The Betrayal is distinctive in that it utilizes footnotes to add some historical flourish. Many of the footnotes encourage readers to seek out other sources, such as the Anchor Bible Dictionary, and are reasonably useful.
In terms of storytelling, the fiction just isn’t very compelling. Characters are made into broad send-ups, with Emperor Constantine coming across more like Emperor Palpatine and our “heroes” more like Luke Skywalker and his friends than any early Church monks.
While the Gears’ exhibition of early Church evil makes for showy fiction, the reality behind the story is simply more gripping. But The Betrayal’s determination for capturing black-and-white characterizations doesn’t deliver the goods. We’re left with palpable pontificating, speech-making, and flavourless attempts at adventure.
The insistence on shocking their readers with “controversial” claims about Christ seeps into the writing greatly. Character exchanges take noticeable, almost lame paths to reveal “truth” and the results are often childish.
The best portions of the book are located towards the back, as the interview with the authors and the extensive notes make for appealing reading. The discussion of Jesus as an illegitimate child and the attempts to cover up any references to it is systematic and dazzling. And the theory behind the political slant of the Gospel of Mark gets some much-needed attention.
But overall, The Betrayal is a disappointment.
The feeble fiction is often featureless and goofy. The obvious ideal to present professed controversial information is overdramatic, as though the Gears are playing the roles of magicians revealing the end of a really good trick with glittery showmanship and a lot of smoke and mirrors. A more calculated, grounded tack would have marked a better approach. And a more authentic set of characters wouldn’t have hurt things either.
As such, The Betrayal reads more like another cash-grab in a long line of analogous attempts to make money off of information anyone with a good set of theology books already knows.
Article comments
1 - cj
although i have read some of the Gear books on "the people...", i find this attempt to convince me that there is "hidden evidence" of Jesus, the ramblings of the monks and others lost me in telling the story so i bogged down by the middle of the book..