Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Xulon Press
Release Date: January 2003
ISBN: 1-591603-89-7
Awards:  
Format Reviewed: Softcover
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Genre: Christian – Inspirational
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Kristin Johnson
Reviewer Notes:        Reviewer, Kristin Johnson, released her second book, CHRISTMAS COOKIES ARE FOR GIVING, co-written with Mimi Cummins, in October 2003. Her third book, ORDINARY MIRACLES: My Incredible Spiritual, Artistic and Scientific Journey, co-written with Sir Rupert A.L. Perrin, M.D., is now available from Publish America.
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Peculiar People
By Richard Soule

      Indiana Jones gets a new female counterpart, but young archaeologist Tess Swift is lucky she didn’t try to steal the Ark of the Covenant from the first Indy movie. Tess is spiritually disconnected from just about everything---family, husband, relationships, God---except for a mysterious recurring dream about discovering an ancient scroll. The dream never included any advice for Tess to steal the relic…or did it?

       Tess is less thrilled by the scroll’s potential religious implications than by the money she can get for a priceless early Christian document dating from the time of Paul the Apostle in Ephesus. Like some modern academics, who are skewered wickedly in one of Tess’ flashbacks when a “feminazi” college professor ridicules one of Tess’ classmates for her Christian beliefs (don’t you just hate it when someone who actually practices academic freedom speaks up to defend the patriarchal hegemony and potentially blow your tenure track?), Tess hopes to debunk the Christian religion. However, God has another plan in mind for Tess.

      Tess translates the scroll and learns the fascinating story of Aquila and Prisca (who in a tolerable coincidence is nicknamed Priscilla, which is Tess’ middle name), the only married couple prominently mentioned in the New Testament. As it happens, they also had a love that few people could hope to attain, but which Richard Soule suggests can only happen in the Christian faith. To be fair, Tess’ life and Prisca’s pre-Christian life as a spoiled wealthy daughter of Rome (she makes Nicole Kidman’s Ada in Cold Mountain look worldly) seem empty. When Prisca is brought to God, she faces a life more fulfilling and terrifying than any she could have imagined as she and Aquila build the Christian church in decadent Rome. Even more astonishing, her destiny intertwines with Tess’s in Richard Soule’s plausible, inventive finale.

      We all know about Jimmy Swaggart and the televangelists, but the modern ACLU assault on religious expression and Pledge of Allegiance controversy with the Ninth Circuit in California, are equally reprehensible, echoing the persecution of the early Christians. Soule’s work will undoubtedly provoke thought, debate, and soul-searching.