Good Piece of Entertaining and Thought-Provoking "Biblical Fiction"

When Jesus Wept Jerusalem Chronicles, The Volume: 1

By Bodie and Brock Thoene

I was intrigued by the title and brief description of this book but was still prepared to be disappointed. I have read a lot of disappointing pieces of Biblical Fiction lately. But I was very pleasantly surprised as I read this book to find that it was unique, imaginative, intriguing, Biblical, though-provoking, and an excellent story.

I *really* enjoyed how the author made a full character out of Lazarus and his family. If you've ever seen the movie Barabbas, you'll see how completely on the other end of the spectrum this Lazarus is from the awful depiction of him in that film. And the things postulated about what happens after death and what life must have been like for Lazarus (as well as the young girl who Jesus also brought back to life -- she made a cameo appearance in this story) after he had experienced being in the afterlife and then was dragged back to this present world.

What impressed me most was the authors’ ability to write a story on this theme that was not terribly predictable and which kept me wanting to find out how things were going to end DESPITE the fact that I already knew the basics of the inevitable ending from the story it parallels in the Bible. This is not easy to do with Biblical fiction and I applaud Bodie and Brock Thoene for this book. 

I'll be very interested to see what they come up with for Volume 2...