Two weeks ago I discovered that a colleague had a copy of N.T. Wright’s Jesus And The Victory Of God.  I eagerly asked if I might borrow it. Perhaps knowing of my book-thieving reputation, he quoted Psalm 37:21, “The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous showeth mercy, and giveth.”

I brought my conquest home and set it next to a copy of Francine Rivers’ A Voice In The Wind, a fictional account of the Jewish slave girl Hadassah in a Roman household.  The two books are roughly identical in size with more than 500 pages of bodice-bursting purple prose in the one and more than 700 pages of turgid Biblical studies in the other. Throughout the weekend I alternated between reading the two books but quickly found that Wright’s discussion of the historical Jesus kept putting me to sleep while Rivers’ breathless tale of savage gladiators and Roman epicureans was keeping me up late at night.

Having finished the first ”Christian romance” I have now embarked on the second book in the series, An Echo In The Darkness. I’m scarcely 70 pages into Wright’s description of various “quests” for the historical Jesus. Perhaps had he included more smooching and gladiators I might have made better progress on his book.