Rating: 
Summary: mostly awesome
Review: I have always loved Eco's books and have searched for other works of there kind. I found this in "Gospel". As a biblical scholar I find his historical knowledge top notch. The only thing that keeps it from that coveted 5th star is the part at "TPL". If you read it you will understand. Otherwise an inpressive work, both entertaining and educational with a lot to think about.
Rating: 
Summary: A fantastic fun read - one of the best books I have read
Review: I imagine the low ratings of this book are by people who may be turned off by the view of christianity put forward by some of the characters and the plot... I found it fresh and engaging.
Rating:
Summary: Not Finished, yet.
Review: I just bought this book a week ago, today. I am only on page 250, but wanted to get in my two cents worth. Wilton Barnhardt is an amazing writer! The places he writes about come alive and are vividly described. What really grabs me is the fact that I bought the book on a whim after reading the cover blurbs and the first page. I have just planned a sabbatical with my dear friend Father Michael and we are going to Assisi and Florence! In reading "Gospel", I almost feel as though I will be visiting these places again, instead of for the first time. Thank you, Wilton for such a wonderful introduction to these two marvelous Italian locales. I am savoring every word on every page of this delightful book. To the reviewers that have had a negative reaction, I can only say that I am sorry you weren't open to the "magic" of the prose of this extremely talented writer. I am just amazed at the amount of research that went into the details in this book. I look forward to reading Barnhardt's other works.
Rating:
Summary: On the greatness of Gospel and Barnhardt
Review: I know of no other novel of the 90s that delivers the astonishing richness of GOSPEL, and of no other novelist who matches the breadth of gifts Barnhardt has. Barnhardt produces one chapter after another that, for a more meager writer, would suffice for an entire novel. (This was also true of his first novel, EMMA WHO SAVED MY LIFE.) He has the gushing inventiveness of the best nineteenth-century novelists, coupled with the world-view of a 21st century observer. I think he's expert at almost everything -- he creates rewarding three-dimensional characters, settings of immense depth and reality (in GOSPEL these include locales as diverse as Oxford, Jerusalem, Northern Ireland, Ethiopia and more), fascinating erudition, humor, compellingly intelligent dialog, and, binding everything in GOSPEL, a dazzling plot. I do believe that among the BIG novelists writing in English today, there is no one better.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretentious bunk
Review: I managed to get most of the way through "Gospel" before giving up entirely. Barnhart may indeed have been to all the places he mentions in the book, but his gross mis-characterization of the University of Chicago at the start of the book really put me off.
I'm an alumnus of the U of C, and:
1) It is not a Catholic school; in fact, it was founded as a Baptist university and is now, of course, non-denominational
2) The "School of Theology" is actually the Divinity School, one of the best around, and does not have undergraduate students
3) Puttng a Catholic girl from Bridgeport at the U of C is about as appropriate as sending a white racist from Kentucky to Howard University.
Perhaps Mr. Barnhart confused the U. of C. with Notre Dame, 90 miles down the road in South Bend, IN? I seriously doubt he's ever set foot in the city of Chicago.
There have already been a number of comments about the trite stereotypes of the two main characters, so I'll skip over that. However, Mr. Barnhart's theology is a bit suspect, along with his knowledge of places.
This book, which I read several years ago, does share one thing with The Da Vinci Code. Its author is almost as smart as he thinks he is.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I though this book was a great read. Particularly clever is the scholarly annotated version of the new gospel, which will entertain anyone who has had exposure to Bible scholarship, and many who haven't. The zany side characters in the plot are great- reminiscent of Foucault's Pendulum by Eco.
Rating:
Summary: A Romp Through All the Flavors of Christianity
Review: In "Gospel," Barnhardt has pulled off a difficult task with grace (pun intended) and style. Ostensibly the story of a Professor and a graduate student from the University of Chicago's Department of Theology hot on the trail of a newly discovered first-century gospel, Barnhardt uses this frame to present us with a panorama of Christianity and Christians, past and present. Along the way, the reader gets a view of many places in the world intimately involved with Christianity, and its troubles: England, Ireland, Italy, Israel, Africa, and Louisiana.By managing the delicate balance of telling an interesting story and providing an encyclopedic vision of the various strands and streams that comprise Christianity, Barnhardt's work will appeal to those who have delved into work such as that of Elaine Pagels. I found myself willing and eager to go on the journey with Barnhardt's protagonists. In the end, I wondered if the television evangelists whom I find so easy to ridicule are not quite as bizarre when measured against the historical development of Christianity. In "Gospel," we travel through England to Ireland, where we meet the mysterious Black Pope and his retinue of apostate Jesuits. From there, we travel to Assisi where we meet Franciscans who, not surprisingly, relate that the resurrection of Christ is not a critical aspect of their faith, that feeding the poor is what matters. From there, we travel to the dusty shelves of the Vatican Library, where scrolls lay around undisturbed for centuries. The journey continues to the mythical Mt. Athos, then to Jerusalem, then to ravaged Africa before making a circle of sorts back to a suburb of Baton Rouge. The blending of fact and fiction made this an irresistible tale for me. One of the things I liked most is the way that Barnhardt uses the figure of O'Hanrahan, apostate Jesuit, Professor of Theology, and chronic alcoholic, as the mouthpiece to impart vast theological learning. After reading the book, I find it harder to dismiss claims of a 900 foot Jesus when compared with the veneration of relics and the stories of the martyrs that form what might be called a good Catholic education. I do not mean to imply