An ancient scroll is discovered in Moscow. It contains the radical thoughts and beliefs of Jesus written in his own hand. When such a script will cause desperation and panic within the Vatican, what should be done with such a discovery?
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The real intrigue here is how the sometimes masterful Easterman ( The Name of the Beast ) could set up such a diabolically imagined plot only to spoil the suspense in the concluding chapters. Unworldly Dr. Jack Gould, a half-Irish Catholic, half-Jewish scholar of Aramaic, becomes the unwitting pawn in a murderous struggle to possess a scroll written by Jesus--a startling document which threatens to rock the foundation of the Catholic church. Stefan Rosewicz, a ruthless antiquities collector, is the power behind Crux Orientalis, a fanatic right-wing league of the Church which wants the papyrus in order to exercise control over the Vatican. The other players are: Irina Kossenkova, an ex-Soviet agent; Parker, a key figure within a shadowy unit of the British SIS trying to cover up a bungled WW II spy operation; Father de Galais, leader of the "good guy" priests; and Maria, Rosewicz's daughter and the object of Jack's affection, who is being manipulated by the kidnappers of her three-year-old son Paul. Rife with betrayal, the plot plays out in a series of farfetched last-second rescues as hapless Jack, like a leaf in a windstorm, is taken captive by one malevolent gang after another until, instead of building suspense, it all becomes rather comic and tiresome.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
An explosive Qumran papyrus spirited out of the Thousand Year Reich by its Soviet occupiers surfaces 50 years later as the brass ring in a grandly scaled game of intrigue--and the bane of unassuming Irish linguist Jack Gould's existence. What makes the papyrus--a letter from an Essene leader opposing rapprochement with Rome in the name of Judaic fundamentalism--deadly is its authorship by Jesus, revealed as an orthodox Mosaic zealot rather than as the Messiah. When Jack, responding to an urgent summons from his old friend Iosif Sharanskii in Moscow, agrees to help Iosif smuggle the document out of the country, he finds himself variously pursued by (1) KGB stalwarts, determined to keep their hold on this treasure; (2) the Crux Orientalis, a Catholic group who plan to impeach the document, attributing it to a Zionist conspiracy in order to strengthen their hopes of a new Holy Roman Empire throughout Europe; (3) a covey of right-wing prelates bent on destroying the document in order to preserve the True Church; and (4) an outlaw faction of Catholic priests who want to publish the document to the world. ``Rescued'' repeatedly by allies who turn out to be just as treacherous as the people they're rescuing him from (to the cost of much confusion for both Jack and the reader), Jack eventually finds himself in a Crux Orientalis cross-fire raging around Maria Rosewicz, the woman he loves: on one side, her husband Karl von Freudiger, a Ruhr industrialist who thinks 1945 was just a temporary setback; on the other, her father Stefan, a Stasi survivor planning to groom his grandson for world domination under a new world order. (But don't count the papists out either.) Easterman (Name of the Beast, 1992, etc.) provides an irresistible m‚lange: an attractive (if not overly bright) hero and heroine, international conspiracies, religious paranoia, a corps of double agents whose loyalties can turn on a dime, and an enormous supporting cast, most of whom end up getting executed by each other. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't plan on sleeping until you finish this book,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Judas Testament (Paperback)
Daniel Easterman's expertise on Religion and Middle Eastern
affairs is very apparent in this intense book. What happens
when the Roman Catholic church discovers the existence of a
letter purported to have been written by Jesus Christ? This
is the crux of this well researched and totally believable
book. The battle between good and evil is portrayed well here
while not being tedious or slow moving. The most intriguing
aspect of The Judas Testament is that with the exception of
most obvious character, Dr. Jack Gould, the motives of the
other's are often murky and the alliances are not quite
apparent until almost three-quarters of the story. Nazis,
Roman Catholic priests, British Intelligence and the former
KGB are all thrown together in this quietly frightning book.
The bottomline? The Catholic Church will not allow the world
to see a different Jesus than the one who exists in the Bible
and they will do anything, ally themselves with anyone to
ensure that.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Its a thriller!,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Judas Testament (Paperback)
Easterman's book brings a new angle on an old subject, the lost books of the bible. The interesting twist is a secret organization called Crux Orientalis that is tied in to the remnants of the Third Reich with a goal to resurrect the Holy Roman Empire. The other interesting thing to note in the story is the Church's role in covering up and or destroying critical scrolls of scripture. It's not as far-fetched as you think. The whole story makes you wonder what the Church is capable of for the sake of maintaining itself. Easterman's book is a good read as are most of his novels
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent but underrated storyteller,
By
This review is from: Judas Testament (Mass Market Paperback)
A very fine adventure thriller of the well-made type, everything sewn up, the ending reflecting back to the beginning. Kind of old-fashioned, I guess, which is what I like, as a fan of John Buchan and Duncan Kyle, among others. Easterman, who also uses the name Jonathan Aycliffe for eight supernatural novels, is a master of an extraordinary range of esoteric detail in this book alone. I have only read three other Easterman titles (and this was heard, with a splendid narration by Graham Padden).
If The Judas Testament had been published 7-8 years later, and given a big publicity push, he might have given Dan Brown a run for his money. It's a shame that although Aycliffe or Denis McEoin (seems to be some confusion about his real name) keeps turning out novels that probably are equally as good, he apparently is given next to no promotion by his publisher(s). I haven't checked to see how many have been published in the USA, but I doubt many. He must have scared his publisher on this book. I do not believe the phrase "Judas Testament" is found in the novel. It's all about the Jesus Testament, of course. I suppose the publisher felt it just could not use such a title for the book so Judas, who has absolutely nothing to do with it, is brought in from far left field.
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