Customer Reviews

Bible of Clay: An Epic Quest for the Ultimate Relic

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

The basic concept behind this novel is pretty interesting: The granddaughter of a famous archaeologist is frantically searching for the first copy of the Book of Genesis, which was written on clay cuneiform tablets by a young scribe almost 4,000 years ago. The author? Abraham himself supposedly dictated the story before leaving Ur.

Unfortunately, these mysterious tablets lay hidden underground in Iraq -- just days before the outbreak of the Iraq War in March 2003. Mix in some old Nazis, concentration camp survivors, government agents and you have one heck of a race underway.

Sadly, the thin writing and poor narrative structure of this novel simply can't sustain the intriguing plot line. Navarro's sense of pacing is very choppy and most of the characters are poorly developed, if at all. In fact, I'd say this would be a much better novel with about half the number of players.

After a while, I wondered: "Could this be the translator's fault?" Driven by curiosity, I accessed a long excerpt in the original Spanish, only to conclude that we can't blame the translator this time around. The original is just as stiff as the English version.

¡Qué lástima! Better luck next time.

Have you been DaVinci Code'd to death? If not, and without any clear cut political enemies to make great fiction, few of us can be, then The Bible of Clay is a great read. Combining previously unknown histocial documents (herr a "bible" transcribed by Abraham onto clay tablets, with the fall of Iraq, Julia Navarro continues the fine work of Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud.

There is no sophomore slump here. Navarro works magic with a great plot, faced pace action and old Nazi's to boot. Yet, despite these desprite elements the story works well. A little poitical thriller also adds to the mix to keep the action flowing. With flashbacks to biblical times as well as to World War ll, the Bible of Clay involves the quest to recovery ancient tablets containing the biblical tales. Seeking these tablets are a Nazi and his granddaughter, Saddam's forces and the Nazi's business partners (and, of course, fellow Nazi's). Opposing them are Holocaust survivors (not presented in the best light they typically recceive) and several hired murderers.

Why 4 stars, not 5? Sometimes you can suspend reality a bit too often to make plot work. I felt that Navarro resorted to plot tricks at times when they were not needed and lost a bit of the flow while trying to conclude one too many plot lines.

Nevertheless, The Bible of Clay will keep you interested, will bring you back to your daily reading schedule and does open great promise for this year's vacation reading prospects.

I had high hopes for this book. It was very promising in the beginning, but I think, ultimately, the lack of compelling characters caused my interest to wane. The story was a bit too convoluted and long, there was no character I cared about or liked, and the underwhelming denouement left me with an overall reaction of "So what?" Maybe a more stringent editor would have helped the plot along, although how to make me care about these characters, I do not know...

Julia Navarro presents an interesting concept but fails to deliver a satisfying story. The book seemed long and fragmented. I gave it 3 stars based mainly on the character development. Navarro did an excellent job portraying the inner turmoil/conflict of some of the characters. The dialog was believable and revealed real thoughts and emotions. Through Alfred Tannenberg she also shed some light on the awful WW2 concentration camps. Only Shamas' account seemed slow and unrelated regarding the overall plot. The ending was predictable and sooo anticlimatic! A book needs more action and twists to earn a higher rating IMO. Overall, the book was only OK.

President Bush has put a clock on Iraq so that if Hussein fails to cooperate by handing over his weapons of mass destruction a regime change will follow. Meanwhile Iraqi archeologist Clara Tannenberg makes a startling announcement at a Mesopotamia cultural panel. She talks about the finding of two cuneiform text clay tablets scribed by an apprentice that references a pair of tablets that tell the Abraham's version of creation etched a thousand years before the papyrus version that serves as the basis of the Old Testament.

As the invasion nears, several adversarial groups search for the biblical First Patriarch's story because each understands what this mean in terms of present day religion and power. Meanwhile Clara's husband Ahmed Husseini, head of the Bureau of Archeological Excavation in Iraq, is irate with her for telling too much and for her insane reverence of her renowned grandfather, who he believes is a nasty sort. However, as Clara realizes her call for help has backfired with so many interested in absconding with the first BIBLE OF CLAY for either personal profit on the black market or to conceal the truth, she finds herself reassessing her family especially her idol, her grandfather who has fallen off the pedestal.

