightened state of agitation and black grief. Three weeks, Dr. Watson! she said to me, three weeks since she had last seen Sherlock Holmes. To her credit she had not contacted the police, given the often dubious and questionable nature of Holmes work, but had wisely chosen to await my return.