Review for "The Ephesus Scroll" by Ben Chenoweth

The Ephesus Scroll by Ben Chenoweth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I chose to read this book based on the reviews that praised the author for a nice way of positing how it all went down when the Book of Revelations was first written, back in the late first century, AD. As a former Christian/ turned Atheist, for many years now... what I got instead, was a head-shaking disappointment.

Up until the 60% mark, the plot & story structure, which alternates (mostly) between two time periods, is "okay". The story moves along and is at least understandable if nothing else. Like, the modern-day timeline is a bit of a stretch, but whatever- creative liberties & differences- I'll overlook it. But then- when we DO get to the 60-65% point ALL sensibility in telling a story in the present-day goes straight out the window. Basically, the storyline that follows the journey of the 'original' scroll penned by John of Patmos in the latter part of the first century, stays pretty consistent with the pace and the raising of the stakes, but to hell with the modern-day...

Instead of staying a "story" and mixing in details in an unforced narrative, the author chooses to have his "non-expert", priest-character, give pages and pages of expositional dialogue... at dinner parties, museums, and just- really anywhere he can butt in; with a short, compulsory apology at the end of each outburst, for "accidentally" taking over the convo... whoopsie.

AND to TOP IT ALL OFF... right when it looks like "they" figured it out: that it truly WAS a con and a tool to ensure loopholes for ages upon ages that would allow the church to rule by preaching salvation and redemption and enemy retribution in the form of smiting by the actual hand of GOD (my favorite), AFTER YOU DIE (of course, super convenient, IMO), the author ACTUALLY FEEDS into the hypocrisy and justifies THAT belief, by basically contradicting everything else he's laid out so plainly in all the preceding pages that a RATIONAL MIND would see???!

I haven't been this passionately displeased with a blatant near-end-of-book, sudden change of convictions, since "Man of Legends" by Kenneth Johnson.

"Clan of the Cave Bear", and to some extent, the second book in that series written by Jean Auel, called "Valley of the Horses" (I think), did an EXCELLENT job of working in plenty of (at the time) theoretical science into the story, to where it felt natural and imaginable that that's how everything happened. Likewise, the book "Sex, Time, and Power" by the late/great Leonard Shlain, put forth evolutionary theories AND included fictional short story hypotheses to illustrate HOW some of his theories might have played out... The author of "The Ephesus Scroll" would have done well to have read one or both, taken notes, and then copied either one of their formats; instead of creating this poorly executed conjecture.

His theory (Ben Chenoweth's) is good AND plausible. In fact, I'm so upset because the way (it) was presented fell short. If it would have been presented as a paper/thesis (OR), as a fictional book WITHOUT ALL of the EXPOSITINAL DIALOGUE... it would have been good. Great, even. I could've even overlooked the overlooking of the blatant con.

But, poor supposition presented in the forced 3rd person voice of an excited speculating cleric, is the WORST FORMAT POSSIBLE. I could've read this theory if Mr. Chenoweth was delivering it in the same voice, with the same cadence, as he gave to the priest, Zhenya. But, in a thesis format/ where I KNOW ahead of time that I'll be listening to a thesis... like, does that make sense?

*Also, side note... My Babushka's name was Zhenya (spelled differently, tho)... I never knew that to be a nickname for a man, but maybe that's a regional thing? IDK.

Obviously, this book irritated me. It interested me. It interested me so much so that I WANT to and more than likely WILL- read the other books in this series, because of the theories, alone. I've studied religion for over 30 years, and let me just tell you... I am a sucker for origin postulations...

And... just for the theory alone, this book deserves 5 stars... PLUS, it was able to get me fired up... and isn't that worth something? I'm uping my review to a 4, up from my original, salty, 3. Well done, Ben, well done.



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