Friday, February 24, 2012

The Scroll : A Review


The Scroll


by


Grant R. Jeffrey

Alton L. Gansky


A Review


I looked forward to reading The Scroll when I first picked it up. The story's concept focused on a Copper Scroll discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1952. The Copper Scroll is thought to be an inventory of valuable objects - most likely from the second temple - hidden from the Romans as they began to invade the Holy Land. The premise is good.

As I said , I looked forward to reading The Scroll when I first picked it up to read. That was not how it worked out. The first 25% of the book went so slow, I decided to use the text-to-speech features of my e-reader to read the next 50% of the book - allowing me to read/hear the story at its pace, rather than mine. The final 25% of the book went faster - in fact as I came to the end of the story, I could not put the book down until I had finished it. The premise is good - the telling of the story less so.

After reading the book, I discovered that the author, Grant R. Jeffrey, is an competent author of prophetic literature, both fictional and theological. Similarly, Alton L. Gansky is a prolific author of mostly Christian fiction. This collaboration did manage to introduce me to current archaeological discoveries and political issues which are defining much of the middle east. Sadly, the lack of references made it impossible to tell the real from the fictional without considerable additional research.

If I had known Grant Jeffrey’s history, I probably would not have been caught by surprise by the ending of the book. Without giving details here, the final elements of the book seemed out of character with the rest of the book.

The book had value - though it was not my favorite read this year. If the reader is a fan of either of the two authors, then I expect it would be an enjoyable read - I did not know either author and walked away a bit disappointed.
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This review was based on a free copy of the book provided by the publisher in order to prepare this review.


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