Reviews for The Thirteenth Apostle

The average rating for The Thirteenth Apostle based on 2 reviews is 1.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-09-05 00:00:00 Tiger Ford "The Thirteenth Apostle" tells the story of a Catholic monk, Father Nil, who is dangerously close to discovering a secret that lies at the heart of the world's three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The author weaves in historical truths with his own fictional imaginings in the style of "The Da Vinci Code," and I suspect fans of that book will greatly enjoy this one. I found some of the writing to be a bit clunky, with odd turns of phrase and a few uncommon words whose meanings were not apparent from the context. This might be a result of poor translation from the original French, but once you make peace with the book's style, the language shouldn't be much of a stumbling block for enjoying the book. For me, the greater sin is the fundamental premise of the book. For centuries, the divinity of Christ has been questioned, with a number of accompanying "proofs." The fact is such proofs are not enough to dissuade the faithful; there is nothing that can confirm or deny that Jesus was the son of God aside from personal convictions. I just can't conceive of a scenario where any archaeological evidence could be so iron-clad as to the mortality of Jesus as to have catastrophic repercussions for society, prompting the church to go to extreme lengths to protect its secret. Even if a skeleton were found, it's not as though researchers could do a DNA test to prove it was the Jesus of the Bible. I just don't believe the first-hand account from a "13th apostle," even one refuting Jesus' divinity, would be any danger to the church.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-03-13 00:00:00 Bobbi BOCKMANN A book of two halves. The first half I found extremely turgid and difficult to read. The French to English translation has a stumbling clunkiness to it and whilst I understood the effect the author was trying to achieve in fluctuating the chapters between modern day and Jesus' time, I felt it had an adverse affect on the flow. I almost gave up on it after about a third. However, I'm glad that I stuck with it as the book does take more of a plot-ride in the second half and held my interest much more, even though the plot itself has no twists, turns or real surprises. It just flowed better. The subject matter is clearly well-known to the author given his previous life as a monk, and the story, albeit fictitious, is entirely plausible calling into question the divinity of Jesus, by way of the existence of a thirteenth apostle. It is Dan Brown-esque like Angels and Demons but where Dan Brown (whether you love or hate his work) takes you on a white-water ride of action and suspense, this barely trickles along. Verdict: It was okay.