DARREN CRONSHAW finds Ben Chenoweth’s novel, ‘The Ephesus Scroll’, an entertaining and informative read…
Ben Chenoweth
The Ephesus Scroll
Smashwords Edition, 2012
ISBN-13: 978-1301932900
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“In contrast to the literal and jigsaw approaches to prophecy of writers like Hal Lindsay, the book explains the basis of a more metaphoric and artistic approach to interpretation. Revelation is shown as a timely warning and encouragement to persevere in faith and be confident God is in control and that the Roman persecution would not continue forever.” |
One of my favourite and most inspiring places in the world is Patmos. It is a small and beautiful Greek Island and was lovely to visit on holiday. But the highlight was to see the cave where John the Apostle was said to have received his Revelation, which he transcribed through a scribe and which became the final book in the Bible. It helped the Bible come alive for me, and inspired me as a writer to be receptive to “what the Spirit is saying to the churches”.
Ben Chenoweth is passionate about helping his readers get in touch with the Bible and its original writers and context. His latest book The Ephesus Scroll is an entertaining historical novel about a scroll of Revelation. It alternates from the world of the early church to the contemporary church, from persecution in Asia Minor to a growing church in modern-day post-communist Russia. So the book takes the reader on a journey following the scroll from Patmos to Ephesus and it being read in the seven churches of Asia Minor.
Chenoweth weaves insightful commentary about how its reading would have been understood and received, and the subversive anti-Empire influence it would have had. It explains its warnings against engaging in temple feasts and idolatry that honour Roman gods and emperors, and how abstaining from them led to widespread persecution of Christians including inability to trade, imprisonment and martyrdom.
In contrast to the literal and jigsaw approaches to prophecy of writers like Hal Lindsay, the book explains the basis of a more metaphoric and artistic approach to interpretation. Revelation is shown as a timely warning and encouragement to persevere in faith and be confident God is in control and that the Roman persecution would not continue forever.
The journey of the scroll, in alternating fashion, leaps forward two millennia to when it is discovered first by a Russian spy in the nineteenth century and then by his descendants. They seek to understand its Biblical context and its contemporary relevance in St Petersburg. The journey of the scroll’s discoverers helps them, and the reader, understand more about archaeology, manuscript preservation, textual criticism, and hermeneutics (approaches to understanding Scripture).
I appreciated the entertaining travel narrative in The Ephesus Scroll and loved reading the journey from Patmos to Ephesus, and from early church to contemporary Russia. For anyone interested in learning about how to read and understand the Bible especially some of its ‘weirder’ apocalyptic bits, this puts the issues into an entertaining narrative form.
Ben Chenoweth is a Biblical scholar who has served with Wycliffe Bible Translators for a decade in Russia and now works at Wycliffe in Kangaroo Ground, Melbourne. He worships at Diamond Valley Baptist Church – more information about the novel can be found here: http://ephesusscroll.blogspot.com.au/.
To buy this book, follow this link,The Ephesus Scroll
