The Constantine Codex, the 3rd book in Paul L. Maier's 3-part series, is my favorite of all.
Published in 2011, I feel like this book solves some of the 'problems' that I had with the other two (granted, it was likely only me, as they were both bestsellers!). The prose and the dialogue match the era much better, which is more accessible to the modern reader, and I didn't find the romance as distracting (there were fewer allusions to the first book, whereas I felt like the second book revisited almost every scene of their 'fairytale romance').
As with the other two, this book is fiction and its story needs to be taken with a grain of salt as far as the 'incredible archeological discovery and the global ramifications' depicted, but I didn't have a problem with that.
In fact, I loved the story itself, probably because I love books so much, especially the Bible, and love anything having to do with Israeli and early church history. This book was fascinating! I'll likely read it alone more in the future, even if I don't read the others as often. That's another thing- while each of the novels in this series could stand alone, this one definitely stands out the best (even with it's references to the earlier ones).
Something fun that stood out to me as well was that I read this book a few days after finishing Nabeel Qureshi's Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. Part of the storyline of Maier's novel involve a debate between a Muslim leader and the main character, Jonathan Weber. Many of the same 'arguments' that Weber's character used line up exactly with Qureshi's story. I found this a happy connection (being that Maier's book is fiction, but Qureshi's is nonfiction), and showed the incredible depth of Maier's research and the extent of his masterful weaving of story while portraying truth.
I 100% recommend The Constantine Codex. You can find it here on Amazon if this book interests you! And please let me know what you think!
No comments:
Post a Comment