This fictionalized account of the lives of Mary, Jesus, Joseph, and the Baptist is such a strong thread is the main thrust of Merrill’s book. This fictional account is so different from traditional accounts of these people’s lives that I have reservations of how accurate Merrill’s history of the Zealots is. I know from my own research that Josephus, an eyewitness, paints a very critical picture of the Zealots. During the war of A.D. 66-70 (not covered in Merrill’s book), Josephus relates that the Zealots fought a three-party civil war in Jerusalem while Vespasian was conquering all the towns surrounding Jerusalem. So vicious was the civil strife that the warring parties destroyed all the stored food in Jerusalem. By time Titus was ready to lay siege to Jerusalem, the people were starving and doomed to defeat.

After the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, the remaining Zealots at Masada committed mass suicide. From beginning to end, the Zealots look to me like an unruly group. Judea survived the conquest by Titus in A.D. 70. Sixty-one years later, their descendants rebelled again; this time led by Bar Kochba, a man with extraordinary charisma. He organized all the people from Judea, Galilee, and Perea into a unified force with a 400,000-man army. They defeated three Roman armies and liberated all of Palestine. Bar Kochba set up the First Jewish Commonwealth. The present Israelis government, incidentally, is the Second Jewish Commonwealth.

The statement I most disagree with in Merrill’s book is “The Redeemer will be more than a king. . . The Messiah will be a mighty warrior!” God forbid that we all have to spend eternity ruled by a warrior king with all the military might and police required by a warrior. My idea of heaven is that everybody obeys God voluntarily and completely because they all respect God and love God. There is no need for a warrior, for armies, police, jails, etc. There is no conflict in heaven, no difference of opinion about the real world because everyone knows the truth.

I’m harsh on this book because it disappointed me very much.