Although there are too many players at the beginning that clutter the story line, once Julia emerges as the lead, THE BIBLE OF CLAY becomes an exhilarating religious artifact race thriller. The premise is engaging as the biblical past impacts the present; yet fascinatingly the entire tale occurs around the time of the Bush invasion. This tale starts off slow and is hampered by a cast out of a De Mille movie, but once it gets going, patient fans will appreciate the changing perspectives and opinions on finding Abraham's original oldest testament.

Harriet Klausner

Given that I love archeology and novels written about places uncovered by hard work, this book was right up my alley. While I did not like many of the characters introduced, I somehow got the feeling that that was the entire point of the novel.

Revenge can be a very messy thing, and Navarro holds nothing back in showing what the hatred of many decades can bring about when plans that have lain dormant from the end of the Second World War come to fruition with the exposure of an old enemy. The only person worth rooting for, an innocent priest, in the end becomes jaded by the machinations of his family and their friends as they try to take out the Tannenburgs, no matter the cost. The Bible of Clay seems almost a secondary player in this narrative, with the focus not so much on the quest of it, but of wielding the power of decades and trying to prove that in the end the ends do justify the means. These are powerfully human characters that I couldn't bring myself to like, but I could understand.

The premise of this book is an archaeological dig for a set of cuneiform tablets that contain Abraham's description of the origin of the world; the tablets were recorded in ancient Mesopotamia and "kept safe" in the lower level of an ancient temple. The book weaves scenes between the present (in Eurpoe, Iraq, and the US), late World War II Nazi Germany, and ancient Mesopotamia, and tries to bring it all together in relation to the dig.

The dig begins in Iraq just prior to the Second Gulf War, and the dig itself is the crux of the book. There are multiple groups and individuals who insert themselves into the archaeological team for various reasons. One group wants revenge for Nazi war crimes perpetrated by the dig's sponsor; another group wants to steal the tablets; a third group (of Iraqis who work for Saddam) wants to protect the dig sponsor and his family; yet another group wants to loot Iraq's museums once the war starts; and there is a lone priest from Rome who wants to protect the daughter of the dig's sponsor.

Sound a bit confusing? It is. The book simply tries to do too much and bogs down from the inclusion of too many (at least 16) main characters. It was very hard to keep track of who was who and what their goals were as I encountered them throughout the book. The characters are developed to some degree, but part of the problem was that there are too many to develop. One of the reasons the book bogs down is that, as things occur, the reactions of most (if not all) of main characters are described in detail. After one or two characters reacted, I was thinking "okay, I get it, now lets move on," but was left to endure the rest of the characters' reactions.

The Bible of Clay was almost like a term paper that "had to be" about 700 pages long, so it was filled with 400 pages of fluff - and not even interesting fluff - just fluff. In addition, the action seemed trite at times and impossible at others. I'm willing to suspend disbelief, but things just happen in this book without any plausible reason for how they happen.

If this book were half its 700-page length, it could have been a real page turner. Ah, what could have been ... I would recommend going elsewhere for a good book with an archaeological premise.

I liked the idea of this book when I read up on it and I was not disappointed. The only reason that it didn't get 5 stars was because I thought that there were so many characters put into it that sometimes I got a little confused, but all in all a very good read. I didnt' get bored with it at all. Can't wait to read her new book.

Life is too short to waste on bad books and part-time friends. I got to page 200 of Bible of Clay, (less than halfway, actually) and nothing had happened yet. I was turned off by the interchangeable groups of good guy/bad guy teams,the generic Nazi horror stories (not that I disbelieve the reality of the deathcamps, but they have been overdone in novels), and the all-powerful evil dude whom everyone fears even though he is a weak and dying old man. This book needed a little less cliche, and a lot more action. The story of Shamas really held promise, until the same conversations were repeated, and the same lack of action stalled that plot. It was due at the library, so I did not renew it - no regrets!

I have read this book and her previous book, Enjoyed them both. I can't wait to see her next book. Julia can weave a tale that keeps you in suspense, I had a hard time putting it down. Her previous book Brotherhood of the shroud I had to read three times.