The Secret Scroll (Hardcover)

by Ronald Cutler (Author)
Key Phrases: chosen twelve, serpent mask, josh stared, Father Andre, Old City, Reverend Barnaby (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Josh Cohan, a work-obsessed archaeology professor, has a recurring dream about a great secret. He follows his instincts to the Judean desert, where he makes a fantastic discovery an ancient scroll which seems to have been written by Jesus Christ. The Israeli Antiquities Authority has a claim on the scroll, but another, more sinister organization wants the scroll as well. The Guardians, members of an ancient extremist religious sect, are willing to kill to get what they want.

Josh joins the government-sponsored team of translators who believe the scroll might be genuine, and falls in love with Danielle, the fiery daughter of one of the translators. When a friend turns up dead and Danielle goes missing, Josh realizes that the scroll might be more powerful and controversial than he had ever imagined. Will Josh be able to prevent something terrible from happening to the woman he loves without giving up the most important discovery mankind has ever made?

From the Publisher
Reviews

From ILoveAMysteryNewsletter.com -

First time author Ronald Cutler poses a significant and startling question to the readers in his intriguing thriller THE SECRET SCROLL. What if one of the major religions, and in fact certain political arenas, got it wrong as to the teachings of one of the most important historical religious leaders besides G-d, Moses and Mohammad? Yes, Jesus Christ.

Right from the outset of THE SECRET SCROLL the protagonist, Josh Cohan, an archeologist on vacation in Israel to recharge his body and soul, discovers, with what might be called spiritual guidance, one of the most significant religious artifacts since the Dead Sea Scrolls if proven to be real and not a fake. I don't want to give away what the discovered object is in order for you, the reader, to enjoy the discovery and the meaning, other than it is a scroll as the title of the book indicates.

Cohan in good conscience negotiates the surrendering of the artifact to the Israeli Department of Antiquities, and begins to help the governmental agency determine the authenticity of the object. But there are those in Israel who do not want the scroll to see the light of day and prove that certain biblical teachings may be wrong after all these millennia. Hence, the thriller of THE SECRET SCROLL. Cohan involuntarily finds himself helping to try and protect the artifact from being stolen. Cohan must also discover who is behind the conspiracy in order to stop the continuing murders of certain members of the team who are examining the artifact, and save the woman of his dreams from her captors.

Cutler is quite accurate with the conflicts, politically and religiously, in Israel , while providing the reader with a wonderful history lesson and a sightseeing tour of various locations throughout the country. Accepting certain leaps of faith, no pun intended, and certain reservations that I had, the author keeps the pace of the story moving at lightening speed to the final and realistic conclusion. A commendable debut effort by Ronald Cutler, and I look forward to his next adventure.

From Mysteriousreviews.com -

Ronald Cutler's debut novel, The Secret Scroll, is an imaginative tale that reaches to the center of Jerusalem where the great religions of the world converge in a single city.

Josh Cohan, a disillusioned Professor of Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, takes a much-needed sabbatical from the politics of the university museum hierarchy where he is employed and travels to Israel where he has been many times before. While he is driving through the hills of Masada where there is so much history, he feels he is meant to go to find a hidden cave. When he finds the cave, he unearths an ancient cylinder containing a scroll that he could tell has been buried for many years. Although it is a requirement of the law to present any archaeological find to the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA), Josh decides to take it to his hotel for his own expert examination. After all, it had been buried for at least 2000 years; a few more days wouldn't hurt. With surgical gloved hands he removes the scroll and sees that the words are written in Aramaic, a language he had studied at the university. He translates a few sentences and it becomes aware that these words were written by the man known today as Jesus Christ.

Josh turns over the scroll to the IAA which consists of seven men of different faiths. It is their responsibility to investigate the find, and when finished attest to its authenticity or declare it a fraud. Because of the nature of the scroll, the men decide it would be best to keep the discovery a secret. Even if it was a fraud, much unwelcome chaos could be brought to bear. If it proved to be true, it would change the beliefs of many churches and synagogues around the world. Everyone agreed, including Josh. There was one among them, however, who though he agreed did not keep the secret. This man was a member of a secret, very prejudiced religious cult dating back at least 200 years. The cult hated Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Protestants, and any other sect that did not believe as they taught. They had already killed, and now they were willing to kill again to get their hands on the scroll and destroy it. As Josh tries to discover the man in the IAA who had betrayed them, their leader (the "Master") kidnaps the woman Josh loves, whose safe return is guaranteed in exchange for the scroll.