that Barnhardt leads one to accept fundamentalism as valid, far from it. However, through the figure of O'Hanrahan he does make one realize that one person's sacred revelation is another person's ridiculous fairy tale. The gospel of the title is in itself interesting, a sort of "what-if" told by the mythical Mathius, who was the replacement for Judas. Interspersed through the narrative in sections, it makes one wonder who the disciples really were and how they lived their lives after Christ's death. "Gospel" presents a number of delightful characters, and some sinister ones. When we meet Lucy Dantan, she is a somewhat lost graduate student in Theology, working on but never completing a boring thesis and leading a boring life. By the end of the book, her transformation is complete, as she chooses a brave course for her life. Having been a graduate student myself, I deeply appreciated Barhardt's portraits of the denizens of academic departments. Part academic novel, part exposition on the forms of Christianity, and part character study (with the voice of the Holy Spirit thrown in for good measure), "Gospel" delights and diverts. Although it is a longish book, it was a joy to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Overlong, but very thought provoking
Review: In the late 1970s I saw an atrocious mini-series on television called "The Word." It starred Darin McGavin (later to become Kolchak, the Night Stalker) and was based on the novel by Irwin Wallace (at least, I think that's what the author's name was). It is my understanding that Wallace's novel is pretty bad, as well--Wallace once wrote a novel about writing the novel he was writing, which even in a post-modern concept sounds pretty terrible (I think, to be really original, he called that one "The Novel"). In any case, the whole premise of "The Word" was that an investigator discovers that the gospels were a hoax--an entirely made up account, based somewhat on historical personages, but expanded on in elaborate ways to create an interest and a cult. Woah, I thought. Why couldn't it have been like this? How do we *know* that the Gospel was inspired, rather than invented? (No use writing in, I'm familiar with the "you must have faith" verses--I might know them better than you, in fact.) Since then I've been fairly skeptical about the word. In some ways, this might explain my fascination with the concept of the unreliable narrator, as ultimately the most unreliable narrator of all is the author him- or herself. Which is a bit far afield of the novel in question, but puts a little background on why I was interested in this novel about the search for a fifth gospel. While basically an adventure story, with kidnappings and arsons and misunderstandings and close calls, etc., the intellectual basis for this story is solidly researched, as evidenced by the copious footnotes and the index. The danger about mixing such solid research in an extremely James Bond-ish plot (even if none of the characters achieve Bond's superhuman status) is that the audience is not quite sure what to believe. Interspersed with the adventure story is the lost gospel itself, which tries to cover some of the myths and popular beliefs about the other gospels and the disciples that wrote them. Fundamentalists will be offended, no doubt, just as they were offended by _The Last Temptation of Christ_ and _Live from Golgotha_. But Barnhardt's view has a strong feeling of verisimilitude, even if his made-up gospel doesn't. The book is long, but not over-long, and the action is exciting, if straining credulity at times, but overall it provides solid entertainment with just enough thought to make you think twice about those other gospels, and the books surrounding them.
Rating:
Summary: Overlong, but very thought provoking
Review: In the late 1970s I saw an atrocious mini-series on television called "The Word." It starred Darin McGavin (later to become Kolchak, the Night Stalker) and was based on the novel by Irwin Wallace (at least, I think that's what the author's name was). It is my understanding that Wallace's novel is pretty bad, as well--Wallace once wrote a novel about writing the novel he was writing, which even in a post-modern concept sounds pretty terrible (I think, to be really original, he called that one "The Novel"). In any case, the whole premise of "The Word" was that an investigator discovers that the gospels were a hoax--an entirely made up account, based somewhat on historical personages, but expanded on in elaborate ways to create an interest and a cult. Woah, I thought. Why couldn't it have been like this? How do we *know* that the Gospel was inspired, rather than invented? (No use writing in, I'm familiar with the "you must have faith" verses--I might know them better than you, in fact.) Since then I've been fairly skeptical about the word. In some ways, this might explain my fascination with the concept of the unreliable narrator, as ultimately the most unreliable narrator of all is the author him- or herself. Which is a bit far afield of the novel in question, but puts a little background on why I was interested in this novel about the search for a fifth gospel. While basically an adventure story, with kidnappings and arsons and misunderstandings and close calls, etc., the intellectual basis for this story is solidly researched, as evidenced by the copious footnotes and the index. The danger about mixing such solid research in an extremely James Bond-ish plot (even if none of the characters achieve Bond's superhuman status) is that the audience is not quite sure what to believe. Interspersed with the adventure story is the lost gospel itself, which tries to cover some of the myths and popular beliefs about the other gospels and the disciples that wrote them. Fundamentalists will be offended, no doubt, just as they were offended by _The Last Temptation of Christ_ and _Live from Golgotha_. But Barnhardt's view has a strong feeling of verisimilitude, even if his made-up gospel doesn't. The book is long, but not over-long, and the action is exciting, if straining credulity at times, but overall it provides solid entertainment with just enough thought to make you think twice about those other gospels, and the books surrounding them.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and funny
Review: Lot's of fun. He does a wonderful send up of academic types. The scenes fly around the world, each with a good sense of place. A great book to curl up with and read on a wintry night.
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