In the spirit of embracing what bookstagram has to offer, I borrowed another book that I found on the platform. This was from BookandBriefcase’s post and I basically decided to read this after she mentioned that the author was a New Testament scholar who used what he knew in the book.
As the title suggests, The Lost Letters of Pergamum is an epistolary novel, featuring fictional letters between Luke (author of the Gospel of Luke and a physician) and Antipas (mentioned in the book of Revelation as a martyr to the Church) as Antipas, respected Roman citizen, starts exploring this new foreign religion.
This reminded me of Letters from a Skeptic, which is another book that contains letters from a non-Christian to a Christian (though I think Letters from a Skeptic is nonfiction). It’s probably easier to read a book where two people talk out their doubts and answers to Christianity than to read a book on apologetics. In that sense, I thought this was a great book to not just learn about the early Church, but also to learn about the foundations of the Christian faith.
But although this is easier to read and more entertaining than a pure apologetics book, please don’t read this expecting Ben Hur levels of drama. There is talk (and action) of martyrdom but most of the book consists of two people talking out their responses to the Gospel of Luke and the Christian faith and life.
And if you’re interested in how reliable the information in this book is, the author also includes an appendix where he lists, for each chapter, what is wholly fictional, what is speculative, and what can be defended historically. If you’re wondering whether a certain person mentioned was real, you can find out here.
Overall, I found this a quick and enjoyable read. While I’m familiar with the basics of Christian theology, I really appreciated getting to learn more about the world of the early Church and the challenges they were facing – it might be about two thousand years ago, but in many ways, it feels similar to our modern world as well.
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If you’re interested in novels by Christian scholars who are trying to inform others of their favorite topic via fiction, you might want to check out one or both of these:
“The Scribes” by Peter Rodgers: It isn’t a particularly well-written book (flat characters, cheesy romance, improbable action), but it’s a fun way to be introduced to some of the cultural issues in the earliest days of the church and to the practices and challenges involved in copying and preserving God’s Word.
“Day of Atonement” by David DaSilva: It fictionalizes some of the events leading up to the Maccabean revolt (in the time between the Old & New Testaments during the violent persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes and his cronies). Some of the information in here is pretty speculative and interpretive. It is better-written than “The Scribes” but still a little stilted.
I’m not too familiar with the Maccabean revolt (I know about it but that’s about it) so Day of Atonement sounds interesting. Likewise for The Scribes – I’m definitely interested in learning about the history in a more accessible way before diving into nonfiction accounts.
Thanks for the recommendations!