Cutler cleverly weaves history, scholarly writings, and a fictional story with (admittedly) a fair amount of speculation into a very suspenseful novel that races toward a thrilling conclusion. The "damsel in distress" aspect is a bit overdone, but otherwise the plot is well reasoned with believable characters.

The Secret Scroll is not only very well written and inventive, it is a thought-provoking novel that is both enthralling and entertaining.

From friendsofmystery.org -

Its author calls his first novel "a mixture of fact, fiction, and historical speculation." It is all these and more - a riveting excursion through thousands of years of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim history.

The book is The Secret Scroll, by Ronald Cutler (Beaufort Books, 2008, $24.95), a book that will certainly attract much attention, partly for its sheer readability, partly for its examination of the concept of religious faith.

The Secret Scroll is set in and around Jerusalem at the present time. Its central character is an American archaeologist taking a long sabbatical to explore some of the caves around the Dead Sea , hoping to make another miraculous discovery like the Dead Sea Scrolls. He is Josh Cohan, something of a loner who dreams of rewriting history.

His chance comes when, working alone, he finds in a hidden cave a jar containing a scroll with a mysterious text written in Aramaic, the long-forgotten language of the region. The scroll is signed by Yehoshua ben Yosef - the man known in history as Jesus Christ.

If it is authentic, it will be the single most important find in Christian history. Believing the world would welcome such a discovery, Josh seeks the help of the Israel Antiquities Authority. They soon attest to its authenticity - and bring about a storm of controversy.

What Josh expected to be a welcome discovery turns out to be just the opposite in many quarters. Many religious groups do not want their long-standing tenets upset. One such group is The Guardians, an extremist religious sect that will resort to any brutality to suppress opposition to their views. They vow to destroy Josh. As a student of history, we are told, Josh "knew more examples of intentional human atrocities then he cared to remember." Still, he is shaken by the ferocity directed against him, and he takes action to defend himself.

Cutler's novel proceeds at a rapid pace, and involves kidnappings, assassinations, and murders. Josh remains an affable, level-headed hero through all these events as he tries to bring reason to these competing religions. He takes as his code a line he finds in the secret scroll: "Faith is not an excuse to kill or do harm to your fellow man or woman."

The Secret Scroll is highly recommended. A good read!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Beaufort Books, Inc. (February 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0825305152
• ISBN-13: 978-0825305153
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (112 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #429,408 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The "Huh?" Factor, April 8, 2008

By	Christian Book Reviews "www.christianbookrevi... (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

(What's this?)

Since the overwheming response to Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, the real mystery is why there has not been more authors duplicating Brown's commercial success with their own "Jesus du jour" efforts. It seems we should by now be inundated with best sellers that create their own Brand X Christ by inventing a "history" to suit their needs, declaring it as fact in the preface, setting it in a halfway decent page turner, and then watching the cash roll into the coffers. Thankfully, the lucrative payoff for Brown has not been that easy to duplicate.

Yet since the potential payoff is so high, the unique success of Brown's venture does still draw authors to try their hand at catching lightning in a bottle. A new contender is Ronald Cutler's The Secret Scroll - a novel with all the usual ingredients: secret societies, architectural referneces, cloak-and-dagger priests, any Jesus but the orthodox one, corrupted scriptures, a coming restoration of the truth, and a few plot twists thrown in to try to keep it interesting.

Unfortunately, Cutler has little of the talent for keeping the reader's attention that Brown possesses and the story contains so many inconsistencies and asbsurdities that the reader is often forced to stop and stare blankfaced in wonderment. This "huh?" factor turns up again and again as ad hoc plot developments are introduced for no other reason than because the author could not find a creative bridge to the desired end - a result that makes the book's twists and turns little more than pulling rabbits out of hats.

Yet it is not only at the literary level that this book fails. While he makes none of the obvious historical gaffes that made Brown's book so frustrating, the Jesus who emerges from The Secret Scroll could hardly have drawn followers in such troubled circumstances as faced first century Judea - much less have them continue their allegiance after his execution. Cutler's Jesus is one custom made for a shallow consumer culture - a post-modern messiah for Oprah viewers who makes no demands but on his followers apart from an occasional hug. Such a bland vanilla Jesus would hardly have troubled religious leaders much less given the world's then superpower reason to execute him.

A serious problem Cutler faces is that he really is trying to "be fair" to those with whom he disagrees without actually understanding what they really believe. It is admirable that he does not wish to repeat Brown's caricatures of orthodox belief but he simply doesn't grasp it well enough to make his efforts believable. For example, when an orthodox Catholic priest is confronted by "The Master" - the leader of the secretive Guardians - he rebuts the latter's anti-Semetic views by stating that Jesus' mother and father were Jewish. Apparently, Mr. Cutler has not grasped the "Son of God" ideal well enough to fully comprehend that orthodox Christians do not consider Joseph to be the father of Jesus. In another noticable error, an orthodox Protestant clergyman defiantly states to the Master that God will judge him by his deeds - a point that would seemingly make sola fide and the Reformation a moot point.

