Empire's End (Book Review)

It feels good to finally be writing this post! This book has been sitting by my desk for a long time now waiting to be reviewed. It is a fictional book about the Apostle Paul. This book left me with a lot of different reactions...

1. It was written in a VERY interesting manner. The author is a good writer.
2. It really challenged the way I had thought about Paul as a person. I felt like I was pretty well acquainted with him from my time of reading the Bible and this book left me with a very different impression of him.
3. Some of the challenges were really good for me. I discovered (when I went and compared it with facts in the Bible) that I had not remembered right on a few things. What I had really missed was part of the time line of his life and when things happened and my memory on that had been wrong and it was fun to have that set to right.
4. There were some character things about Paul (mostly involving relationships) that I did not care at all for how the author portrayed Paul and that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Some of it I believe went against things that Paul (inspired by God) taught in the Bible. The author definitely portrayed Paul as a truly normal human. I believe that he was a normal human but that he was also a Christian with God's Spirit living in him and so there was a thing or two that the author had him do that I don't think he would have.

 This book is not going to be one that I keep on my shelf because of the things I didn't like about it but I am glad that I read it. It opened my eyes to some other things that were true in Paul's life and it caused me to dig deeper in the Bible and for that I am very grateful!

 Disclaimer: I received this book free for purposes of reviewing but all the thoughts expressed are my own.