Book: AD 30

AD 30

by Ted Dekker

Length: 432

Format: Paperback
Price: Borrowed from a friend

How I heard about it: ^recommended by the same friend

Basic Premise: Set in (you guessed it) 30 AD, the illegitimate daughter of the sheikh of Dumah is commissioned by her father to journey to Palestine and ask for the aid of Herod whose Roman ties make him a powerful ally in the war against the Nafud. On her way, she encounters Yeshua, whose teachings and miracles she can't seem to reconcile - or escape.

My Take: 6.5 out of 10 (scale here)

I enjoyed this book. I liked the writing style and the feel. I also liked the time period, because although I feel like I know quite a bit about the time and place, there were things I hadn't considered - like how much of the area was DESERT. That said, the story itself was a little too...military? for me. It was hard to follow the strategy and even harder to believe that what was happening was at all likely, or even possible. I read the afterward by the author, who obviously went to great lengths to get his research right, but parts of it still felt pretty unbelievable. What I DID like, though, was the telling of a story during a Biblical time with Biblical characters that wasn't the Bible. The last book I remember reading like this was Unveiled about Tamar (which was fabulous) and I forgot how much I liked it! There is a sequel to this one - AD 33, but I have a feeling I'm really not going to like that one...