Overall, The Secret Scroll had some potential as an idea but quickly lost its flavor in execution. A combination of poor writing and editing, deficient understanding of the subject matter underlying the topic, and an apologia for the worst form of cafeteria religion makes this book a mess best left unread despite its initial potential.

28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A bit of this, a little of that and a dash of something else, February 27, 2008

By	Jeanne Tassotto (Trapped in the Midwest) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

THE SECRET SCROLL seems to have taken "inspiration" (or maybe just taken) from THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, the ever popular DAVINCI CODE & ANGELS AND DEMONS, thrown in a dash of MISTS OF AVALON mysticism and a pinch or two of generic action/thrillers. The basic premise is that our hero, Josh Cohan, a talented, young archaeologist, has a gone to Israel to lick his wounds after being on the losing side of an intradepartmental fight. He is also drawn by visions that he has heard his 'whole life'. When he follows one of these visions he happens to find a secret scroll, one that turns out to be written by none other than Jesus himself (I don't usually give out spoilers but honestly most readers will have seen that one coming within the first couple of pages). From there on things start to get more complicated, messy (with dead bodies) and more fantastic. Our hero has mystical powers, a photographic memory, astounding code breaking abilities and, of course is fluent in whatever ancient languages happen to be needed.

Like the plot, the characters are also far fetched and unbelievable. None of the characters ever really come to life, they enter the scene, do their business and move on or die or something. It seems that even the author has some trouble keeping them all straight. For example, Josh's (adoptive) parents died in a plane crash, Josh got the news of their deaths after he came back from jogging but later it is stated that they died when he was four - I don't know of many four year olds who jog much less check their phone messages when they return. Also there are an amazing amount of adopted children in this book and of course the expected surprise reunions.

This could have been an entertaining read, on a par with other DAVINCI CODE inspired secret society thrillers with religious overtones but the author just left so many loose ends and relied too much on the fantastic. It is also just much too apparent that although the author claims to have read 75 books researching this one none of them were about archaeology. If the hero of the novel is supposed to be an expert in a specialized field then at least have some idea how that field operates.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars MORE ON THE MAN FROM GALILEE, March 10, 2008

By	Bookworm (St. George Utah) - See all my reviews

(What's this?)

It seems that each and every book that makes even a passing reference to Jesus Christ, secret codes, the Catholic Church, secret societies, cults, lost/hidden/or stolen artifacts, etc. is immediately compared to The DaVinci Code. Granted both the book and its author, Dan Brown, have enjoyed phenomenal success, but truth be told, Mr. Brown is no Shakespeare (he's not even a poor mans Richard Russo) and the DaVinci Code isn't the greatest story ever told. That said; let me get on to reviewing the positive and negative factors of THE SECRET SCROLL by Ron Cutler.

On the plus side, this book is a work of fiction and interesting historical speculation. It does not pretend to anything more. It is clear that Mr. Cutler has put a lot of time into researching and developing his theories for this venture. In addition, some of the organizations such as the IAA as well as several sites depicted as our protagonist (Josh Cohen) travels the streets of Jerusalem do exist and lend a certain touch of reality to the story. Those bits of reality are all the reader gets.

Josh, his girlfriend Danielle, and the evil "Master" are another matter. They could be characters straight out of a graphic novel. Cutler would have you believe that Danielle is the combined physical incarnation of Mary Leakey, Lara Croft, Salome and Elizabeth Taylor in her prime. She's a smart, tough, independent woman who is willing to use her sexuality to achieve the outcome she desires and who, it seems, is so adept at seduction that she is irresistible to any man unfortunate enough to cross her path .

Josh, man of visions, discoverer of the scroll, and healer of the injured, seems to spend a third of his time bedding Danielle, another third creating situations that prove deadly to those around him, and the final third in some sort of fugue state.

As for the "Master", he too is an amalgamation of characters we've met before. Take one part Commodus (from the movie Gladiator), one part SHE (who must be obeyed....from the book of the same name by H. Rider Haggard), and one part Alice in Wonderland's Queen of Hearts (off with her head!) and there you have the "Master". He and his nefarious band of twelve "Guardians" provide most of the action and bloodletting in the book.

Mr. Cutler gets 3 stars for enthusiasm and research on his first attempt into the novelists world, but only one star for composition. Perhaps he should try for the YA audience.