Sunday, January 20, 2008

On... The Jerusalem Scrolls by Bodie and Brock Thoene

This book takes place primarily during the time of Jesus. Moshe Sachar is underground hiding during a very dark time for the new Jewish state and has been directed to read these ancient scrolls that have been preserved for hundreds or thousands of years by his wife's grandfather.

One minor note on that front. For the most part I have not been able to discern major mistakes by the Thoene's but in the prologue both Moshe and Alfie refer to Rebbe Lebowitz (Moshe's grandfather-in-law) as Rebbe Lubetkin which was Rachel's name before she married Moshe. Now, this was probably just an editorial mistake but one that I couldn't get around for the most part. I mean, obviously if Rachel's mother was Rebbe Lebowitz's daughter, the last name is not going to be the same. I realize as I type this that all of this information may go over most everyone else's head so I will leave off there.

I have to say that after having read Magdalene by Angela Hunt I was faced with the difficult task of seeing this Miyram of Magdala as a different kind of character. obviously the two characters are completely different. I happen to prefer Angela Hunt's interpretation of the character which slightly soured my own perspective on the majority of the text.

In an interesting way though I was intrigued to see how two different authors can approach the same Biblical character and come up with such different interpretations. I admire that actually. For the sake of the understanding of the reader though it is a little difficult. :D

The characters in these books are connected and further developed in the most recent series by the Thoene's "The First Light Chronicles", the series that really turned me onto the Thoene's to begin with. I love seeing how the characters connect and even how Moshe connects to the modern character in the beginning of the First Light Chronicles books.

Even though there were minor things that distracted me I did enjoy the book. I enjoy anything from that time period and that area of the world. When the book is written by a good author such as one can find in the Thoene's, I can't really ask for more.

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