Review: Empire's End

Empire's End by Jerry B. Jenkins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Jerry B. Jenkin's new novel is filled with adventure, drama, historic people and places, and even romance. Only a few snapshots of Paul's life are revealed in the Bible. In this fictional account, Jenkins tells of a devout Jewish scholar, who after only three years in the Arabian wilderness, emerges as the greatest Christian theologian in history. This novel explains how, after supervising the death of Jesus's disciples, Paul would be moved to effectively conquer the Roman Empire with a message about a Jewish man named Jesus. Empire's End will cause you to rethink whether Paul ever experienced the love of a woman or the embrace of a child.

From a fictional standpoint, this was an interesting book. It was neat to read about Paul behind the scenes so to speak. As stated in the synopsis, very little about Paul's life is told in the Bible. So what did happen between the stories shared? I liked reading and imagining what his life might have been like. I loved the miraculous ride on the horse! :) And I know other reviewers don't, but I liked the story of Paul and Stephanos widow. So much forgiveness and redemption there!

Of course there were a few things I didn't care for. The excessive use of entire passages of quoted scripture (only excessive because I was reading a book not the Bible). The way the camp ended that Paul spent three years in was unexpected and sad and didn't make sense. And I must point out that most of Paul's years of ministry were not covered and it did not cover the "Empire's End".

*Thanks to First Look and Worthy Publishers for the complimentary copy of this book for review purposes. All opinions stated are my own.*



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