For the Temple

Rating:
Summary: I read all 400 pages in two days!
Review: "Clash! Bang! Ka-ching!" The valley echoes with the sound of iron upon iron. Tight-lipped the two solitary foes circle each other, thrusting, slashing, striking, and warding off the blows of the other. Suddenly, the younger man, dressed in Jewish garb, and armed only with a sword and buckler, dashes under the heavily armed Roman's sword. The sudden impact throws the Roman to the ground, though the Hebrew is stuck hard on the head. Brushing aside the blood that pours down his forehead the Jew siezes his knife and and raises it, to end the life of his prostrate fiend. "Strike, Jew! I am Titus!" the Roman boldly states. Who are these two combatants? What do they have against each other? The Hebrew is 19-year-old John of Gamala, a hero to the Jews and a scourge to the Roman army. Titus is General of the Roman army invading Israel, whose people are fresh from throwing off the Roman government. How will this deadly duel play out? Never mind. This excellently written novel is much better than Super Glue ever dreamed of being. "For The Temple", if anything can, will glue you to your seat so that it will take a bulldozer to dislodge you. {note: we don't recomend the use of this book for repairing broken toys, however.} "For The Temple" chronicles the life of a Galilean teenager at the time of the fall of Jerusalem. From the storm on Lake Tibereas, to the siege at Jotatpata, you will grow to love and admire John, son of Simon, as he grows, wars, and has adventures of all kinds defending Josephus, Gamala, his betrothed wife, and finally the Temple in Jerusalem. Will he survive that monumentous occasion? More importantly, who will win the afforementioned duel? READ THE BOOK AND FIND OUT! (no, Amazon did not hire me to sell their book, I did this originally as a school assignment) I highly recommend this historically accurate book to people who like history, adventure, or just plain good books. Also to people who HATE history, as a good way to gag it down.

Rating:
Summary: Christian novel
Review: Offensive to Jews and historically off-base, this novel will be enjoyed by Christians, for whom it has a "happy ending".

Rating:
Summary: slow and steady, but worth it
Review: This book does a wonderful job of explaining many different factors contributing to the fall of Jerusalem. Eventually, the characters do come alive. It gets redundant at times, which is not helped by the over-use of dramatic emphasis throughout the reading--the listener has to group and weigh information in spite of the reader's inflection rather than being helped by it. Overall, worth the time, but I would rather have read it out loud myself than fight the recording. Recording does not indicate listening time or publication date of the original work.