The Spear: A Novel of the Crucifixion

Rating:
Summary: A Finely Woven Tapestry
Review: De Wohl's effort to portray the last days of our Lord's life through the eyes of a somewhat callous and hardened Roman centurian, Longinus, is wonderfully played out in this novel.

De Wohl does justice to many of our biblically familiar characters (i.e., Martha, Mary, Caiaphas). This novel is well researched and will take you back in time to get a glimpse of the social and political climate in which the Son of Man entered history and changed it forever.

The story of the crucifixion is compelling in and of itself. De Wohl's best credit is that he doesn't ruin it. He lets the story evolve and he does not indulge in the temptation that most, I gather, would have in writing about God. He doesn't purport to know the mind of Christ.

Buy the book. It is a clear and orthodox presentation of Our Lord which every person would benefit from reading. Christian, non-Christian, protestant, Catholic; all will enjoy this novel.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but....
Review: The writing is excellent, the plot is well thought out and tied together, it's historically accurate. Overall, one of the best Christian fiction pieces I've read--right up until the end.... It would be a 5, if it weren't for the emphasis on Peter as the 'leader of the Apostles' and Mary at the end, which begins to smack of Catholic lore, rather than fiction wrapped around true events.

Rating:
Summary: De Wohl's masterpiece
Review: This is the best novel that deals with Christ's life, death, and Resurrection that I've ever read. It's solidly, unabashedly orthodox and pulls together the Gospel accounts in a brilliant weave of history and imagination. Unlike other novels of the genre, it doesn't try to "explain away" the supernatural... it simply presents it and invites the reader to believe. But it also does not attempt to enter into either the mind of the God-Man Jesus Christ or his immaculately conceived mother Mary. Although HIDDEN VICTORY by Fr. Herbert Smith, S. J., does an admirable job of trying to understand what God and the Blessed Virgin Mary may have thought and felt, I also appreciated De Wohl's implicit understanding that such a task is impossible. While the meditation might be fruitful, it is also something to approach cautiously.

This is why I think De Wohl's technique of presenting the story from St. Longinus' point of view, rather than Christ's or Mary's, works so well. Here is someone like ourselves, sinful as we are sinful, who tries to grasp the cosmic events swirling around him. When, by God's grace, he is brought to belief, we cheer and see our own struggles reflected in his while praying for the same triumph that he experienced.

All this sounds very lofty. I hope I haven't scared off people who are simply looking for an entertaining novel. Those people will find such a novel in THE SPEAR, but they will also find so much more!